Hiking

I had a pretty fun day, but I’m wiped out tired tonight! My favorite author has a new book out, so I read for a while this morning after breakfast. This restaurant has really good gallo pinto and pancakes!

At 11am, I got a massage on the yoga deck near the thermal pools. The massage therapist did a great job! She used hot stones on my back, which I had not had done before, but I really like it. I’m pretty sore from walking up all the hills around here and my gym experience, so the massage helped.

The hotel raises its own tilapia. There are tilapia ponds in several places. Costa Rica actually raises a lot of tilapia. This was the best tilapia I’ve ever had. The restaurant breaded it really nicely.

After lunch, I went hiking on the trail around the hotel. It’s not long but it is steep! It’s very pretty. There is a small river behind the hotel so the trail goes along that, then up a steep hill. They have added some concrete barriers in the stream to make small pools that you can swim in. They advertise it as crystal clear water, and it probably is at certain times of the year. Right now, all the rain is washing mud into it, so it was a little murky. I swam in the pool after my hike/river swim, then went to the hot springs.

Last night, I woke up to something flashing in my room. I was only partially awake, so at first, I thought it was a flashing smoke alarm or sprinkler system that malfunctioned. Then I noticed it moving. It was a lightening bug that had gotten in. I don’t know where it went. There is a gecko in the bathroom. There were a few ants in there when I got here, but now I have a gecko but no ants.

Tonight there was a gecko on the TV in the restaurant. The light from the TV draws in bugs so the gecko sits on the screen and catches them. There are lots of them here.

Overall, good day, but I’m not going to last long tonight. I leave tomorrow at noon for TEC. I teach a class on Thursday, but I’m coming back to Heliconias on Thursday evening and staying until Sunday. Next week, I’ll mostly be at TEC. It’s been a weird trip, good but much different than the trip I planned for.