 Peace Lodge |
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We had breakfast at Arenal Paraiso yesterday before heading out on the two-hour journey to the Peace Lodge. Here are my thoughts on Arenal Paraiso. The cabin was comfortable but small and filled with ants and the pillows were assish and housekeeping never showed up once. But the hot pools were certainly relaxing and memorable and I really basically loved them. Between those, the great horseback ride, and the awesome views we got of the (albeit nonerupting) volcano, Arenal was definitely worth the trip. Now as we sit here getting ready to take off for Houston, I have to somehow figure out how to describe the Peace Lodge. I guess I'll just start from the beginning. The ride there from Arenal was pretty uneventful. Beautiful scenery and countryside and hills as usual. We were thrilled to be on a paved road. We got there way before the check-in time of 3:00 and went to visit the hummingbird and butterfly gardens. I overcame my phobia of hummingbirds that was born at Selvatura and really enjoyed watching them zoom around and hover over the feeders. There was one bright purple one that was clearly the looker of the group. 
The butterfly sanctuary basically blew me away. It was just set up so well and there were so many incredible butterflies flying about. The blue morpho -- man. Just amazing. 
We also visited the serpentarium, the frog habitat (where we held a crazy-looking but cool frog), a gazebo filled with orchids, and a typical Costa Rican home of yesteryear, where we sampled some cheese and flan and admired their benefactor, a cow named Carmela. Okay, let me back up. All of this was before we even checked into our room, and we were already amazed by the place. They gave us a welcome drink when we walked in. The staff members were beyond polite and friendly, and the grounds were just like something out of a dream. Everywhere we stepped or turned, there was some gorgeous lily or iris or some explosion of color or greenery that just kind of set my mouth agape. It's hard to describe. And then we got shown to our room.  Words fail me.  A fireplace. A balcony with a table and chairs, a hammock, an amazing view of the mountains and Paos Volcano, and oh yeah, a jacuzzi on the balcony. Moving back inside, a beautiful bed. CD mixes and a surround-sound speaker system with speakers even in the bathroom. Which leads me to the bathroom. Holy Mother of God. I sincerely almost passed out. Stained glass windows. Ceramic, beautifully painted sinks. Towels galore and thick soft white bathrobes. A waterfall shower. Plants and trees growing all over the place. And another jacuzzi backed by another waterfall. An aromatherapy machine with a selection of scented oils. Yummy oatmeal soap and almond shampoo and lotion. It was just almost too much to process. 
After we drooled and stared for a few minutes, we headed down to the La Paz Waterfall Gardens, a series of five magnificent waterfalls with a trail and bridges connecting them. We got kind of wet, but they were awesome. 
I'm not really sure the order of all of this because it's just a blur of luxury and orgasmia. We went back to our room and hopped in the balcony jacuzzi. We went down to the bar at the trout lake and ogled some more little waterfalls and enjoyed a complimentary rum punch and then bought another round. Then I think there was some waterfall showering and some dinner. I had a green salad, tortilla soup, and some delicious shrimp pasta, and he had a tomato/mozzarella salad, cream of corn soup, and some beef of sorts. I don't know. Beef confuses me. We got our desserts to go and headed back to the room of ecstasy, where Sylvia and Arturo soon arrived for our massages. Which we received in front of the fireplace. Yeah. Arturo spoke no English so that made communication a challenge as I am a worthless, non-Spanish speaking nincompoop. But it was okay. I believe that Arturo mistakenly thought his massage subject was someone more along the lines of Ivan Drago and less like, say, me. He massaged me with a brute force I lack the vocabulary to aptly describe. I moaned and grunted throughout but tried to trust that he knew what he was doing. After he dislocated and reset every joint in my body and pressed the living daylights out of my entire musculoskeletal system, we parted ways with Sylvia and Arturo and submerged ourselves immediately into the indoor jacuzzi, which we sat in beside the trees and the waterfall pouring down the wall behind us and the peaceful lighting. We decided it was surely now time to enjoy our desserts, so we fetched his peach pie and my chocolate ice cream with strawberries and enjoyed them in the most unimaginably decadent setting of all time, this jacuzzi from heaven. At one point in the evening we also climbed into the hammock on the balcony in our robes and beheld zillions of stars. That was pretty damn great. I'd read a lot about this place online before we went, so I knew that while a lot of people love it, there are those who say it's not the real Costa Rica and that it's just so fake and pristine that it's gross. And I can kind of see what they're saying ... it's definitely over the top in many respects and is almost too much of too much. It's like it could be completely tacky ... but somehow it completely isn't. It's not the "real" Costa Rica in that it's not down and dirty and "authentic" in the way that some of the places were that we went to in Costa Rica. But it's still one hell of a way to end a trip there. The view of the Paos Volcano is real. The hills and trees and flowers and waterfalls are real. The hummingbirds and snakes and frogs and butterflies and orchids are real. And I don't think there's anything wrong with a little pampering and decadence every once in a while. It is a beautiful place, and I'm thankful that we had that one amazing night there. I'll never forget it. 
About this time in ...
© Copyright 2005 elb |
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