Lake Monsters

We're getting to the point in the trip where being lazy is socially acceptable (not that I've ever been or cared about being socially acceptable but Whitney does), but instead of just hanging out at our hostel today, we boarded a shuttle to take a day trip to Hotel Paradiso.

Yeah. It seems weird to leave one hostel to go to another hostel-type place but I'm about to explain. Hotel Paradiso is a resort on the shore of Laguna De Apoyo, which according to my google search is  a "clean, blue and thermally vented 48-kilometer body of water contained inside the crater of the Apoyo Volcano." So a really, really, really big bath tub.

How many lakes are there inside volcano craters?! (No... really, does anyone know?). As all of that technical mumbo jumbo would suggest, it's a pretty sweet place to visit and Hotel Paradiso has it all! There is swimming and sun bathing obviously but they also had a restaurant and a spa and kayaks! We had hours to kill at this place and the thermally vented water world at our fingertips.

We started with some physical activity! Kayaking lasted roughly 15 minutes. Whitney complained about the lake having waves (she believes that wavy lakes go against nature and my explanation that where there is wind and water there will be waves has fallen on deaf ears). We also didn't have a destination for our kayaks because like Google I said, the lake is nearly 50 kilometers. So we paddled back in and got $10 pedicures. My toes were mangled ever since we went surfing so it was nice to get some fresh polish (even if that polish chipped before we got back on the shuttle home). I skimmed through a magazine in German (yup, they didn't have any magazines in Spanish or English, only German) while my toes were painted "silk rose." I don't know why they called the polish that because it is a tangy orange-red color that is extremely summery while most closely resembling the color of Kool-Aid but I guess "anthropomorphic beverage red" didn't work well in the focus groups. Whitney had her raptor claws painted white "because it makes you look tan." (Sidenote: Whitney has the ugliest toes in the world, hence why I suggested she has dinosaur feet. They're scary... they might be the modern day equivalent of Medusa and turn folks to stone. I should check on the pedicurist...)

We got lunch and fancy beverages because it's what hungry people in pretty places do. The beverages had star fruit for garnish which was very pretty but Whitney promptly spit out on the table when she tried to take a bite. Classy.

We then picked up some tubes and went to float in the lake. Whitney decided to dunk and came back melodramtically screaming that she'd seen a sea monster. Until I reminded her that we were in a lake at which point she recanted and had seen a lake monster. We swam out to the floating dock and jumped off of it to the chagrin of a few sunbathers.

SPEAKING OF SUNBATHERS! (Prepare yourself for another rant about tourist etiquette). When there are a limited number of chairs and you're planning on vacating yours for an extended period of time TAKE. YOUR STUFF. OFF OF IT. We had some time to sunbathe and would have loved to sit in chairs but we couldn't for the most part because people left their junk on them. There was a chair that was occupied by a pair of shoes, a towel, and keys for the entire day (and no, I'm not exaggerating). I don't expect you to give up your chair if you're taking a bathroom break or running into the lake to cool off but you do not get to call dibs for a whole day when I'd be more likely to see BigFoot than to see you in that stupid chair.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest... We really did have a lovely day. We were dropped off at our hostel close to 5 and went out for dinner. Whitney is now complaining about packing but I've already finished which gives me the free time to literally hang out (I'm currently sitting in a hammock) and write this post for all of you readers. We leave for San Juan del Sur midday tomorrow where we're planning on enjoying some more beach and pool time (because as I've said, it's socially acceptable to be lazy now!)