Day 11: Eco Centro Denaus and Baldi Hot Springs

We both woke up late (which was nice) and walked around town for a bit since we were sore from the hike up Cerro Chato.  We had a late breakfast in town, and did some last minute shopping for friends and family, I was limited on the shopping since I was quickly running out of room in the pack since we bought that hammock.  

We went to Eco Centro Denaus, which was recommended by Lonely Planet, it was close to town, fairly cheap, and didn’t involve hiking!  I wish we would have done this on the first day at La Fortuna, this place was great!  It’s a little bit outside of town, and on a dirt road but a super cheap cab ride which was a plus.  I don’t know how to describe it other than it was like a miniature ecocenter.  We paid, I wanna say around 20-30 bucks for a guided tour and I'm glad we did because we definitely wouldn’t have spotted that much stuff without one. 

We saw so much wildlife, iguanas, frogs, birds, sloths, butterflies, monkeys, everything!  The tour lasted for about an hour, and the tour guide was super knowledgeable.  We ended up spotting the red eyed tree frog on the underneath of a leaf, which I was soooo excited to see up close since the last time I saw one was in the car, and we couldn’t get him to sit still long enough to take a decent picture.  I was stoked! 

We left and on the way back into town ended up booking a hotsprings trip to Baldi with dinner included.  We went back to the room, Jeremy ate some more (shocker) while I had a cappuccino   We figured out a way to pack the hammock in the backpack (I don’t know how we fit it), and left for the taxi up to the hot springs.

The place was a nice way to end a vacation.  The buffet was okay, not really something to write home about, but for a couple extra bucks added on the price it was worth it.  The only thing that irritated me about Baldi is that we had to pay for lockers… Well I thought I would outsmart them and bring my own lock and towel (they charge for towels too).  Evidently we still had to pay for a locker!  I was pissed.  We heard some horror stories of employees going through peoples stuff and taking money, and when you go to return your towel, they would still charge you for it.  The locker and towel rental would have been just as much as the hot springs.  If you go bring your own stuff!!

 The hot springs itself we were nice, and relaxing.  There were many different types of pools, with a range of temperatures…one being 150 degrees!  Needless to say, no one was in those ones.  The place was pretty empty so it was nice to be somewhat secluded.  The natural saunas were at the top in the 150 degree pools in some rock formations.  We didn’t stay there long since it was virtually impossible to breath.  Glad we decided to finish off our trip with this!