Green jacuzzis and fancy-pants spa treatments

Last Saturday afternoon, I hopped on a bus to Paipa with nothing but a dance belt and a tube of chapstick. Just kidding. But I did take my backpack and traveled to this small town located approxiately 3 1/2 hours north of Bogota. Along with three of my friends, we traveled in search of Paipa's reputable hot springs and relaxing atmosphere. Once we arrived to Paipa, we climbed into a taxi which would take us the final five kilometers to our hotel. However, moments after speeding off in the taxi we found ourselves stuck behind a slow-moving caravan of semi-trucks. Apparently they were celebrating the holiday of some virgin that is supposedly the patron saint of truck drivers. Who knew that there even was a patron saint of truck drivers?!

Well, when we finally arrived to Hotel Paipa which is situated on the banks of Lake Sochagota, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Maggie had booked us all in what appeared to be a five-star hotel. (She really knows how to pick the lodgings!) The remainder of the evening was spent enjoying dinner in the hotel restaurant and later admiring (from a distance) the greenish-colored Jacuzzis that looked more like churning cauldrons of vegetable beef stew. Let's just say that the large clumps of hair and numerous water-logged insects floating face down in the green water didn't enhance the "charm" of this otherwise luxurious hotel.

On Sunday, me and the gang trekked down to the hotel spa where we enjoyed an hour-long full-body massage that included us getting covered from head-to-toe in mud, lathered up with oil, and intermittent layovers in the sauna and hot showers. Yeah, I know that getting a fancy-pants massage at a spa isn't considered to be very "manly," but I still have to admit that it was quite relaxing.

In the end, perhaps the most memorable part of our little excursion to Paipa was the mud massage and the sight of that overly affectionate couple that just never seemed to leave the green Jacuzzis.

Photos by Paipa Hotel