Best date night everrrrr

It has been more difficult than we had imagined to get good date nights here. Babysitting can be cheap, but up where we live hard to come by someone affordable we trust. Enter NanaBink. This is the name for the singular corpus that is Diana's parents. They were here for two weeks, and so we got some time for ourselves while the kids were in the safest hands imaginable. And so we had the...

BEST...DATE NIGHT...EVERRRRRRRR!
(but, you know, with an echoey voice like you're selling a speedway event)

"Can you shmile? I can't shmile."

First we drop off our overnight stuff at a hotel in town before heading for lunch at a little Colombian restaurant for almuerzos (pre fix lunch) with beer (woo!). Then we hop a bus to Baños and the posh Piedra de Agua spa and thermal pools. We start with a Turkish bath/shower for two rotations before dipping in the mud pool and goin' all primate. If you were ever one of those kids that put Elmer's glue on your hand and let it dry (admit it), then you know that feeling of your skin shrinking over your body when it dries. But covering your whole body with mud feels like you're a giant raisin having the moisture sucked out of you and your skin just shrinks to fill the void. Then slowly dipping back into the water feels like a dry sponge expanding in water. After rinsing off in the volcano shower, our skin was baby soft and we were feeling pampered.

Not actual lava

But you can't let that feeling go on too long. On to the caverns where a ten minute dip in hot mineral water lulls us into a greater sense of carelessness and bliss so that the dip in the cold pool is that much more traumatizing invigorating. After a few cycles of that to create permanent scars on our hearts we hop in the sitting steam boxes from some James Bond movie I saw when I was a kid. Two more cycles of steam and shower and we’re off to the open mineral pools. Here it’s one cold, one hot, and the large one warm, which you use in any combination dictated by your own personal relationship with your cardiopulmonary system. This is the last stop and you are welcome to take your time, so we did.

Ah ma gah! Ah ma gah!

Though hard to leave this little slice of Flagstaff, Arizona for a jarring bus ride back to the hotel, date night must go on. And on it went with wine and an appetizer before a Bach and Brahms performance by the Cuenca symphony orchestra. I’ve heard some call this orchestra world class. I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d go far as to say they were worth more than we paid (see date night accounting below).

Tiestos is the restaurant in town that is in such demand that you’d be lucky to get in without a reservation. But for Best Date Night Ever, luck was naturally on our side. So at 9:45, 15 minutes before official closing, we snagged a table. Things so hyped rarely can live up to the hype. But with rapid and attentive service (rare as $50 bill in these parts), personal meal and wine selection by the chef, and exquisite food, Tiestos beat the hype.

Better than the CrappyCam would indicate

After that meal we tried to waken our inner 20-somethings with dancing but couldn’t find a good place for our 40-something sensibilities. But one more drink at a funky bohemian hangout capped it off smashingly.

And this is the first date night opportunity we’ve had to sleep in, enjoy a late breakfast, and shuffle slowly home. May God bless NanaBink and grant them healthy joints and sunny days in the mid 70s.

Tab for BDNE:
Hotel                   $55
Spa                      $60
Round trip bus    $1
Symphony          $0 (yep, it’s always free)
Tiesto                  $60
Apps/Drinks       $6

TOTAL               $187

Cheaper than therapy and the marriage is good for another eight weeks!