Day 35: Spa & Sauna

What a day!!!! What an epically relaxing and restorative day! For those who don’t know, today was my birthday 🤪

It began with a buffet breakfast, which included a pavlova-type cake - but it wasn’t quite pavlova. It was more solid and a bit biscuity somehow, and also included basil! YUM!

For the morning Ben and I chilled around, doing some writing, chatting, we had a game of foozball (best of 3, Ben won 😣), went to the gym (or well, Ben did - I bounced on a yoga ball and continued writing up the previous hike day!). It was so lovely, just milling about and doing as we pleased inside this huge and luxuriously warm hotel! How lucky and happy we felt! 🥰

At one point a birthday cake was delivered to our room, and I had to pretend I didn’t see 🫣🤣 how sweet! Then, I got a surprise phone call from three of my favourite humans all at once on the same line - Nelz, Jessie, and Paola!! Their faces appeared on the screen and I was like 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱 so surprised! Ben had organised for them to call me on my birthday to have a chat 😭🥹🩵 BLESS HIS HEART!!!!! THEN, Ben light the candle and brought the little sponge cake over! Everyone sang a very chaotic and remixed version of happy birthday, and we all cheered 🤣🤣🤣🤣 It was sooooo lovely chatting with them and sharing various hiking experiences Ben and I have had over the last month 🤩 I think they were each relieved to hear we only have 4 hike days left… 🤣🤣 Tbh, I’m also a bit relieved!

After that we went and enjoyed the spas and saunas again! And soon enough, it was time for our first round of massages to begin - my first one was a face and head massage. I’d never had a face massage before, so I wondered what I’d be in for 🤣 It was interesting having someone else’s hands smoosh my face again and again 🤣 It’s meant to be really good for lymphatic drainage, but I’m not sure I’ll go for the face massage option again 🤔 the head massage was epic, though! Oh man, that felt sooooo good!!!!! I think she probably pulled half my hair out (my hair seems to break easily), but it was worth the loss 🤣🤣🤣

Next up was the full body massage. This was also epic! It was amazing to have the various tight spots on my back and shoulders kneaded out! Obviously that’s where my pack sits everyday, so…it was lovely having those parts of my body receiving support for the work they’re doing through this period of my life 🤗 When the masseuse massaged my legs, that was a whole other story 🤣 OMG I am apparently unbelievably ticklish down my hamstrings, calf muscles, and feet! It was soooo hard to not move 🤣 It was a relief to turn over so she could move on to my quads, etc 🤣 maaaaaaan!!!!! It was funny 😁

Ben enjoyed his massages as well - he went for the back massage, and then the face and head massage. He also felt very relaxed and loose afterwards!

Coming back together after our massages was lovely. We had about an hour before we had to go and get changed for dinner, so we sat in the steam saunas for a while before heading to the Roman bath (I felt like it was melting my eyeballs), then did a cold plunge, and then went to sit in the salt room - all with our cups of mint and thyme tea that we kept refilling as needed.

Needless to say, we were extremely relaxed as we headed out to dinner! The restaurant Ben had booked was delicious (as all Armenian restaurants we’ve dined in have been!). This time we had trout with seabuckthorn sauce for a starter (neither of us really liked this, surprisingly!), then bread with cheese on a fire which I fully worshipped whilst demolishing - it was so incredible! 🔥 We then shared fried eggplant with capsicum, roasted rabbit, and potatoes with garlic. All very delicious!!! 🤤

After we’d eaten all we could, we set off back to our hotel where we almost immediately passed out 😵🤣

What a great birthday! A massive thank you to Ben for making it so incredibly wonderful - he still managed to include an element of surprise, even whilst hiking in Armenia! Big claps to him 🤗🩵

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