For our 30th birthdays, my friend Karen and I decided we wanted an adventure — and not just any adventure — a real, borderline-regrettable, definitely-won’t-tell-our-mothers kind of experience. Panama seemed perfect. I took charge of the planning and curated an itinerary that included a flight in a plane that looked like it had survived at least one war, a stay in a hostel with more lizards than guests, and a week of full-on jungle-style roughing it.
Karen, bless her soul, went along with all of it with nothing but enthusiasm. But by the time we stumbled into Panama City, sunburned and smelling faintly of mosquito repellent and despair, she gently suggested a spa day.
Now, I am not a spa day kind of gal. But after dragging Karen through the wilds of Panama, I couldn’t say no. I told her to pick any package she wanted — “I’m game for anything,” I said.
Those would become the words that haunted me.
Karen, a woman guided by fate and a carefree spirit, chose a package from a menu entirely in Spanish — a language she doesn’t speak. She basically waved her finger in the air and let it land wherever destiny (and possibly the devil) guided it.
Off we went.
At first, all seemed normal. We were ushered into robes, told to sit in the “relaxation zone,” and handed some spa water that tasted vaguely of cucumber and crushed hopes. I was called back first.
The moment the door shut, my robe was stripped off faster than dignity at a frat party, and I was marched into a shower stall. What followed was less “gentle exfoliation” and more “aggressive barnacle removal.” My masseuse scrubbed me like she was trying to erase my sins.
Okay, I thought, maybe I needed that after a week in the jungle. It could only get better, right?
Wrong.
Next came what I believe was a facial. I was given back my robe — a momentary reprieve — and guided to a table. My face received the same treatment as my body: scrubbed like a burnt pan. Then she began gluing tiny paper sheets to my face using some mysterious paste. They tugged when she pulled at them — definitely adhesive.
I panicked when she started slapping them onto my eyebrows. Was this waxing? Was I going to emerge from this room looking like a startled newborn ferret? Fortunately, my eyebrows survived the ordeal. I thought the worst was over.
Oh, how naive I was.
Next, I was led into a fully tiled room that looked suspiciously like a Cold War-era decontamination chamber. My robe was taken again — I began to suspect the robe was more symbolic than functional — and I stood there, naked, staring at a wall with four ominous metal pegs.
My “masseuse” (a title that feels criminally generous — I’m going with “spa sadist”) grabbed my hands and placed them around the pegs, then kicked my feet apart until I was in a full spread-eagle stance. I think I briefly left my body from shock.
When I looked back, she was wearing black rubber gloves that went to her elbows and holding two pressure-washing guns.
Before I could scream, “¡Por favor, no!” the torture began. One gun sprayed scalding hot water. The other? Freezing cold. She alternated between the two with the precision and enthusiasm of someone cleaning graffiti off a freeway overpass. Every inch of me — from the back of my heels to the crown of my head — got the treatment.
When she finally stopped, I sighed with relief. Surely, that was the end.
Nope.
She spun me around and started on the front.
As boiling and freezing jets took turns pelting my face, I was no longer afraid. I was furious. I was going to kill Karen. Slowly. With a loofah.
Now, you might be wondering why I didn’t just scream a safe word, throw on my robe, and sprint for freedom. Good question. I’ve asked myself that. The best I can come up with is: shock. Or maybe I’d developed Stockholm syndrome. Hard to say.
Eventually, I was released, handed my robe like a prisoner getting back her personal effects, and escorted to the salon for a manicure. As the technician started on my nails, rage bubbled inside me like a simmering pot of revenge soup.
Then Karen walked in.
Her hair was a tangled, dripping mess, partially obscuring her face. But I could see her eyes — wide, glassy, traumatized — peeking through like a shell-shocked war veteran. We locked eyes. No words were needed. We had both stared into the abyss.
Whatever spa package she had picked, it was clearly designed by Satan.
In that moment, all the anger dissolved. It was replaced by something stronger: solidarity. Sisterhood. Mutual pressure-washing PTSD.
And then we laughed.
Now, “Spa Day in Panama” is our most-requested story at parties. We tell it with gusto, in stereo, and it always brings down the house.
If Karen had picked a day of cucumber masks and gentle Swedish massages, we’d have forgotten it by dinner. But because she accidentally enrolled us in “Extreme Spa Boot Camp for the Damned,” we got a memory — and a story — we’ll never forget.
Let that be a lesson: the best travel stories come from the misadventures. And the next time you find yourself naked, holding on to metal pegs, and being pressure washed with alternating temperatures? Smile.
You’re making memories.
