My parents watched the kids for a full week while Jim and I took our first trip together away from the kids. Ever!
Jim wanted to show me Puerto Rico and there is a 3 hr nonstop from RDU.
We rented a car and went right to Old San Juan.
The buildings are in old Spanish colonial style and painted different colors. Many buildings are hundreds of years old.
We stayed the first night at the historical Hotel El Convento. It was built as a convent in 1651!
The hotel was so unique.
The inner courtyard was full of foliage and had a restaurant as well
Looking across the courtyard from our doorway.
View from our balcony
Rooftop pool view
We loved being able to see the ocean!
Streets of Old San Juan
Church across the street- this was on the news a few days later as part of the celebrations/protests for the old governor resigning and the protest of the new governor illegally sworn in
Many walls had been spray painted with "Ricky Renuncia" and most of it had been painted over in the interlude while we were there (protests/celebrations before and after our stay!)
We had a lot of pina colada frappes (non-alcoholic!) on this trip and they were SO delicious! It was like the coconut had been toasted to bring out the flavor or something.
This restaurant had a sign up thanking Puerto Rican people for resisting the old governor and celebrating that he is leaving Friday. We were there Thursday.
Menu from our first night restaurant. It's fun to look at a totally new menu of unique food!
The restaurant was highly rated, and the food was great. I was serenaded by a guitarist too. The walls were crumbling in a vintage way that no builder could reproduce haha.
Interesting wood statue. Flying chicken?
After dinner, which was on Calle La Forteleza (the governor's manion street) we walked back to our hotel. This street is where the main action has been and there were lots of police, barricades and news stations blocking the last bit before the mansion.
Lots of history in the hotel!
We had a simple breakfast the next morning before leaving to tour the rest of the city.
Cats! They are everywhere here and I guess they are better than roaming dogs!
The San Juan Batista cathedral across the street was beautiful. 450 years old.
Cristo Chapel built in 1753. The altar is made from thousands of the silver "promesas" that are given as offerings for a wanted miracle.
Paseo del Morro is a path that goes around the base of the El Morro fort. It was beautiful to walk around the 16th-century Spanish fortification.
Such beautiful trees
Looked like daffodils in the trees!
Beautiful fountain with a bronze sculpture by Luis Sanguino called “Raices“, which symbolizes the island’s cultural roots.
This is art I think, but you wouldn't want to fall of that top wall for a variety of reasons!
Incredible how long and well these walls have lasted.
This is the beach right in front of the gate entrance to the city. Jim decided he would've like to be an explorer back then. You can also see the metal setup for workers to climb up and remove greenery growing on the walls that compromises the strength of the walls.
We saw lots of cats on this walk, this is where they have the cat feeding stations. There is a program with catch, neuter and release. But as we saw lots of kittens, I'm not sure how well that's working for them.
As we walked all the way around, the fortifications weathering changed based on how much sun/wind they got.
I loved imagining all of the explorers that transverse this very passage of water.
We saw dozens of lizards once the trail entered foliage.
The trail slowly wound up one side of the fort and ended with a view of this cemetary.
A stairway brought us inside the fort.
Looking towards Old San Juan from El Morro.
Entrance to the fort
Location of the fort on the edge of Old San Juan.
Parade grounds in the fort.
Very. Very! Old well.
Iguana!
Staircase down a level!
The soldiers were clearly more my height haha
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Even the bathroom had a balcony with a view haha
Very hot a sweaty exploration! Resting in the shade of the lighthouse.
Old San Juan streets. Endless color and cool architecture
Cruise ship was SO enormous. Made the whole town look like play buildings.
After leaving Old San Juan, we drove an hour to a oceanside hotel in Luquillo.
The hotel was literally on the beach, with the water lapping at rocks at the base during high tide.
The hotel was walking distance to the Luquillo Kiosks, a strand of food stands with all kinds of food in a wide price range.
The hotel used an old boat as the counter to serve continental breakfast.
My first steps into the ocean!! Talk about a feeling of pure joy!
We walked a loooong way up to a point way past the kiosks and then back for lunch.
All the kiosks have ocean view seating and the temperature was just right.
Frappes (smoothies) are pretty unique here. I had mine without the mountain of whipped cream and it still was so pretty.
Serious business here :)
Dinner after swimming and snorkeling. The snorkeling here wasn't great visibility and we didn't see much, so we just played in the water. Dinner was some amazing seafood.
I loved how the dinner mints were made in the NC mountains, of all places!
At night, all the street lights turn red to discourage the many sea turtles from going towards city lights instead of the moon light shining on the ocean.
The next day was pure adventure! We started off at El Yunque (june-kay) Tropical Rainforest!
Even the drive was magical, it was wonderful to see all the green after the hurricanes a few years ago.
La Coca Falls
Bano Grande, this used to be a public swimming pool
Trailhead to our biggest hike, Mt. Britton
What a beautiful hike. It rained very lightly on and off the whole time.
As our elevation increased, we could view more of the rainforest canopy.
The trail fit one person across and was a mix of different size rocks and concrete.
These cool plants grow right off the trees everywhere
The ever-present fog rolled in and out in different degrees constantly. This made the view ever-changing too.
You can see where the hurricane devastation has yet to recover
Finally made it to Mr. Britton.
We hadn't seen anyone here the whole time as we were one of the first ones to enter the rainforest that morning. It was crazy to hike up to this random tower and enter the dark, winding steps dripping with mold. Felt like another world.
The wind was really blowing on top of the tower and the clouds raced past our faces, opening and closing the view of the valley below.
View straight down from the tower. After visiting the lighthouse in the Outer Banks with all the safety precautions and warnings, this was quite different haha
The return hike was gorgeous as well. So many streams and lush greenery.
View all the way to the ocean!
Yokahu Tower
We only hiked a short ways on this trail, you'd basically need a machete to do it after a certain point.
I loved the bamboo lining one side of the start of the trail.
Lots of little lizards.
Huge leaves from the trees
We were pretty soaked by this time from the rain, humidity and sweat. And muddy. So much fun to hike together and so different than hiking with six kids haha
Jim had to stop for a coco fria- they hack the coconut open and hand you a straw. He was pretty sad when he had to drive and couldn't drink it at the same time.
We had lunch at the Luquillo Kiosks again and they opened the coconut the rest of the way so Jim could eat more of it.
We drove to Fajardo for a kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay they have there.
We had a marvelous dinner first!
The waitress shared all her views on the political turmoil in the country and everyone there was interested in what was occurring- it was Friday, the day the governor left the mansion and officially resigned and the streets were packed in all Old San Juan.
Kayaks in the bay.
Everyone rode double. The way there was easy, the way back much harder (especially in pitch dark with cheap little glow in the dark bracelets to help you keep track of other kayaks)
We kayaked through a mangrove channel that led to the bay. This bio bay is unique because it's not in the open ocean.
A bio bay is a body of water that contains millions of micro-organisms, called “dinoflagellates”, that glow in the dark for a second when agitated. We had to hold a tarp over us to really see them well in the pitch dark, it looked like split second neon green flashes of a lightening bug.
On the way back they told us to stay in a straight line. With 9 other tour groups telling their people the same thing, this became tricky- all group leaders had the same flashing red light on their backpack and all kayakers had the same glow sticks. Taking into account some people couldn't kayak well, this was an interesting lesson in doing what it takes so every last kayak makes it back!
Towards the end, we could see the light of the bay! By then, the current was driving us back and it was much harder to stick with the ever-changing line of kayakers, some of whom were trying to pass others or go a totally different direction. Some got into trouble, but the tour guide operators prevented anyone from capsizing as far as I know. Quite the exhilarating tour!
That night we saw pictures of Calle La Fortaleza, where we ate dinner a few nights ago!
The next morning we took a tiny plane on a 40 min ride to Culebra, an island that just got electrical power back a few months ago since the hurricanes! The plane ride emphasized to me how much I love living. And dislike "exciting" plane rides in a mini cooper with wings. Enough said.
Lots of little islands all along the way.
First glimpse of Culebra!!
The beach at the top is Flamenco Beach, where our little hotel was. The plane had to descend between two peaks to land. It was a beautiful landing for the difficulty of the route.
We had planned on renting a golf cart but there were none left and during our stay there were a million reasons why I'm so glad we had to get a jeep! Took a while to find the only gas station and wait in line to get gas, then since the hurricanes so many places aren't open regularly/at all even worse than before.
The a/c was such a blessing here in between find an impossible parking spot in the hopes a restaurant would be open/ still there!
Finally found something and ordered a lot of good food!
The road to Flamenco Beach.
Flamenco Beach! Beautiful, not crowded and so inviting. The sunset doesn't do justice to the colors, I think other pics show better.
View from our room
We arrived Saturday night, did a quick snorkel (that I accidentally deleted from my underwater camera aaahhh but re-filmed it later). Sunday was Fast Sunday, so we had a nice day of reflection, scripture study and talking about the last 14 years of marriage and looking at the future. The tiny convenience story had very little food. These mini pizzas tasted so good after fasting. We had to heat them in the microwave too haha
These two hammocks were perfect for talking and relaxing together.
Path to the beach from our room
Flamenco Beach in the morning. There are two villa hotel properties on the whole beach, with maybe 8 rooms in our side, and a few more on the other, plus a small campground. Not many people here at all!
Walking the coastline was paradise
And relaxing was so wonderful. It's hard to describe how it feels to have no multi-tasking mother stress for several days in a row. A part of my brain was just plain happy. I got no headaches this whole trip. Such a blessing to have this time.
I think lines disappeared from Jim's face, I loved seeing him so relaxed and happy. The wi-fi didn't work on the island so he really disconnected!
One end of Flamenco has old tanks because just before World War II, the US Navy used the picturesque island to test out their soldiers and their bombs, leaving behind a number of tanks to rust in the wilderness.
Discussions in the hammocks under palm trees. I want to remember that feeling forever!
I loved having an ocean view and hearing the ocean each night like we had at the Luquillo Beach hotel. Also, I loved waking up with the roosters at both places!
It rained almost every day for a little bit, but didn't affect anything we did.
Driving past the runway.
Culebra island drive
Zoni Beach, perfect for strolling
Those are the two hills the pilot had to descend between to land!
Jim picked up a hermit crab and it pinched him right away then scuttled off.
Tamarindo Beach was our first snorkel stop Monday morning at 7am!
We found two turtles eating sea grass about five minutes into our snorkeling!
We saw sting rays too! Also squid, but I didn't get a pic of them.
After enjoying the turtles, we headed to a more remote beach, Carlos Rosario. A 20 min hike on an okay trail, with some thorny bushes but not too overgrown.
Views like this make any walk memorable!
Again, all to ourselves, a beautiful beach with a wondrous underwater world beneath! The best snorkeling was on the left.
Beautiful coral formations with lots of small fish
Sea snails in the tide
The right side of Carlos Rosario had more snorkeling as well as shallow sandy areas.
Relaxing on the beach, all to ourselves.
See the brilliant bright coloring? Totally sand there, all protected by coral reef around it. Pictures cannot do justice to how light and beautiful it is.
Here was the little gate we squeezed through to get to the Carlos Rosario trail.
All that hiking and snorkeling made us very hungry!
Every time we walked from our villa to the beach I felt like it was unreal it was so beautiful!
On Flamenco Beach, much of the center is sandy fun swimming, but to the right there is a somewhat shallow snorkeling area
Panoramic shot of Flamenco Beach
The morning we left Culebra, we took one last snorkel at Flamenco. Jim didn't want to leave!
Ready to fly back to San Juan
We stayed at La Concha our last night, a beautiful hotel on Condado Beach, with gorgeous ocean views.
This beach actually had some mild body surfing waves!
We really enjoyed being able to enjoy room service after searching out food kiosks so many times!
For the first time I got to enjoy an infinity pool and watch Jim body surfing, it was so fun!
Relaxing in the jacuzzi was a delight after a week of adventure!
Woke up at 6 to workout on the beach before a long day of sitting at the airport and on the plane. Didn't take much in this humid warm weather to sweat like crazy and it was so invigorating!
Saw this cool Caribbean crab!
Jim doing some last body surfing, the La Concha shell in the background (they have a restaurant in there)
Um...we didn't want to leave any flavor untasted? lol. We really appreciated the chef at this hotel! After this it was off to the airport, finding our gate since the taxi had dropped us at the opposite end of the airport, waiting hours, then the short 3 hour flight home to find my wonderful parents still alive and the kids happy and loved. What a blessing this special time was with Jim, I hope this post can preserve these fun memories!
