We had four full days there (two of travel). It was fabulous.
First great thing: we got a helluva deal on the trip AND the total came out to our lucky numbers (we have 3 between us) down to the cents.
I have to admit, we had a downer week prior to leaving due to a death in the family and we were both a little too preoccupied and upset to get excited about the trip. We were trying to psych ourselves into excitement but it just wasn't working. We were happy to be there once we got there though!
Check out our hotel view. The hotel was on a cliff and we got a free ocean view upgrade on the top floor. See that little island on top of my head? That's the hotel's private beach. Swanky.
More views of the hotel from our window
We got quite a few rainstorms (mostly at night - the rain never got in our way, thankfully) and with them came some really cool clouds. This is from our hotel window.
This was a few floors below our room.
We spent a day at the beach...
...but we're not ones to laze around on vacation - we like to see things! We went for a hike in the rainforest. Here is the Yokahu observation tower in the El Yonque rainforest and the view from it.
Usually when we ask people to take pictures they don't come out very well. Partially this is because I hand them an SLR they don't know how to use. I stuck with the little point and shoot this time. Our tour guide took this one and took his time framing it. He said, "It has to look like it came out of National Geographic!" I approve. Nothin' like a tour guide with photography skills!
La Mina Falls
A little friend! And 'nanners. I really wanted one.
This is Arecibo Observatory. It's the world's largest radio telescope. It was incredible... and it's a good thing because it took us four hours to drive there. Well worth the trip! I wish I could describe how HUGE it is. The half-dome thing is six stories high. Those posts are 365 feet high. I said it's like something out of a movie. And what do ya know? It's in Contact and Golden Eye 007.
It rained our whole drive out there and sprinkled while we were there too. But check out that fog. Totally worth the rain for the eerie feeling it gave off. So cool.
For those of you that don't know, I'm fascinated by space. I love, love, love, love it. Contact was one of my favorite movies in middle school. I love staring at the stars when I'm out of the city. I went to Space Academy (same thing as Space Camp but for slightly older kids) and loved it. So this was really cool for me to see. I could do a whole blog post about it but I won't. I took a zillion pictures though.
After the visit to Arecibo, we drove to Old San Juan. The town has two forts in it and a big wall around most of the town. We LOVED the town and wished we had made it before the sun disappeared so we could see it in the daylight but it was our last night. Better luck next time.
There were cobblestone roads and old buildings all over. It was a beautiful quaint town.
While in Old San Juan we decided to have an authentic Puerto Rican dinner. We dined at a restaurant called Mojitos where we went all out with Puerto Rican appetizers (fried beef, potato, and corn goodness), dinners (I got a delicious shrimp cassava mofongo while Jason got a creole chicken dish), and dessert (tres leches). Oh, and drinks of course! Delicious lime and rum drinks. It was the perfect way to end our great vacation. Here is my mofongo (after I had taken a few bites).
We also went on two kayaking trips which we left our camera behind for. The first was a snorkel trip in some of the Puerto Rican reef. We're supposed to get some pictures from that trip so I'll post them when we get 'em.
The other trip was to the Bio Bay. No pictures from that one because it doesn't show up on cameras. It was SO cool though. Our tour started at 8:30 pm. It was pitch black and we were kayaking through narrow mangrove tunnels with no light other than the occasional light flashed by our guides. It was crazy - people were crashing into the mangroves left and right. After a bit of a paddle we got to the bay. Incredible! If you stuck your hand in the water and splashed it, the water sparkled. Paddles made it glow too, and even the movement of the boat left a sparkly trail. You could see fish swimming underneath because they were glowing. The bay we saw was the brightest of any in the world (there are apparently only five bays total, two of which are in PR) with 1 million micro-organisms per gallon (other bays have about 100K/gallon). The micro-organisms glow to protect themselves. Krill eat the micro-organisms, so whenever the water is disturbed they glow so that the fish can see and eat the krill.
It was a great trip for sure. If you want to see more pictures, here they are!
Next stop: Brussels? Alaska? Seattle?
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