Puerto Rico - Day 3

Sunday, 3 May 09


We got up to gorgeous skies and went to the dining room for breakfast. Again, the fruit breakfast was great. Apparently, the Casa Cubuy is known for its fresh fruit breakfasts.


We both took showers and packed our bags as we continued with our Puerto Rican vacation. We decided to hike down to the watefall one more time before we headed out. The water was SOOOOO much clearer and calmer today. L took some time to climb around the rocks. I think she had WAY too much fun. We wished we had more time to hike today because it was such a better day for it. We took some more pictures and headed out.





We drove back down the mountain and were amazed with the crazy drivers. The winding road is barely big enough for our little car and these people were flying around corners. I couldn't wait to get to the bottom. We detoured in Naguabo and stopped at Ralph's (a local grocery store). We wanted to grab some big bottles of water.


We got back on the road and headed for Fajardo to catch the ferry to Vieques. Once we figured out where we needed to park and buy the ferry tickets we decided to go find some lunch. We followed the traffic and found a beach with a restaurant. We ate at Costa Mia Restaurant. We had chicken salads! Fantastic. We sat at the beach for a little while taking in the sun, sand, and water. I believe we were sitting at the Las Croabas Beach, which was very close to the Nature Preserve.


After lunch, we headed back to the ferry docks in Fajardo. We paid for the ferry ($2) and headed to Vieques for 4 nights. We stayed at the Casa LaLanchita Amazing place on the Atlantic! The owner sat us down and went over the best places to go on the island. Two thumbs up here! Here is a picture of the Atlantic from our balcony.





We quickly changed into our suits and went to sit by the pool while the sun was still shining. We went to dinner at the Barefoot Bistro, which was a restaurant in a woman's driveway. Terrific food. After dinner, we took a walk through the main part of the city. We ended the night early with a good book.

Puerto Rico - Day 2

Saturday, 2 May 2009

We both slept well at the Casa Cubuy. Overnight it poured rain (well we are in the Rainforest) and we slept through what we thought we birds....we soon found out that the sounds of the rainforest are cute little coqui's. Coqui's are tree frogs that live in the rainforest. It actually sounds like they are saying CO-QUI.

We ate a fantastic fresh fruit breakfast and then headed up highway 191 for a little walk. The views of the rainforest were beautiful that is until it started raining. We tried to keep going and hung out under some large trees for a little while, but the rain just kept coming harder and faster. We turned around and headed back to the Casa Cubuy to wait out the rain.




Once the rain let up, we waited a couple of hours and headed down to the waterfalls for a hike. Note to self: I am not a rock climber hiker like L. The first part of the hike was a piece of cake. We got to the Cubuy River and the river was flowing pretty steady from all of the rain. After some tricky steps, we managed to cross the river and continue on the hike. We came to a second river, bt the water was rushing a bit too fast for me. L went on ahead and I stayed behind. We saw some beautiful waterfalls and took some amazing pictures.



We stayed at the Casa Cubuy for dinner and met lots of fantastic people. We met a couple from Chicago that we saw throughout our trip. I called them our "chicago island friends." We met a couple traveling from St Marten and a group from San Juan. Most of the people that we met are from the States that are traveling or have relocated to Puerto Rico.

After dinner we played Monopoly for about 4 hours with the couple traveling from St Marten. Ridiculous...but so much fun!

Puerto Rico - Day 1

Friday, 1 May 2009

Travel day: L and I both had super early flights. We were supposed to meet up in Atlanta to catch our flight to San Juan. L's first flight was delayed and she didn't make it to Atlanta in time. She ran (even was losing stuff our of her bag) to get to the flight, but the gate agent had already closed the boarding door. I absentmindedly got on the flight for San Juan thinking she was already on the plane. Yeh, I little more stress than I needed AT 9AM. L wasn't able to get on the flight, but she did catch the next flight to San Juan. I only had to wait about 1 hour. In the mean time, I got my luggage and found that the zipper pulls had been ripped off of my bag. If I opened the zipper, the bag was useless. So, I took it to the Delta agent, and he is looking all over my bag for the zippers.....yeh keep looking....they are gone!! So, after 15 minutes of that, he brought me a brand new bag.

Once Lisa got to San Juan, we rented our sweet Hyundai Elantra and headed east to El Yunque (the Caribbean Rainforest). **Let's just say, Puerto Rico has some crazy drivers** We stopped and picked up some Subway (yeh we didn't look to hard for dinner) and drove up Highway 191 from the south part of the rainforest. We drove for about 20 minutes while our ears popped and stopped for a few pictures. We finally stopped at the Casa Cubuy Ecolodge http://www.casacubuy.com/for our 2 night stay. The Casa Cubuy was a clean, rustic, bed and breakfast type place. Meals are shared with all of the guests at a large dining room table. It was awesome to meet everybody staying at the Casa Cubuy. We checked into our room and ate dinner. We sat and marveled at the view of the rainforest and then decided we were tired and went to bed. Lots of reading and sleeping on this trip!

Here is the view from our room

Angels and Demons

Two thumbs up. We went to see the matinee show today.

First of all, I have to say that I haven't read the book yet and I still haven't seen the DaVinci Code. By the end of the movie, I was ready to plan my next trip to the Vatican.

We found the movie to be very suspenseful, but it didn't seem too long. Even though the story was fiction, there were some truths about the Roman Catholic Church.

Bowling Banquet

On Friday, 15 May, I decided to take the day off of work and participate in our Bowling Banquet....which is a golf outing. I was lucky enough to play with the most fantastic foursome EVER! We laughed, almost cried, and might have had a touch too much to drink. All in all, it was a gorgeous day. I managed to squeak out a 99 and that included one birdie. But once the bloody mary's and capt kicked in....it was all down hill:)

Life in Puerto Rico

What a different, yet similar world. The cars are the same, the fast food is the same, most people speak English, the post office is the same.....but there are so many interesting differences between PR and the states. We have been to the rainforest, the beautiful beaches of Vieques, and now we are in San Juan. I have so many incredible pictures to share....but that will have to be another time:) Hi to everyone in the States....see you soon.