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Published: April 30th 2015
When Jeremy and I decided we needed a break from cold rainy weather, Puerto Rico became the destination of choice! We wanted tropical. I just wanted a hammock on the beach in the warm sun to be lazy on! Of course, that is never how our vacations go! I spent about .253 of an hour in that hammock! I always have to see everything! I have to explore! I have to wander and experience the culture! So we did. For four days. Non-stop. Yep, this is vacation!
We started our stay in San juan. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but I was not expecting big sprawling metropolis! I'm not sure why, but when I thought of sitting lazily on the beach, I didn't think to see a major city in my rearview. We had planned our whole stay in San Juan, with some day excursions, so just made the best of it. Our hotel was in Isla Verde, which has a gorgeous beach! But backs right up to Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. Thank's to double paned windows we could barely hear the aircraft traffic, but that did not stop the jet fuel fumes from wafting over
View from our Hotel
Courtyard Isla Verdeto our patio and the beach! So if you go, be forewarned!
We arrived in the late afternoon so just took a little wander on the beach, got our bearings, found some dinner, and chilled the first night. Next morning we were up early and headed to Old San Juan! Old San Juan is the original Spanish settlement in Peurto Rico. Most of the buildings in this area of town are original and date back to the 16th and 17th century; colorful with old Spanish architecture. The roads are narrow and paved with blue cobblestones. Blue from the cobalt that is in them. The original 7 square block settlement was at one time completely surrounded by the tall city walls, 40 feet high and up to 20 feet thick! There were originally five gates to the city built into the walls. These were giant wooden doors that allowed entrance into the city, and protected the city from invaders. They were guarded and closed at sundown. If you were outside the gate at sundown, you stayed there until morning! Today, about half of the original wall remains, and only one gate remains, la Puerta de San Juan. Back in the
day, this was the gate in which ceremonies and welcoming of important people took place. It is the only gate that remains today.
Walking the narrow colorful streets of Old San Juan you will find a bevy of specialty shops, gift shops, restaurants, and ever a Burger King! The people are warm and friendly, and very catering to tourists! Spanish is the first language of Puerto Rico, English is the second. But locals can tell who the tourists are, and they will greet you in English. We stopped at an art shop and the gentleman owner told us so many interesting things about the history of the town! For instance, he told us about the bronze shoes in Pigeon Park, Parque de los Palomas, (named because of the abundance of pigeons), and the little window on Calita de las Monjas to get some Limber (it's like Italian ice an so delicious and cheap!) The shop itself specialized in work from local artisans. It was all so vibrant and colorful! We decided to buy a print that was a scene of the city. They would mark the actual spot of the scene on a map for you so you could
go there and take a photograph of where your painting was made. Pretty cool!
After some much needed cooling off, we hit the streets again heading to Castillo San Felipe del Morro. San Juan has two old forts, San Felipe del Morro and San Cristobal. We only visited El Morro. It is the older of the two, but not by much. Less than 100 years. Construction on El Morro began in 1540 and was complete in 1589. But much of the walls there today were done in the 1760's during the reconstruction. Even though El Morro is the smaller of the two forts, it is still expansive! It rises 140 ft from the ocean, has 6 levels, and 18ft thick walls! It's a beast! There are so many tunnels and walkways and stairways and ramps and outposts and even a lighthouse! It is massive, and amazing to see!
San Cristobal was built in 1634 (finished in 1771) and is 27 acres and 150ft above the sea. The forts are connected by city wall and border the north of Old San Juan. There is a little shanty town outside of the wall on the north called La Perla that
we were told is a no-no place to go. It's safe enough for tourists to not get murdered, but just because of the activity that goes on there and the locals don't want the police snooping around. So if you mistakenly go (which would not be by accident because the only way to get in is through a tunnel that goes under the city wall) the locals will kindly guide you back out! However, there is a beautiful old Spanish cemetery between El Morro and La Perla that is worth seeing! Cementario Santamaria Magdelena de Pazzis is named for Mary Magdalen, and dates back to the late 1800's. The pristine white marble headstones and tombs are crowded into sections that nestle around a circular domed chapel in the center, all with a spectacular view of the Atlantic Ocean! We didn't walk into the cemetery because if you follow the wall from above, you will find an outpost that juts out almost in the exact center of the cemetery and offers amazing views! Interesting fact about the cemetery: it was built here to symbolize the journey to the afterlife, and is considered the most revered place to be buried in San
Juan. People pay hefty prices to be buried there, so criminals are not allowed to be buried there.
After grabbing some lunch at Barrachina, the birthplace of the piña colada, and some inadvertent sightseeing in our quest to find a Walmart, we headed back to the hotel for a shower, some hammock time, and a sunset on the beach.
The next day and a half was spent on the small island of Vieques. Vieques lies about 8 miles to the east of Puerto Rico. We had to take a little prop plane to get there. A little 8-seater, no bag check, no security check, 10-minute flight. Two of the main things I wanted to on our trip was to see the Caribbean Sea, and to see a bioluminescent bay. As soon as I found out that PR had bioluminescent bays, I HAD to see one. And when I discovered that the brightest one in the world was the one on Vieques, well....decision made! Vieques is a tiny island surrounded by reef. There are 2 towns, one on the north and one on the south. Really though, the island is 4 miles wide so they aren't that far apart!
We stayed in Esperanza in the south, which is where most of the tourists stay. The island is very laid back and natural. It used to be a Naval Station so was never commercialized. Once the Navy vacated it, it became a tourist haven. There are some remains from the Navy. Like the beach names...black beach, red beach, green beach...and there are some old bunkers and radar equipment. The islands local inhabitants include wild horses roaming the streets where ever they want. Kind of odd to drive up on a heard of horses!
The main tourist street is lined with open air eateries with a view of the Caribbean. Really beautiful and exactly what I expect a tropical paradise to be! We stayed in a "guesthouse" that was sort of like a B&B without the B. It was a house, converted into lockable bedrooms. Each had it's own bathroom. There was a lovely community deck, and a rooftop terrace. No TV and no phone in the room, but they put beach towels, a soft-sided cooler, and foldable beach chairs in the room for your use. Very accommodating! And super friendly! I can honestly say it is the first time
Streets of Old San Juan
Walking along the inside of the city wall I have booked a room and received a personal email welcoming us, giving information about the island, and asking our flight info and what time we would arrive so they could be sure to be there to greet us. We felt very welcomed...by everyone on the island! The beaches were gorgeous...and almost always empty! Nearly every beach we went to, we were the only ones there! Due to the reef, they aren't very good for swimming, but they are perfect for sitting! 😊 One beach in particular on the north side just next to the Mosquito Pier would have been perfect for snorkeling! The pier blocked the big waves from the atlantic, and the little bay was home to starfish! It's sometimes called starfish beach. I loved it! To me, the starfish themselves would have been worth the trip!
But the reason we decided to visit Vieques was for the bioluminescent bay, Mosquito Bay. A bio bay is a bay that has a high concentration of a specific kind of single-celled plankton that when agitated, lets off a light. Each one lights for only 1/10th of a second. But when you have an abundance of them, they create a
shimmering blue glow around whatever is moving. So fish in the water swim and their silhouette and trail light up. The propellers on the boat create a soft glow. It's very cool! Mosquito Bay has unique characteristics to harbor these plankton. It's inlet is bordered by reef, so boats can not get in. The reef also breaks the waves, so the water is very calm and still. It's also not very deep, which makes the salinity a bit higher and creates the perfect environment for these Dino's to thrive. Bordering the other edges of the bay are mangrove forests. Mangroves are tangling thickets of trees that grow out of the water. So it makes it more difficult to get to the bay from land. And, the bay is protected. No motorized boats (our pontoon was electric) and no swimming. I did not get any pictures because I didn't bring my nice camera for fear of it getting wet, and we were not allowed to use cell phones so we could conserve the darkness. And I probably could not have captured anything anyway because it is a very dim light. However, if you have ever seen the movie "Life of Pi"...the
part where he is in the glowing water with the whale and washes up on that mangrove island...it is very similar to that! Not as bright as the movie is obviously, and the bay does not continuously glow, but the same concept! We went a few days before the new moon (new moon being the BEST day to go), so the sky was dark and the stars were AMAZING! We opted for the one tour company that took people out on a pontoon boat. Everything else is via kayak. Our tour lasted about an hour and a half, and our tour guide talked about the bay, gave us a tour of the stars, and we learned about the mangroves that border the bay. The pictures online make it seem so much brighter than it really is, which was kind of a let down, but still, very magical! A local on a paddle board paddled up to all of the tours and gave us each a show with the movement of his board and paddle. That was pretty awesome to see! That's when they glowed the most!
The following morning we got an early start. We hit up a local
bakery for some breakfast and headed back to the north side to see a few beaches, before catching our flight back to Puerto Rico in the afternoon. We flew in/out of the small airport in Ceiba, so when we arrived back to PR we were already very close to El Yunque National Forest. El Yunque is the only tropical rain forest under the US flag (Since PR is a US territory). We got a tiny glimpse of a sub-tropical rainforest in Hawaii, so I was really looking forward to El Yunque! The forest itself it not huge. It's 28,000 acres which is roughly 44 square miles. It's a large mountain that you drive up to a dead end, then drive back down. And of course there are miles of hiking trails! We took a popular trail to one of the parks waterfalls. La Mina falls is probably the most popular trail, and is the most popular waterfall in the park. So we had to go! There are 2 ways to get there, and we were advised that the lower path was the better way to go. It was a moderate hike over 8/10's of a mile and estimated to take
about 40 minutes. This hike was paved with stone pavers, it was uphill (and downhill) both ways, it was steep both ways, it was suuuuper humid both ways, and then the waterfall was just eh. I guess if you were going to swim in the cold water after the sweaty hike it would be worth it, but for just taking some pictures, it was pointless. Especially because there were people in the water and climbing on the rocks everywhere, so it was impossible to get a good shot. So kind of disappointing. We drove the rest of the road and then back down before heading back to our hotel in San Juan for the night.
The flew home the following afternoon, so we got up early and went back to Old San Juan to hit up some tourist shops. Unfortunately, many of them do not open until 10am or so (there are never any hours listed) and we got there around 830, so it was slim pickins! It was nice to walk around in the cool morning air with fewer pedestrians though. Even though our trip to Puerto Rico was filled with activity, it was still relaxing and nice
to get away. I was really looking forward to getting home to the cooler weather, which is a nice change for us from living in Phoenix where going home is never cooler weather! We had a nice time! We decided that if we go back to PR, we will stay outside of San Juan. Maybe just go strait to Vieques and spend our whole vacation there! 😊
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amy
non-member comment
wow
Ok, your photos just solidified that PR is on my radar. Lol