Puerto Rico February 11-28, 2023
Welcome to Puerto Rico!
We rented a car at the airport in San Juan and arrived at our friends, Brian and Leah's home in Arecibo...west of San Juan.
Two bedrooms on the third floor....huff....puff (stairs)!
Out first stop on a mountain top to enjoy the awesome views from Ciales Bar and Restaurant.
What a view!
Very nice paintings graced the walls of Ciales.
On the way to a waterfall, we met a gentleman who shared the excitement of a new arrival, a baby horse.
Larry quickly made friends with this 3 day old baby colt.
The PR mountain roads are both narrow and curvy. It was quite an ordeal to get around a tractor trailer.
The one lane roads were full of twists and turns.
Salto De Dora Juana Waterfall
Just love the air root plants and the tropical blossoms.
The mountains were lush with green tropical foliage.
We enjoyed the area so much that we decided to play and sing a couple of tunes.
"You are my sunshine"
We passed many gorgeous homes built on the mountainside....each taking in the cool
breezes of the high elevation.
Most homes were compounded with bars on the windows and gates across the driveways.
We passed a National Forest, Bosque Estatal de Toro Negro.
Coming down the south side of the interior mountains, we passed Toa Vaca Lake.
On Valentine's Day we went out for two Shrimp dinners.
We carefully looked over the Spanish menu...trying to figure it out.
Another day we headed west to take in the Puerto Rican Beaches.
Many of the beaches were rocky or full of coral.
Our red rental car
There were also gorgeous beaches with sand.
Entrance to the retired Guajataca Tunnel Railway.
The train tunnel was used from1906-1957.
My man found a swing.
How did that chair get way up there?
We drove to Isabela to see the stone carved woman.
Arecibo Lighthouse
Christopher Columbus' Statue had a hard time finding a home. Finally it was put together outside of Arecibo. It was tremendous in height. It was locked up so we snapped pictures through the fence.
Everywhere we went we spotted iguanas.
Picnic lunch at the beach.
Walking tour of Arecibo...Catholic Church
Colorful Architecture
Town Square
Statue of JFK
This was an unusual sight....a portable barber shop truck.
After a week of touring the north side of PR, Chad and Kathy joined us in San Juan for ten days of birding. This was the first Airbnb that we stayed in.
Statue in San Juan Commemorating Columbus' discovery of PR....500 years ago
Morro Fort was started in 1539 and was completed in 1790.
San Juan, Fort Morro
We visited this peninsula on the last day of our adventure.
A view on San Juan from the fort.
A view down into the inside of the fort.
There is a deep harbor channel coming past the fort.
Old San Juan was full of colorful buildings.
Cool painting graced many walls.
Nunnery across from the Catholic Church
Old Chapel that was next to the bay
Traffic in Old Town was slow moving. It was much better to park and walk.
Sunset in Ceiba before taking the ferry to Vieques, the island off to the west of PR. When the ferry arrived at Isabela Segunda at 8:00pm, we took a cab to Esperanza about a half an hour from the ferry.
Our cute little bungalow/Airbnb in Esperonza for two nights.
Bright colored homes are throughout Puerto Rico.
Rattan furnishings made us get into the island mood.
Paintings were placed throughout the home.
The next morning we walked down into the town and enjoyed the beach.
The bougainvillea was gorgeous.
Wild horses roam the island and are spotted easily.
Chickens and chicks were everywhere on the island. Our mornings were full of cock-a doodle-doo all over Puerto Rico.
During the evening we had dinner at El Quenepo Vieques before taking the bioluminescent adventure in Mosquito Bay. Surprisingly there were no mosquitos. There were bright bioluminescent lights and loads of stars on this moonless night. The squishy mud strut to get into the kayaks was an experience in itself.
Larry found a unique swing off of a palm tree on the beach.
We enjoyed a nice museum in the downtown of Esperanza.
We left Vieques at 2pm for a great ferry ride arriving back in mainland PR.
Our wonderful Airbnb in Rio Grande was close to the El Yunque Tropical Rain Forest....the only tropical rainforest in the US. Justin, a colleague of Chad's, came to have dinner with us and share his three months of living in PR.
Larry and I fell in love with this swing set in the yard.
We enjoyed our day in the Tropical Rain Forest. The weather was a nice in the 70's.
We visited the old swimming pools that existed years ago. Presently they need refurbishing due to the hurricane that filled the pools with run off.
We also hiked the Juan Diego trail to find this inviting waterfall pool
Further up the trail, visitors were actually swimming in another waterfall pool.
We climbed the Yokahu Lookout Tower.
Larry climbed the La Coca Falls.
Before leaving El Yunque we visited the El Portal Visitor Center.
While there we were fortunate to see the Puerto Rico Parrots that are almost extinct.
Local biologist are trying to help bring these birds out of extinction, by helping them multiply in captivity.
The visitor center was brand new.....just rebuilt from the Hurricane in 2017.
This colorful wall was inside our compound at the Airbnb in Rio Grande. We snapped this shot before heading to Guanica.
Leaving Rio Grande we found our next Airbnb (above) in Guanica.
Larry and I did a walking tour of Guanica while Chad and Kathy spent the day exploring the Guanica Dry Forest. It was very hot here.
Colorful homes dotted the streets as well as evidence of hurricane damaged homes
Paintings of past cultures paintings found on the compound walls.
The hospital was a unique piece of old architecture.
A War Heroes Statue in the town square displayed local Puerto Rican losses from six wars of the past.
The next morning we headed over a very crooked road across several mountains and came across this lookout tower called LA Torre De Piedra that was built as part of the New Deal of President Franklin D Roosevelt.
We stopped at an area that Chad and Kathy wanted to spot a certain bird that was in the area. Guess what? They spotted it in a matter of minutes.
We returned back to the coast to find a couple of more birds before....
pulling into our next Airbnb.
It had a great seaside walking track/playground and some nice beaches, Kathy and Chad snorkeled and spotted a few tropical fish.
Kathy and Chad were thrilled to spot the close to extinction Puerto Rican Parrot in the wild.
They also spotted three whales that were breeching out in the ocean.
Our final day we drove to the peninsula across from the Morro Fort and then returned to our Airbnb for the evening
That evening we drove to Old San Juan and had a lovely dinner. What a great way to end
our trip in Puerto Rico.
What a grand adventure! We toured the northern part of Puerto Rico in Arecibo, Hatillo, Isabela, and San Juan. We toured the eastern part of PR in Rio Grande, El Yunque, Ceiba, and Vieques.
We drove to the southern part of PR to Guanica where it was arid and dry, then visited back to the east for a short visit Aguailla.
We drove south Rt 149 through the mountainous interior of PR to Ponce and north on Rt 10 and 123 to Arecibo. as well as Rt 10 and west on 111 to San Sebastian.
Tuesday morning Larry and I flew out of San Juan, Puerto Rico on Jet Blue to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (one hour flight) while Chad and Kathy would be flying
back to Raleigh, North Carolina on Frontier. We all leave with some fantastic memories of Puerto Rico.
Kathy and Chad leave with the memories of spotting 104 different birds in this tropical country. Not bad for ten days of adventure.
%#@&*~@! Chad and Kathy's flight was canceled after boarding their plane on Tuesday. They whisked into a rental car business and headed back out to explore. Their friend, Justin, invited them to stay with him. They went birding and explored the other side of El Yunque...finding 3 more birds making their grand total 107. They flew home on the first flight out, Friday...so they enjoyed two more full days of Puerto Rico.
They sent us this picture on Sunday.
Life is good!
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