Puerto Rico Episode 3

 

So after we went ziplining on Tuesday, we went on a tour of El Yunque Rainforest. It was beautiful and a really awesome thing to see. The picture below was taken from the inside of the car so the splotches are the dirty windshield! But it was so lush and green everywhere.

We decided to do a hike to La Mina falls since we heard it was really pretty and an easy hike. It was only about a mile or so each way on a nice path through the rainforest. Some parts were kind of steep but it was beautiful! It was pretty humid but we were completely shaded by all the trees. We loved hearing the coqui frogs; they were so loud!

I call these “jumanji vines” and I was afraid one might sneak across the path and wrap around my ankle and pull me into the forest…yikes.

We got to the falls and they were gorgeous! There were a lot of people playing in them and of course, Dan jumped right in! The water was like Utah lakes/rivers…AKA COLD. It did feel nice but I didn’t go in completely. I just cooled off in the shallower areas and I loved it.

We drove back through the rain forest a little more before leaving around 6 when it closed. We ended up eating dinner at KFC and it really hit the spot! We were trying not to go to chain restaurants that we can find at home, but it was nice to get something we were more used to and Dan was dying for free refills since they only give you one can at every other place we had eaten before.

Wednesday we got up and checked out of our hotel. These are a few more shots of our hotel before we left. The boat/counter is where we ordered breakfast every morning.

This is opposite of the boat where we ate breakfast every morning. We each had scrambled eggs with ham, toasted french bread and juice for breakfast every morning! It was yummy and the only thing we wanted was a banana! We love bananas and eat them every.single.day.

Below is the outside view of our hotel. Our room was on the top left and the ocean was directly behind the hotel.

We drove into San Juan (about 1 hour drive) to check out Old San Juan. It was a bit of an adventure getting there because once we got to San Juan from the GPS, we didn’t know where Old San Juan was and there are no signs anywhere! It’s crazy how hard it is to get around there and weird that there are really no street signs, or signs to city center or Old San Juan. That was the case everywhere we went in Puerto Rico.

The buildings were all so colorful and I absolutely loved it. It was so fun and bright and so cool to see all the different colored buildings. It felt very European to me and sometimes I really felt like I was back in Italy when we were walking and driving on cobblestone streets in San Juan!

We finally found the Old San Juan area and checked out the forts. It was pretty interesting because they were so old and used in the 1600s as well as all way up to WWII. They were right on the ocean with beautiful views.

We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant and it ended up being really good. We were sitting outside next to another family with a grandma, two sisters and 5 kids. We slowly realized they were all dressed modestly and we realized they were LDS! We ended up talking to them and they were from Rigby, Idaho. They were there for some sort of grocer’s convention since their family owned some grocery stores in Idaho. The women and kids were enjoying the city while the men were working. Not too shabby!

We were a little tired and sweaty from walking outside all day. I got some sweet farmer tan lines to prove it. The picture below is the street we ate lunch on.

At the end of the street was this area with about 5 jillion pigeons! It was so weird and really creepy. They weren’t scared of anyone and people walking around by them had pigeons flying all over them and sitting on them! It was freaking me out so I watched from a safe distance.

It reminded me of the homeless pigeon lady from Home Alone 2. Weird right?

Episode 4 aka The Final Installment will be coming up next. Don’t say I didn’t warn you that there would be a lot of pictures and posts! We had a blast so there is just a lot to say and a ton of pictures!