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!

Puerto Rico Episode 2

 

We got up on Monday and headed to Fajardo (about a 15 min drive without traffic from our hotel) for an all day snorkel trip with East Island Excursions. We were super excited and I had heard tons of good things about it. When we got there, we found out that the trip had been changed and we were not going to Culebra (a small island near Puerto Rico) because of high waves. So we ended up going to some other islands instead but it was amazing and we saved some money so it worked out okay!

We met a cute couple from Arizona and we ended up chatting and hanging out with them most of the day. They were great people and I love meeting cool people on vacation like that! And luckily for them, we realized that they weren’t on the boat when we were about to leave one of the islands so we told the captain and they waited for them! It pays to make friends.

Here we are doing some sweet moves off the boat into the beautiful water. Dan rocks the toe-touch!

We left on a catamran around 10am and it took about 20 minutes to get to our first stop which was a small island called Icacos. There was a big dark cloud over the area and as we jumped in the water, it started to rain. We started snorkeling around the reef and didn’t even realize that it was pouring! It was really weird to be in the warm water while it was pouring rain! We didn’t mind and it was kind of fun. The rain stopped in about 10 minutes and the clouds cleared up completely! We got to walk on the beach there and enjoy how gorgeous it was.

We had lunch on the boat and it was yummy! They had a big selection of sandwiches, fruit and other food and of course, there was soda and they made virgin pina coladas for us too!

We went to the next island which was called Lobos. This was a private island so we couldn’t go to the island and we were able to snorkel more here. The fish were amazing and there was a coral reef all around the island so we just swam in and out of the different reefs and saw bright fish everywhere. It was really another world while we were snorkeling and I would have not known if it had been 5 hours or 5 minutes. It was weird but so relaxing and really amazing.

Unfortunately, after snorkeling for a while right after lunch, I started feeling a little icky. We went back to the boat and the rocking of the boat didn’t help. I got sick and my lunch (and breakfast) came back up. Luckily it was over quickly and I had a bathroom and no one knew or saw anything. I get motion sickness really easily so I wasn’t too surprised but I felt fine right away and so it was just a minor hiccup during the day!

Our last stop was a tiny deserted island called Palominito and it was AWESOME! It was the island used to film Pirates of the Caribbean 3 where he gets stuck on an island. There was a clump of trees and plants in the middle and the entire island was about the size of a football field.

We didn’t snorkel here but just swam around and walked around the island. It was so beautiful!

Pictures on Palominito.

I wanted a jumping picture because that’s what people do in cool places right? I don’t know…

After the snorkel trip, we drove back to the hotel and got cleaned up then went to the Kiosks for dinner. We ate at La Parilla which was one of the nicer and less casual kiosks. The view was really cool because the beach was right behind us This was the part of the beach that we walked along earlier and it was dirty but the small part right behind La Parilla was really clean and landscaped. It was a pretty sweet view.

Dinner was yummy and we both had fish and Danny got a side order of Mofongo (mashed plantains). Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish we had heard a lot about so we tried it out. It was pretty good and similar to mashed potatoes. They had these cool flowers made from leaves that I took home with me. We went back to the hotel and I was really craving chocolate so we got some chocolate flan from the restaurant below our hotel and it hit the spot for sure!

On Tuesday we went to El Yunque rainforest. It was really close to our hotel and we had lunch at a small panaderia near the entrance. It was a pretty sketchy looking place, but our sandwiches were great and the people there were so nice! I really love places and experiences like that.

We did a zip line adventure in the rainforest and we loved it! The guides were great and fun and the views were amazing.

This is our guide and he looks scary here but he was a sweetheart. They were so fun to chat with and they were funny and really nice people.

The zip line had about 10 different lines that we unhooked and re-hooked onto. The last one was at the top of the tower below and it was a few stories high! The views were awesome and we had a great time.

At the top of the tower getting ready to go down the final line!

The office for the zip line was like a tree house in the rain forest. It was so pretty and relaxing and a really cool place to hang out.

Below are a few videos we took. The first one is when we were walking along the kiosks after dinner and the second is Dan holding the camera during his last zip line. It might make you sick or dizzy!

Episode 3 coming up soon!