Where in the World are the Schlafmanns?: Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican Sunshine

After four days of being warm, returning to NYC was a little difficult, BUT Spring does finally seem to be arriving here, so that takes a bit of the sting out of it. Julie & I had a simply perfect time!! It was so good just to be able to spend some uninterrupted time together...something I don't we'd had more than a few hours of since I left for Tonga. Here are a few memories and photos from our time in Puerto Rico.

Day One

View of San Juan as we flew in ... after landing we drove 2 - 3 hours to the Western (and less commercialized) side of the island. On our way, we stopped at "Taco Maker," sort of a Puerto Rican Taco Bell. It wasn't too bad...we were also very hungry!

We arrived at our guest house to find this awesome lamp waiting for us in our room!!

After our long travel day we weren't up for much more than dinner and relaxing in the tropical warmth ... and it was wonderful!

Day Two

After breakfast at our guest house, I chased a few of the very large lizards around - I was glad that they were outside and not inside our room! I couldn't believe this one with a whole moth in its mouth!

We started our day by heading to the El Faro lighthouse which was just a 1/2 mile from our guest house, then headed to a small beach to get in some serious relaxing!

We stopped for lunch in the town of Boqueron for a late lunch and our first taste of Puerto Rican beer - Medalla light. We were completely surprised to see these cars and many others like them parked around the town.

After our lunch in Boqueron, we headed to the large public beach ... although there were quite a few people, we really enjoyed all of the trees (and bathroom facilities!)

When we arrived in San German, we came again to the realization how bad our guide book was. It listed the street that this old church was on, but did not provide even a basic map of the town...we assumed it must be a very small place with the church being right off the main drag...we were VERY surprised to see what a large city San German was when we arrived. We have no idea how we actually found the church, but we did and we were SO excited!

Our last stop of the day was a trip into a Mangrove swamp to watch glowing micro-organisms glow in the water as a young Puerto Rican boy swam around stirring it up...who could turn that down? It was actually pretty cool to take a small boat through a Mangrove labyrinth until we arrived in a very calm still area, then to see the black water turn glowing green just by being stirred up!

Day Three

We had decided that today, we would go for a hike and to see a waterfall in PR's "central corridor" region. On the map it appeared that it would be a 1 - 2 hour drive to our destination...appearances can be decieving, can't they??

This is the first of many stops we took to gawk at the beautiful area we were driving through

We stopped for lunch in a little town up in the hills ... this whole plate of food for $4.50 ... and it was delicious! This church was in the center of town - something I love about Latin American countries...every town, no matter what the size has a center square with at least one church.

We drove through some beautiful, LUSH countryside...I love the tropics!

After 3 - 4 hours of driving on extremely windy roads which were barely a single lane wide (for 2 way traffic!), we finally found this beautiful waterfall.

Sunset as we drove back to our guest house...

Day Four

On our last full day in PR, we decided to just relax and relax we did. We spent the entire day napping on the beach and doing a little snorkeling - it was a fantastic way to spend the day. It's been such a long time since I've been to a beach, I just tried to soak it all in!

Day Five

On our last day in Puerto Rico, we decided to do a quick exploration of Old San Juan on our way to the airport - we were so glad that we did not miss this beautiful and fun city!

Remnants of the Old San Juan fort ... massive structure!