Puerto Rico

My brother-in-law, Patrick, wanted to surprise Mindy for their anniversary with a vacation to Panama. He invited Brandon and I to go with them. Pat didn't have a passport so we ended up going to Puerto Rico instead. I was so excited to get away with my husband because he has been working so much I barely see him.

It took a full day of traveling to get to Puerto Rico from Boise. Once we arrived we ate at a restaurant across from the airport while we waited for Pat and Mindy. It was very late by the time we arrived at the hotel. It was a really nice hotel! I only slept 4 hours the night before so I was pretty beat.


Unfortunately, we had to sit in on one of those time share type presentations first thing in the morning. No rest for the weary! The presentation was nothing like what I expected it would be. We were one on one with a sales person. The program actually sounded pretty cool. The price tag was outrageous though. Who has $12,000 to put down and then $67,000 financed at 18%? If you do have that kind of money are you really going to be messing with this kind of program? Each time I told them no they came back with another offer. How many times do I have to say NO. Maybe there was a language barrier but I'm pretty sure no means no in both English and Spanish.

We found authentic Puerto Rican food for lunch. We were planning on finding a beach but ended up checking out the rain forest since it was so close. We had a great time hiking a few miles up to see the view.






After hiking we stopped at a grocery store and then found a delicious bakery. For dinner we headed to Luquillo Beach. There are a bunch of food and beverage places all in a row that they call kiosks. I was a little skeptical when I saw a few cats roaming around. Also, we were the only ones in the restaurant we chose. I had the best Halibut I've ever tasted. In fact, everything we ordered was good. After we got back to the hotel we went for a swim. The pool was huge but they had no hot tub.
Culebra Island has one of the top beaches in the world. I had read and been told that in order to catch a ferry you had to be to the ticket booth very early in the morning. Pat talked to our concierge who told him that since it wasn't a weekend day that we didn't have to show up that early. We ended up leaving the hotel around 7:00am. I took some cold medication and felt totally out of it so I slept in the car for a while. Brandon and Mindy waited in line for a couple of hours. By 9:30am we still didn't have tickets. Finally someone else in line told Pat that the tickets for the morning ferry were sold out. It was totally a bummer. As we were walking back to the car, a taxi driver asked if we wanted him to take us to the airport. He explained that if we found four other people we could charter a flight for a reasonable price. It took us a little while but we finally found four other people. When we arrived at the airport the "reasonable" charter company told us that they were sold out for the day. The only other charter company told us they could take us but it would be an hour. The flight was really beautiful and only took around 15 minutes. It was just frustrating that we had blown half they day trying to get to the Island. By the time we arrived and arranged for a rental car we were all starving. We stopped and picked up some sandwiches and then headed for the beach. It really was incredibly beautiful. The water was crystal clear and the sand was white. It was mega hot and humid out though. I was going to lay and take a nap but I knew that I would totally fry. I ended up reading a book while I stood in the water. After a few hours we knew that we should find out about getting tickets for the 5pm ferry back to the main island. We went to the ticket booth and learned that they didn't sell tickets until 4pm. We drove around the Island for a while until the booth opened and then took the ferry back. If I had to do it again I would either get up early enough that there is no question about making the first ferry or I would schedule a charter in advance for around 8 or 9am to get some extra rest. It all worked out in the end but it was a pretty frustrating day. That night we drove into Old Town San Juan for an Italian dinner. Old Town is beautiful at night and there were people everywhere.
Saturday we finally were able to sleep in. That afternoon we drove back to Old Town San Juan and enjoyed some puerto rican food. Then we went and toured the fort. It was also fun exploring the shops in Old Town. I'm not a big fan of shopping but it was really fun to see all the cute little stores. By 5:30pm we knew we had to drive to Fajardo to be on time for our bioluminescent lagoon kayak tour. There are thousands of micro-organisms in the water. When the water is moved it glows. There are only seven areas in the world with this phenomina and four are in Puerto Rico. It was a lot of fun kayaking and so cool seeing the water glow. I think it would be really fun to go again on an overcast rainy night. We didn't finish until nearly midnight. We grabbed fast food on the way back to the hotel and watched part of a movie. I also checked loads. It looked a little bit questionable so we ended up having to get up pretty early the next morning. It was a very long day getting back to Boise but we all made it back without getting stuck anywhere.