By the time we got to old San Juan and found a parking spot, we were all starving so we stopped at pretty much the first restaurant we saw - Genesis Restaurante. I tried chicken mofongo - a traditional dish of mashed plantains covered with chicken. I did not think it was anything special, however the pina coladas at that place are something to die for!
Peter and I dropped off Phil at the airport and then joined the rest of the group at Castillo de San Cristobal for a tour of the fortress that used to protect the old San Juan enclosed in its walls. After the fortress, we hung out and explored the old San Juan with its colorful collonial architecture, grabed some pastries, and checked out the cruise ship docked at the port.
At one point we made it to the Plaza de Baldorioty de Castro where Divashree saw a bunch of pigeons and decided to be a little kid and run through the flock. Well, it did not work out exactly as she planned:
Aparently the jungles close at 6pm so with all of our adventures the last couple of days we could not get there on time. So today we got up early (no surprise there) and headed straight for El Yunque rain forest. Even though it “opens” at 7am, the visitor “centers”, where one can get trail maps, do not open until 9am. That would explain why there was absolutely no traffic when we got there a bit before 9.
Our first stop was La Coca falls, just by the road. After making some moderates efforts to get closer to the falls, we got some pictures taken and headed further. First, we decided to hike down to La Mina waterfall and found out that the trail was not exactly natural. Instead of tracking through a jungle, we were walking on a concrete pathway with stairs and other features one would not expect at a rain forest. The rain portion of the rain forest did materialize in a form of a torrential downpour during our hike.
By the time we got to the falls, we were completely drenched, which removed any doubts on where we should jump underneath the falls for some pictures. After lots of those, some people made it further down the stream for more pictures and we “hiked” back out to our car. At that point we decided not to go on the trail to the top of the rain forest because everyone was not looking forward to marching along another concrete pahtway for a couple more hours. Nor did we see much in the forest that we were dying to see - no birds or animal or any interesting looking vegitation. With that in mind, and because Phil had to catch his flight back in a few hours, we jumped in the cars and headed for old San Juan.
An amazing day trip sail on a catamaran in Virgin Islands sparked my interest in saling a few years ago so since we were going back to the Caribbean, I decided to introduce the other folks in our group to it. I spent a great deal of time trying to find a smaller catamaran just for our group, but in the end booked us on the Spread Eagle II cat since I could not find anything smaller. Once again, we had to get up early and make our way back to the east side town of Fajardo to board the cat. The party started with some pina coladas while we were still waiting to board (before 10am).
Once on board, we motored out of the marina and set sails for a nearby island where we ended up spending the whole day. We anchored at the beach there and were directed to a snorkeling spot at the end of the beach. The only problem was that there were four other catamarans with 30-40 people each “parked” at the beach as well, so it was a very crowded snorkeling spot - I definitely saw more people than fish in there. Soon I got tired of getting bumped into left and right and went back to the boat where they were ready with some lunch.
After lunch we sailed around the island to another snorkeling spot. It was deeper waters and much more coral build up providing for some nice snorkeling up until the other boats arived and we had a zoo of people in there again. We hung out on the boat, doing some diving off the sides and just swimming around for a little bit before setting sails back to the marina.
While it did not compare to my Virgin Islands sailing experience and did not really live up to my expectations, the rest of the group seemed to love it and some people have asked me about sailing instruction. I am hoping that we can work out something next year to go down somewhere in Caribbean and get certified for bareboat charter. This way we can get a boat all to ourselves and go sailing and scuba diving anywhere we want
We had a couple certified scuba divers in our group so they suggested we book a scuba trip. A few of us decided to go for that so we were up bright and early on the way to Fajardo on the east side of the island to go scuba. The newbies had to watch an intro video about the diving techniques, signs, and equipment before we all headed out to a boat, loaded our gear and got on our way.
Our first dive was at a shallow spot of about 15-20 feet. Our instructor walked us through the procedure and the signs on the boat, we put our equipment on, and jumped into the water. He took one of us at a time down to the bottom and once everyone was there, we practiced procedures for blowing the water from our goggles while under water and replacing the regulator in our mouth. After that, we went for a quick trip at the bottom.
Once we got back into the boat, we had some snacks and fruit and headed out to another diving spot nearby. It was definitely a much more happening spot - we saw two sea turtles, a barracuda, and lots of fish and coral. At this spot, the sea floor does a quick dive, almost like a canyon, but we could not go that far down, only the certified divers could. Instead, we swam alongside the “wall” and got as far down as 55 feet and it was a pretty amazing experience.
I was always a little bit afraid of going deep under water - take me to 10,000 feet in an unpressurized airplane, and I will be fine with that, but 10 feet below the sea level - not so much. After this trip and experiencing the amazing sights “down there”, I am hooked and will be looking into scuba certification at some point this summer
While I was still in Iowa, someone stumbled upon a nice deal on Spirit Airlines flight from Chicago to Puerto Rico so a bunch of people went ahead and booked their tickets. Since I was not sure if I would still be there, I waited it out and ended up booking my flight on American Airlines using my AAdvantage miles. Strangely enought, it was cheaper to book in first class than in coach (since the cheaper coach class seats were already sold out for Memorial day travel). I did not mind the bit of extra comfort on a four hour flight either.
On the way there, I had an hour and a half layover in Dallas, so I texted a buddy of mine who flies for American Eagle out of there to see if he was at the airport. As luck would have it, Trent was just pulling in to one of the gates so it was nice to meet up for a quick lunch and catch up. The flights themselves were not too bad. I was surprised that American does not do any service in first class on the ground, not even a glass of water - lame…
There were eleven of us total, so we ended up getting a van and a car in San Juan and drove out to Loiza, about 40 minutes east of San Juan. There we had two condos reserved at the Aquatica complex. It took us a while and when we finally got there, it looked nothing like the rest of the town, which was pretty run down. Anyways, our condo was on the third floor, with a spacious living room and kitchen, three bedrooms and a spiral staircase to the entertainment room and the exit to the roof where we found a grill and some sets of tables and chairs. Nice! The gated complex had a bunch of swimming pools, a hot tub, basketball, tennis, and sand volleyball courts, and, of course, beach access. There were also some surfing boards and kayaks in the storage, but we were never there during the day to check them out. All of that for about $22 per person per night. Not a bad deal at all
