Back in Austin. Puerto Rico was great. It was just really really good to escape the wintery weather (even what passes for it here in Central Texas) for a week of sun and humidity ala the tropics.
I missed my morning flight from Austin to Houston by about five minutes, but I was put on the very next flight with no extra charge and made my connection to San Juan, no problem. I've been extra lucky in that sort of thing lately.
I went with two friends of mine, Maria and Lu, and two of thier friends. They are all from San Antonio and met up in Houston for the same connecting flight. Got into San Juan mid afternoon and picked up our car. Maria is the mastermind behind the whole trip. She's been setting it up for months. The main reason I was invited along was because her initial planned group of people had a bunch of dropouts, I helped her out by installing a new furnace for her condo a little while back, and we've been close friends for just about forever. Originally she had a beach house lined up somewhere in south Puerto Rico, I think. But with all the people that cancelled on her she switched to a thirteenth floor condo in Luquillo, along the northern coast of Puerto Rico and about a little more than a half hour outside of San Juan. It turned out to be a GREAT location. It made San Juan easily accessable, and since we would spend a lot of our time around there, it made good sense. And the condo itself was really nice. It was a bit of an adventure getting into it; the realty company had misprinted the date of our arrival and had us showing up in December of 2008. We had to call the owner of the condo in New England and finally he got ahold of someone and we didn't have to spend our first night sleeping in the lobby (yay!)
The condo, being on the thirteenth floor, had a tremendous view with a balcony facing out towards the ocean. Not only that, but it was a corner unit, so from the balcony you could look around the side of the building down onto the town of Luquillo and to the jungle covered mountains back into the interior of the island. Fantastic. Maria's two friends, Sophia and Trish, took one of the rooms with a huge bed. Sophia has a pretty serious medical condition (as in she's waiting for a double lung transplant), so she wasn't able to do some of the more strenuous activities, but she had a great time just relaxing and getting to be in the Carribbean in December. Trish was always around to help her out with her meds and keep her company when she wanted to go stuff. That's an amazing friend right there. Maria and Lu took the other room with a huuuge bed and I ended up in the kids' room. It was fun. I had my own room even if I was sleeping on the bottom of a white kiddy-style bunkbed.
I woke up early our first morning there (well...actually I woke up early pretty much every morning...it's become a habit now) and caught the sunrise from the balcony....
After getting into the condo so late when we arrived, we changed up the plan. We spent the day leisurely taking in Old San Juan and the El Morro fort. It was fun to see Old San Juan decorated for the holidays, Carribbean style. El Morro was impressive with it's walls and battlements. I had seen it five years ago when I was in Puerto Rico for a long weekend break while stationed at Guantanamo Bay. Back then I hadn't actually gone inside the fort itself, but this time we did. It had some amazing views of the ocean and of Old San Juan.
Maria, Lu, and I went and visited the Camuy Caverns and the Aricebo Radio telescope. They were in the only part of the island that was difficult for us to get to, the Western side. It meant having to drive thru San Juan traffic and then around the mountains to the western central part of the island. And passing through about twelve toll booths along the way. The Camuy Caverns was a rather short tour, but the caverns and the sinkhole that they sit in were incredible. I've been to Carlsbad Caverns, which seems more extensive...but Camuy is actually probably larger, just not as much is accessable...and it's in the middle of a jungle.
It's sunk severl hundred feet down into the ground and was eerily beautiful the way caverns are. When it opened back up again to the sky you could see the jungle at the top of the sinkhole, waaaay above you, and the rock walls were covered with lush green plants.
Getting from Camuy to the radio telescope was something of an adventure. I was extremely lucky that Maria and Lu took all the driving while we were there. I don't know how they held on to their sanity amongst twisty jungle roads, torrential downpours, untrustworthy road maps hell bent on leading us to our deaths, and Puerto Rican drivers. That was easily the single worst day of driving on the island...and we ended up spending most of in the car...but we found the radio telescope. It was the huge sciency array that was used in the final sequence of one James Bond movie and in Contact. It had an interesting lobby filled with exhibits and games that appeal to the stargazing nerd. We were quickly ushered through said lobby and into a theater to watch a documentary about the place...which under normal circumstances, I'm sure would have been very interesting and informatiive, but we had just done a ton of walking at the caverns and we still wanted to make it to Ponce in time to see the beach. so we bailed and went out to look at the dish itself. It was huge (it shows up clearly on sattellite photos from space...google earth it) and very impressive looking. And odd siting in the bowl of a jungle mountain.
From there we tried to make it to Ponce. The idea was to take the Highway number 10 strait south to Ponce....like it showed on the roadmap the rental agency had provided. However....
the roadmap failed to mention that Highway 10 is very very far from being completed...as in...after about twenty minutes of fair traveling bliss....it suddenly deadends....just at a wall of jungle. We had to back track and then spend the next two or three hours on tightly winding mountain roads...roads that don't look like they were ever intended to be traveled by more than one vehicle abreast...certainly not in opposite directions. It was stressful.
We found Ponce, but not in time to really make to the beach. We drove from there all the way back to Luquillo along the coastline, managing not to get (very) lost the whole way back.
Maria, Lu, and I also went on an adventure tour in the jungles near El Yunque Carribbean National Forest. It was in the same jungle, but on private land outside of the park. It was run by a group of extremely funny, competent, and eco-friendly guides. It was a fucking blast. I was a bit nervous about it at first. I don't like heights...they don't frighten me terribly, but I do get vertigo (but if I look UP...not down...that's the wierd part) and I have a slight fascination with falling from high places (ask my parents about me jumping off of houses and apartment balconies). Anyhow. We did a bit of hiking and a LOT of rock climbing and terra ferrata cliff face walks. We were hooked up by Drings to safety lines pretty much the entire time. I still managed a couple of spectacular slips and falls onto my face....no serious damage done though, and I'm sure it was highly entertaining to everyone else. We also did a couple of jumps off of high rocks into rain-fed mountain pools. good times.
A few days later we made it back to the actual El Yunque park and saw the rain forest from the trails. Gorgeous. One of the greenest places I have ever seen. A completely different kind of green from...say...Ireland or Olympic Forest...but that same kind of verdant abundance. Beautiful. We hiked one trail all the way up until we were in a Cloud Forest...the whole area was pretty much constantly within a cloud. Amazing. And we got to see some incredible waterfalls and streams.
We spent some more time around San Juan in the rain, just wandering about...looking in shops and eating a fair amount of local fare. We found a couple of great spots in Luquillo. A little pandaria (bread store) and a little resaurant that had pretty good food (mmmm plaintains and shrimp gumbo).
I got back into Austin last week. It was actually warm when I got home...it had gotten up to 80 that day, but it has since dropped down into the twenties at night. ah well.
I've got some photos in a set up on Flickr of the trip. They are
here
hopefully I'll get some photos of the adventure tour soon. I left them in Maria's luggage, so I'll have to wait a little bit on that.
Work's been dead slow since I've been back. In the week I've been home, I have worked ONE day. the rest and laziness is nice, but I sure as hell can't live on that.
oi...Christmas is coming up soon. enh
and right now I REALLY REALLY love this video....and I don't even smoke pot:
I love that pufferfish.
I missed my morning flight from Austin to Houston by about five minutes, but I was put on the very next flight with no extra charge and made my connection to San Juan, no problem. I've been extra lucky in that sort of thing lately.
I went with two friends of mine, Maria and Lu, and two of thier friends. They are all from San Antonio and met up in Houston for the same connecting flight. Got into San Juan mid afternoon and picked up our car. Maria is the mastermind behind the whole trip. She's been setting it up for months. The main reason I was invited along was because her initial planned group of people had a bunch of dropouts, I helped her out by installing a new furnace for her condo a little while back, and we've been close friends for just about forever. Originally she had a beach house lined up somewhere in south Puerto Rico, I think. But with all the people that cancelled on her she switched to a thirteenth floor condo in Luquillo, along the northern coast of Puerto Rico and about a little more than a half hour outside of San Juan. It turned out to be a GREAT location. It made San Juan easily accessable, and since we would spend a lot of our time around there, it made good sense. And the condo itself was really nice. It was a bit of an adventure getting into it; the realty company had misprinted the date of our arrival and had us showing up in December of 2008. We had to call the owner of the condo in New England and finally he got ahold of someone and we didn't have to spend our first night sleeping in the lobby (yay!)
The condo, being on the thirteenth floor, had a tremendous view with a balcony facing out towards the ocean. Not only that, but it was a corner unit, so from the balcony you could look around the side of the building down onto the town of Luquillo and to the jungle covered mountains back into the interior of the island. Fantastic. Maria's two friends, Sophia and Trish, took one of the rooms with a huge bed. Sophia has a pretty serious medical condition (as in she's waiting for a double lung transplant), so she wasn't able to do some of the more strenuous activities, but she had a great time just relaxing and getting to be in the Carribbean in December. Trish was always around to help her out with her meds and keep her company when she wanted to go stuff. That's an amazing friend right there. Maria and Lu took the other room with a huuuge bed and I ended up in the kids' room. It was fun. I had my own room even if I was sleeping on the bottom of a white kiddy-style bunkbed.
I woke up early our first morning there (well...actually I woke up early pretty much every morning...it's become a habit now) and caught the sunrise from the balcony....
After getting into the condo so late when we arrived, we changed up the plan. We spent the day leisurely taking in Old San Juan and the El Morro fort. It was fun to see Old San Juan decorated for the holidays, Carribbean style. El Morro was impressive with it's walls and battlements. I had seen it five years ago when I was in Puerto Rico for a long weekend break while stationed at Guantanamo Bay. Back then I hadn't actually gone inside the fort itself, but this time we did. It had some amazing views of the ocean and of Old San Juan.
Maria, Lu, and I went and visited the Camuy Caverns and the Aricebo Radio telescope. They were in the only part of the island that was difficult for us to get to, the Western side. It meant having to drive thru San Juan traffic and then around the mountains to the western central part of the island. And passing through about twelve toll booths along the way. The Camuy Caverns was a rather short tour, but the caverns and the sinkhole that they sit in were incredible. I've been to Carlsbad Caverns, which seems more extensive...but Camuy is actually probably larger, just not as much is accessable...and it's in the middle of a jungle.
It's sunk severl hundred feet down into the ground and was eerily beautiful the way caverns are. When it opened back up again to the sky you could see the jungle at the top of the sinkhole, waaaay above you, and the rock walls were covered with lush green plants.
Getting from Camuy to the radio telescope was something of an adventure. I was extremely lucky that Maria and Lu took all the driving while we were there. I don't know how they held on to their sanity amongst twisty jungle roads, torrential downpours, untrustworthy road maps hell bent on leading us to our deaths, and Puerto Rican drivers. That was easily the single worst day of driving on the island...and we ended up spending most of in the car...but we found the radio telescope. It was the huge sciency array that was used in the final sequence of one James Bond movie and in Contact. It had an interesting lobby filled with exhibits and games that appeal to the stargazing nerd. We were quickly ushered through said lobby and into a theater to watch a documentary about the place...which under normal circumstances, I'm sure would have been very interesting and informatiive, but we had just done a ton of walking at the caverns and we still wanted to make it to Ponce in time to see the beach. so we bailed and went out to look at the dish itself. It was huge (it shows up clearly on sattellite photos from space...google earth it) and very impressive looking. And odd siting in the bowl of a jungle mountain.
From there we tried to make it to Ponce. The idea was to take the Highway number 10 strait south to Ponce....like it showed on the roadmap the rental agency had provided. However....
the roadmap failed to mention that Highway 10 is very very far from being completed...as in...after about twenty minutes of fair traveling bliss....it suddenly deadends....just at a wall of jungle. We had to back track and then spend the next two or three hours on tightly winding mountain roads...roads that don't look like they were ever intended to be traveled by more than one vehicle abreast...certainly not in opposite directions. It was stressful.
We found Ponce, but not in time to really make to the beach. We drove from there all the way back to Luquillo along the coastline, managing not to get (very) lost the whole way back.
Maria, Lu, and I also went on an adventure tour in the jungles near El Yunque Carribbean National Forest. It was in the same jungle, but on private land outside of the park. It was run by a group of extremely funny, competent, and eco-friendly guides. It was a fucking blast. I was a bit nervous about it at first. I don't like heights...they don't frighten me terribly, but I do get vertigo (but if I look UP...not down...that's the wierd part) and I have a slight fascination with falling from high places (ask my parents about me jumping off of houses and apartment balconies). Anyhow. We did a bit of hiking and a LOT of rock climbing and terra ferrata cliff face walks. We were hooked up by Drings to safety lines pretty much the entire time. I still managed a couple of spectacular slips and falls onto my face....no serious damage done though, and I'm sure it was highly entertaining to everyone else. We also did a couple of jumps off of high rocks into rain-fed mountain pools. good times.
A few days later we made it back to the actual El Yunque park and saw the rain forest from the trails. Gorgeous. One of the greenest places I have ever seen. A completely different kind of green from...say...Ireland or Olympic Forest...but that same kind of verdant abundance. Beautiful. We hiked one trail all the way up until we were in a Cloud Forest...the whole area was pretty much constantly within a cloud. Amazing. And we got to see some incredible waterfalls and streams.
We spent some more time around San Juan in the rain, just wandering about...looking in shops and eating a fair amount of local fare. We found a couple of great spots in Luquillo. A little pandaria (bread store) and a little resaurant that had pretty good food (mmmm plaintains and shrimp gumbo).
I got back into Austin last week. It was actually warm when I got home...it had gotten up to 80 that day, but it has since dropped down into the twenties at night. ah well.
I've got some photos in a set up on Flickr of the trip. They are
here
hopefully I'll get some photos of the adventure tour soon. I left them in Maria's luggage, so I'll have to wait a little bit on that.
Work's been dead slow since I've been back. In the week I've been home, I have worked ONE day. the rest and laziness is nice, but I sure as hell can't live on that.
oi...Christmas is coming up soon. enh
and right now I REALLY REALLY love this video....and I don't even smoke pot:
I love that pufferfish.
I didn't understand it either, which is half the reason I stopped breathing.