Day 1

We made it! Dave & I - along with our friends Jon & Amber started the fun today, and itwas SO amazing! We began our day bright and early in San Juan - renting our cute little Mitsubishi Lancer. After breakfast we headed straight out to El Yunque Rainforest (or National Park - as it were...). The area was so lush - thick with bamboo, ferns, viney trees and so many other varieties of foliage! We made several stops during our drive through - and got in a mini-hike. We saw a monkey - tons of birds, butterflies, and there is no telling what all saw us!? Yikes!
After leaving the rainforest we drove over to Luquillo and made our first trip into the water - it was a beautiful beach with coral colored sand. THe beach was totally dead - apparently this is the "cold" season in P.R. - and the locals stay away from the beach. Today it was in the high 80s... funny - cold?! We spent a while lounging on the beach, then headed to Fajabra on the east side of the island.

In Fajabra, we caught a plane (LITTLE!!! A 10 seater) with another few people - including a nice couple who filled us in on all the "hot spots". Anyway - we flew over to Culebra Island (snake island), which is a small island - about 7 miles by 2 miles. We rented mopeds and immediately headed to Flamenco beach. It was SO beautiful - this beach is rated one of the top 10 beautiful beaches in the world. Gorgeous white sands, and again - very few people there. We ate yummy bbq'd chicken on scewers, that some of the locals were making.

After leaving Flamenco beach, we headed across the island to Playa Zoni, stopping to get some fresh fruit - nothing like a fresh papaya & bananas! Anyway - Playa Zoni is supposed to be home to many sea turtles - sadly, we saw none :(. So - after a short stint in the shade, we took the mopeds through the hilly (& holey) roads (barely making it up some) to Melones beach. This was somewhat rocky, but very peaceful - NO other people were there. Very pretty!




Our time on Culebra was coming to a close, so we headed into Dewey - the main town (SO small!) and checked out some shops - got some Empenadas and other pastries and made one more drive through town before heading back to the airport. We flew back again on another very small plane and caught the sunset from our viewpoint. It was spectacular! After arriving back in Fajabra, we drove back to Isla Verde (where our hotel is) showered, and then headed out for a late dinner. We ate at this Puerto Rican restaurante called Platos - it was absolutely, without a doubt the BEST meal I've EVER had! For appetizers we had fritters of various types with a guava dipping sauce and a lightly fried spinach & risotto balls with a spicy sauce. Dave & Jon both had Tiger prawns wrapped with a tender, juicy steak and a yummy house rice with beans, sausage etc. I had the Mahi-mahi with a guava - coconut sauce, and then had ripe sauteed plantains - YUM! Amber had a pork chop with guava - Overall - the food was amazing!! It's hard to believe that we have another week to do fun stuff.