Puerto Rico - Day 2 - Day on Vieques - an island off THE island

Ahhh, what a refreshing night of sleep in our humid as hell tin tent! We woke up feeling particularly sticky and already ready for a shower when it would still be a couple days until we got a chance.

We headed back down the mountain in our tent, stopping at lookouts along the way to check out the gorgeous view which I actually have a picture of from Adam's camera!



Our plan was to head back into town to pick up the permits that are required to camp nearly anywhere in Puerto Rico. Once we made it back into San Juan we caught a quick breakfast (we made complete fools of ourselves trying to get in because you apparently have to ring a doorbell to get into fast food restaurants around there....crime rate maybe high?) well waiting for the park office to open. Hah! Apparently the park office is closed for a very extended holiday for all of December and January. Oh, well for legal camping...

Since the bioluminescent bays are best to see on nights when the moon is nearly gone from the sky, we planned on heading over to the small island of Vieques and spending the night there. Knowing that the island was on the east side of PR, Dana managed to find a small dotted line on our PR map that had a little ferry symbol - to Vieques! Sweet! We headed to our departure city - Fajardo on the east coast of Puerto Rico.

We spotted this HUGE iguana right downtown Fajardo!


The ride over on the ferry was gorgeous and we arrived at Isabel Segunda on the Northern coast of the island. We found a small surf shop where we got the scoop on the best company to use for seeing the biobays - the tour happened to set out from Esperanza which is located on the southern coast of the island. Now, Vieques being an island and all seems to distort the islanders reality of distance - they made Esperanza seem like it was a days drive away when in fact it was a short 5 mile walk across the island.

After a delicious lunch, we began our hike across the island and within a mile of hiking we were already picked up on the side of the road by local who just happened to work for the exact company that we had scheduled our biobay tour with!

We arrived in Esperanza, a beautiful touristy town with a row of tour shops and restaurants on the street opposite the beach. We walked around the small town, watched an amazing sunset, and caught a late dinner before we met up with our tour company. The three of us, plus a couple of families were driven out on a bumpy dirt road in a van where our kayaks were waiting for us. Dana and I were in the same kayak, well Adam got stuck with the tour guide - who bet that I couldn't get a good picture of the biobay because it was near impossible.

We kayaked out and started to notice the blueish glow that started to surround our paddles as we navigated through the water. If you scooped your hand through the water it looked like blue glitter would trickle over your hand and the fish that darted through the water looked like shooting stars! We got to an area that was deep enough to swim around in without touching the bays murky bottom and we spent about 20 minutes swimming around in the bay. It was a surreal experience! But, it turns out that my waterproof camera was not so appreciative of the biobays as it malfunctioned and would not take pictures for the rest of the trip! Grrrr the tour guide won the bet!

After the tour, the three of us wandered down the strip of sand away from the crowded tourist section to find a secluded section of sand to pitch our tent on. We found a perfect spot right in between two bays and set up camp. We passed around our bottle of Don Q Anejo (definitely not as good as silver!) with our newly discovered favorite mixer - Carrot Orange juice.

The temperature continued to drop as we drank our rum on the beach and we spent the night in our tent attempting to sleep through the chilly, chilly night WITHOUT our sleeping bags. We had neglected to bring them to Vieques so we wouldn't have to carry them around everywhere with us (oh, and Adam had neglected to bring one to Puerto Rico period!). We got a very sparse amount of sleep in one of the most amazing camp spots ever!

Puerto Rico - Day 1 - Midnight hikes, coquis, and our tin tent!

Dana and I, best friends from Georgia Tech, had been looking for an exciting adventure to fill part of our first christmas vacation post starting "real" jobs. I found airfare deals to Puerto Rico and emailed Dana, within a couple hours she had replied with a simple, "I'm in!" email and I booked our tickets. Dana made a call to our good friend Adam, and he was in for an adventure as well! December 29th - January 6th the three of us were going to have a helluva time!

Dana drove down to Atlanta from Nashville the night before, we spent our time making sure our "essential pack" was equipped with the tent, first aid kit, headlights, inflatable tubes (yes, 100% essential!), trail mix, and any other spare ends and odds that we deemed necessary. All packed, we caught a couple hours of sleep before our early flight out in the morning. Adam would be meeting us in Puerto Rico as he was flying out from LAX.

Dana and I got a LOT of funny looks walking through the Atlanta airport in our hiking boots (mine were actually still wet & smelly from a caving trip the previous weekend) and helmets on our head (if we attached them to our huge backpacking packs they managed to swing and hit people). Everyone wanted to know where we were flying off to and we more than amused security! Our flight to our connection in Miami went without a hitch, and I found it amusing that when purchasing lunch in Miami and trying to switch to better seats for our next flight we were already met with a language barrier. Miami is still technically in the US, right? Oh, well a good chance to try to practice my limited Spanish.

Adam met us at our gate in Puerto Rico and we went off to collect our luggage. We spent a good hour panicked, thinking that our "essential pack" had not made it to the island. No pack = no place to sleep! Thankfully, the pack arrived and we hopped into our small rental car that was ours for the week of exploring!

It was too late by this time to try to get permits for camping in El Yunque National Forest - a real Rainforest, so we headed down to Old San Juan to explore for the couple hours left of daylight. After finding a parking spot, we wandered away from the port area that was filled to the brink with tourists. We wandered along the city walls until we saw Castillo San Felipe on top of a lush green hill. The three of us kinda think alike, and before we knew it we were all on top of the hill and exploring what we could of the fort.

Seeing a creepy looking cemetery - Cementerio Maria Magdalena, we decide that a closer look at the creepiness is a reason to walk outside of the city walls. I mean, my opinion is that the closer to the water...the nicer the houses....apparently going outside the city walls in Old San Juan = sketchiness! After walking outside the walls and feeling like every man, women, child, and pet staring at us like we more than out of place and unwelcome...the whole time only walking further, and futher from the only entrance point back into the city walls (thinking we could find another way back into the walls if we walked just a little further....) we finally turned around & made it back inside.

Dinner was overpriced, but tasty at Mira Bueno in downtown Old San Juan.

We decided that we didn't want to waste money on a hotel and the word hostel is pretty much nonexistent in Puerto Rico...so we headed in our car to El Yunque Rainforest even though we knew you were suppose to have permits to camp...we couldn't think of a better option than a bunch of wilderness to make us feel right at home for sleeping. We picked up the necessary and amazing Don Q (most delicious rum ever!) at a gas station on our way to the rainforest.

Getting into the forest, we rolled down our windows even though it was raining to let the sounds of the forest surround us (primarily Coquis!) as we wound up and down the mountains. The sign at the entry to El Yunque clearly said that it was closed after dark, but then again the gate was wide open, so we drove right in! About halfway up, we were passed by a police officer who immediately stopped and had us roll down our window to talk to him. Trying in my very broken Spanish to explain that we were camping by literally charading a roof over my head (yes, I now know its acampar) and that el permitio officio esta cerrado (hah!), I think he finally got so frustrated he just waved us onwards.

Finally arriving where we deemed would be a good place to sleep (in our tin tent) we decided that we donned our head lamps and went for a midnight hike in the rain. Stepping out of the car, I nearly squished a gigantic snail....talking HUGE by American standards of snails! Adam went behind the locked bathrooms to pee, and immediately yelled at us to come there....questionly we went behind the bathrooms to see our first and only Coqui of the trip right in the corner where Adam was about to pee! Trust me, you will hear them the ENTIRE time you are in Puerto Rico, but rarely will you get the chance to see one!

The three of us slowly walked down the winding rainforest path with headlamps on, trying to avoid the many snails and we managed to spot a large rainforest crab in the process! After about an hour of wandering, and not wanting to use up our luck just yet by continuing to wander off into the darkness...we headed back to the car. A little Don Q and juice was a great nightcap before a very humid attempted night of sleep in the our tin tent! :)

All of the beautiful pictures from this part of the trip have vanished due to my camera malfunctioning in the bioluminescent bay (Day 2).