Hotel Villa del Sol Carolina

... 10:00am to revisit Old San Juan. From the port, we grabbed a taxi, hola amigo, and off we went.

Having visited Old San Juan one week ago, it was a deja vu feeling. However, we enjoyed walking the cobblestone streets, viewing the houses with their Spanish architecture and stopping at various shops along the way. The people was always pleasant to talk with and ready to provide directions. Again, the weather was perfect ...

... to explore much of the interior. To make up for this in Puerto Rico we hired a car and drove the interior windy mountain roads to San Juan. It is a spectacular country and incredibly lush. As soon as we were off the main highway there was a jungle in our faces, with enormous clumps of bamboo trees everywhere - often forming an arch over the road. There was sugar cane, banana trees and dense green foliage on all sides. Just as we got over one little mountain pass we saw the next in front ...

Old San Juan is absolutely beautiful! It is one of the cleanest cities I have seen. It was quiet, peaceful, and pleasant. Checkout the pictures for more details and remember to click on the titles with '...' for more information. The last pictures are of the Canopy Adventure we did on day 2. I was very pleased to see the company did not drill any holes in the trees, it was all done with knots and rope ...

... Juan on route to St Lucia. Bit of a hiccup with the paperwork (test pilot hadnot confirmed he was happy with the plane before leaving the airport) for the plane meant we had to get off the plane just when we thought we were about to leave. But a couple of hours later we were back on the plane and wending our way to the southern part of the carribean.

... to have the wedding where it was originally planned. The bride and bridal party was 30 min late for the wedding, fashionably late? Not so much. Every thing went gorgeously, and then the deed was done. We came back and partied at the hacienda packed up and headed to our next destination, a hotel in San Juan. The surfriders foundation ( ie my surf possy) all stayed in the same hotel, we partied at salsa ...

... say I have overcome my fear of seaweed, as I had to swim through a thick field of it to get to the clearer waters. After a few hours of snorkeling, it was time to meet our taxi driver in front of Bananas - a local dive where a lady named Margaret who had an almost completely shaved head with the exception of a patch of grey, curly hair on top resembling a toupee served very questionable food and cocktails. We rode back to the ferry ...

... and ended up trying the local roadside food again, pinchos. Man oh man those things were good. The trip around the island took about six hours drive time. Maybe the rain helped us stay on track because had we made many stops along the way we probably would not have made the entire trip around the island due to sightseeing. On our way back we stopped off at a local grocery store to pick up a few things for the starving student before heading over to the dorm. We ...

... the caves. These are the 3rd largest caves in the world apparently, I really enjoyed them and then (of course) hit up the gift shop. Then we all got back on the bus to go to a local restaurant for lunch, which turned out to be a disaster. We spent about three hours at the restaurant because there were so many of us and it took so long to make the food, which was local, and good, but not amazing. We finally got out of there three hours later and boarded the bus to ...

... While we have had a great visit in Puerto Rico, I thought we had left all this "civilization" (traffic, noise and large stores) behind and I am ready to get back to small, quiet anchorages. It is Monday the 21st and we will leave this afternoon and head out to Isla Palominos for the night. The weather will drive where we spend the next week but we do need to work our way back to the BVI and then on to St. Martin before the Christmas winds build. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

... trying to communicated with tres limited Spanish and all the Caribbean English that is confusing to even most non-Caribbean English speakers. Finally got a cabbie that understood our destination. $40USD later, we had driven through quaint towns and scattered high risers, a blend of Puerto Rico that I had not expected. What I did expect were all the beautiful churches en route and plenty silence from the cabbie who ...