Biking on Vieques
Trip Start
Jan 15, 2006
1
7
9
Trip End
Ongoing
Esperanza, Puerto Rico
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Me and Shane just took a three day biking trip to a small island off of the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. I rode my mountain bike, and Shane rode a single speed bike! He got one hell of a workout to say the least on those hills. I was very thankful for all 24 of my gears.
The ferry ride was awesome, and the price you can't beat. $4 to bring yourself and a bike, $2 without a bike! The water was that perfect carribean aqua marine blue, and we passed many small islands and beautiful sailboats along the way. We arrived in Isabel Segunda on friday and began our ride to Esperanza, the only other real town on the island. Esperanza is on the south side of the island, and about a 4+ mile ride. We arrived around 11am, and it was HOT! We sweated out lots of water on our ride across the beautiful island.
We first arrived at Sombe (sun bay) and dropped our camping stuff off (we hauled it on our bikes and backs) and went swimming
End of the second day
. Shane brought us to this beach where if you walked along the SHARP limestone edge to a peak, you could jump off maybe 10-12 feet into the water! My first "cliff" dive. So after cooling off, we headed towards the bussling town of esperanza. Shane ran into some people he knew there and they told us a good place to camp, so after bumming around for awhile, we headed back to camp to set up our things. Now we weren't supposed to camp where we were, but we tucked ourselves back into some bushes so we couldn't be seen. However, once the sun started setting, these little black nat looking flies came out. OHHH did they piss us off!!! They just landed and started biting, and it hurt! I got completely chewed up by these guys, and came home with over 100 new bites! But they arn't as bad as mosquito bites and are going away pretty quick, but it was definetly an unenjoyable experience!We went back to esperanza and hung out at the local bar, Banana's. It was cool, a little touristy, and pretty expensive, so we grabed a six pack and hid it on the side of the building and just grabed them when we needed them...it was an outdoor bar so we got away with it. We met all sorts of people that night, and befreinded a young married couple and they invited us back to their house to take some showers, so of course we had to accept because we had no access to showers where we were. We ended up staying up pretty damn late that night talking and sharing photos with us and what not
First day!
.The next day we were a bit tired from our partying and started the day off a little slow. But eventually we found ourselves on a very long bike ride around the western coast. Since the military is no longer occupying the island, that land has been opened up for tourism. We rode our bikes along this one road and happened upon a bunker that was completely dug up,...a pretty crazy scene to see. It was open so we walked in. It was completely full of bats though! I was the first to go in and was immediatly surprised to find 3-4 bats flying around with many many more seen hanging on the ceiling! Our ride took us past the oldest tree on the island too. There should be a picture of it is the photo album. What you can't see in the pictures though, is that the tree was IMPOSSIBLE to climb even though it looked so inviting. Covering the entire tree was these spikes! natural thorns that were incredibly sharp. It made the tree impossible to climb. The beach was very close to this tree and i happened upon these really weird red bugs. It appeared as though some of them were two bugs attached at the butt and one walked forward while the other one walked backwards....totally weird. after our long bike ride we were so tired that day that we hit the sack pretty early.
We woke up early the next day and rode back to isabel segunda to catch the one o'clock ferry back to the mainland.
We covered a small portion of the western island, but there was still much to be discovered on the island. The whole western side has been converted to a nature reserve and is perfect for bike riding...maybe next time.
I think my next trip will be with my girlfriend Lea to culebra, a much smaller island to the north. We will bring some snorkeling equipment too because apparently Culebra has awesome snorkeling!
Adios!
Comments
Hi!
Greetings Dylan,
This is Karl, Josh's dad. Bryan sent me over here to look you up. Sounds as if you are having a swell tims,nasty black flies and all!
What beautiful country you are exploring, I really enjoyed your pictures! Josh is having a ball in CA, learning Spainish and the ways of the locals. You young folks are seeing the world outside of the USA which is good!
Be well and have a beer for me! Safe travels and Peace,
Karl