Puerto Rico 2005

 Zach had to go to Puerto Rico to work with part of CDC, so we took the opportunity to stay a few extra days and visit the island. Puerto Rico is only 100 miles long and 30 miles wide but it takes longer to get to places than you might imagine. This is due primarily to the lack of interstate type roads, many stop lights and narrow country roads. It has nothing to due with the fact that there are many crazy drivers who virtually ignore all traffic rules. A 50-mile trip can easily take almost two hours.


We stayed at the Wyndham Condado Plaza in San Juan. The hotel is right on the Atlantic and we enjoyed a nice view from our 7th floor balcony. Cathy was able to take advantage of the pools and beach on the two days Zach was working. That is until the showers came. Did it rain! There was tremendous downpours each afternoon.

We had a Friday and Saturday to see the highlights. Friday turned into a sunny and hot and humid day. We picked that day to go to the rain forest and visit Old San Juan. We went to the Caribbean National Forest, El Yanque in the morning. It’s the only rain forest in the US Park system. After a stop at the visitor information center, we hiked up to Mt Britton Lookout Tower and could view the Atlantic and Caribbean at the same time. Lucky for us; that view is usually clouded over.

 

 

 Then we hiked down to La Mina falls. The hike down was more scenic than the falls themselves. The rain forest is very lush but surprisingly doesn’t have any snakes or lions, tigers, bears or other such creatures. There are a lot of paved paths in the rain forest but strangely they’re only wide enough for one person; sort of like many roads there only being wide enough for one car. One other interesting fact we learned is that this rain forest is the home of the few dozen remaining Puerto Rican Parrots which were almost extinct until a breeding program was started for them.

We only spent the morning in the rain forest, since we had to be back early afternoon to go to Old San Juan. We left our car at the hotel and proceeded to walk the three long, hot but scenic miles along the coast to Old San Juan. Several beer stops along the way made the walk more tolerable. The two biggest attractions in Old San Juan are the Castillo de San Cristobel and El Morro, Castillo San Felipe. Both castles are well preserved. We spent well over an hour roaming about each of them, more for Zach’s interest than Cathy’s. After another beer stop we explored the other parts of San Juan. Catedral San Jose was very plain compared to the churches we had seen in other parts of the Caribbean. The rest of Old San Juan was mostly shops and restaurants. We kept wondering where all the pigeons were and found half by the old north gate and the other half in Plaza de Armas. There were so many we had to wade through them. We ended the day with a nice dinner at a Spanish restaurant and then enjoyed a much cooler walk back to the hotel for a swim in the pool and a trip to the hot tub.

 

 

 We started the day early Saturday, since we had farther to drive and wanted to avoid traffic. Our first stop was the Parque las Cavernas del Rio Camuy. It is home of the third largest underground river in the world, the Camuy River. Primary access is through three giant sink holes all about 400 feet deep. As we went into the first sink hole and the entrance to the caverns we saw ropes hanging down. We though they must do a lot of rappelling here. Wrong! They actually were very fragile roots of trees that grow on the sides of the cliffs. Among other things the caverns had one giant stalagmite that was 30 feet in diameter and also was the home of thousands of bats.

 

From the caverns we went to Arecibo Observatory, the largest radio telescope on earth and it can be seen in the movies “Goldeneye” and “Contact”. It has a fixed spherical reflector 1000 feet in diameter. The science associated with the telescope is too technical to interest most people but everyone is impressed with the size of it.

From there we tried to find some caves with pictographs but like many places in Puerto Rico directions are somewhat lacking and we couldn’t find them. We went back to the hotel for an ocean swim and then to dinner at an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant that was quite good. We flew home the next morning via Houston.