From California to Puerto Rico! After more than 10+ hours we made it! Landing at night and seeing all the lights below, Puerto Rico looks a lot bigger than we expected.
We chose not to stay in San Juan, instead we drove about 35-40 minutes east to Coco beach and stayed at the beautiful Grand Melia Golf Resort.
Our first day there took us to an adventure to "El Yunque" National Forest in Luquillo. If you like the outdoors and you don't mind hiking this is a must do and see. A tropical rain forest full of trails, historic features, scenic views and waterways.
Second day we headed west to Old San Juan. The first stop in San Juan was Castillo San Felipe del Morro a 400 year old Fort. The Fort is something to be seen! Absolutely impressive and amazing all at the same time. Like El Yunque, you better be prepared to walk ( a lot!). Tunnels, ramps, and stairways. From El Morro we walked all along the paseo to "La Fortaleza" which is the governors mansion. Still in use today (two days later we did a tour of that too). "La Fortaleza" was the first structured built to defend Puerto Rico. El Morro and Castillo San Cristobal followed.
(you can see a photo of "El Morro" here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ59ui_jH_z/?taken-by=in2funtravels&hl=en )
Day Three took us on adventure to the island of Culebra. From our hotel we drove 35 minutes east to Ceiba. Took a nine seater plane over to the island. You can also take the ferry which is a lot cheaper ($3) but can take a few hours along with rough waters to get there versus fifteen minutes for $45 each way. Culebra offers some of the most beautiful beaches. Two of the most common ones are Flamenco and Tamarindo. Flamenco is absolutely breath taking! The sand is the whitest and softest sand we've seen yet. Also, this is the beach that has restaurants where you can eat and drink. Tamarindo on the other hand, has no restaurants or white sand, but it has the best snorkeling! Beautiful coral, and if you hit it at the right time you can see the sea turtles. Also, tons of sea urchin! Which was not that fun!!! The island is small and you can go all over in a day. You can rent a jeep for $75 for the day or like us, be adventurous and pay $35 for a golf cart for the day. Quite the experience
Day Four took us West to Cataño an hour from Coco beach. In Cataño we took a Mixology tour at the Bacardi Rum Distillery. Even if you don't drink, we recommend doing this. The history of the distillery and the making of rum coming from Cuba and establishing in Puerto Rico was interesting. But.....if you do drink, the mixology tour was a lot of fun. You get to learn how to make their famous mojito, traditional daiquiri, and a Cuba libre. You also get a tropical sunrise to drink, super yummy! If you have time eat at Georgina there at the distillery. A mix of Cuban and Puertorican food, very good. We ended our fourth day back in old San Juan enjoying the town, restaurants, drinks and the ocean.
On our Fifth Day we took a car ride (forever long!) to the town of Ponce. We took another tour of The Serrallés Castle. This was the summer home of the Serrallés family who own Don Q rum original to Puerto Rico. This tour reminded us a bit of Hurst Castle in California. We always get amazed of the luxury from back in those days (1900's). People had great taste and style.
On the Sixth day Todd started his golf tournaments. While he did that I enjoyed the pool at the resort and some beach time. At night we took a trip to Fajardo to Las Croabas beach to do the Bioluminescent Kayak tour. If you've never done this, we highly recommend it. We started at eight at night and were back just before ten thirty. You kayak through a tunnel of mangroves to get to "Laguna Grande" where you get to hear all about the bioluminescent plankton in the water. As soon as you put your hand in the water and you move it, everything lights up like fireflies or stars under water, amazing! and beautiful! Oh, and the water was so warm! Super cool experience.
Seventh and Eighth day were spent at the pool and back exploring restaurant and bars in Old San Juan at night.
Over all Puerto Rico was a great place to check off our list. Definitely not a place to sit around and just relax. If you want to experience it and explore everything it has to offer, it's not a relaxing trip. It's a go go go kinda of a trip.
