Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Return From Puerto Rico

We've returned from our trip to Puerto Rico. A lovely island.

A beach near Guayama, P.R., our homebase for this trip.

Same beach. It certainly was breezy. The water was so warm.

A little bar/restaurant not far from the beach, we had a little snack here. Right on the water.

My first Puerto Rican Pina Colada. We don't know why it's green.

Day two. We returned to the beach from yesterday for lounging and swimming.

My Corona commercial. I threatened to throw cell phones in the ocean.

I've been drinking...not too much though. See that wall back there? That's where we had to open our beer bottles...we forgot an opener! It was a pain opening the beer and you easily cut yourself...right on your knuckle...open cuts hurt in the salt water.

We drove out into the dark wilderness for dinner. A nice little place. We had some great sangria. Buy some I mean multiple pitchers.

Day three. Ponce, P.R. Museum of Art. It was nice. They had a Rodin exhibit we couldn't take pictures of.

Flaming June! We love this painting and have a print of her in our house. She is so beautiful. I was totally misty when I saw her.

Castillo Serralles. The home of the Serralles family, sugar barons of days of yore. They created the Puerto Rican rum, Don Q.

More Castillo.

Schnoozberries. I don't know the spelling and can't remember the real name. They look like tiny little limes. You gently bite them open to reveal the light pink, slimy, pulpy inside. You suck that pulp out and eat the pulp and juice, spitting out the hard stone in the middle. They were tasty. Sweet, lightly tart. But really slimy and pulpy. The texture could turn someone running!

Update:
They are called Quenepas. Wiki entry here.

Day four. We headed to El Yunque. The Caribbean National Forest.

J-lo and I in the rainforest.

Rainforest.

Mountains and Rainforest. I loved the rainforest. I bit humid, but not very hot. We had a good weather that morning.

After the rainforest, we paid a guy to bring us out to the little island of Icacos. Nothing on the island but sand, rocks and some trees. The mountain in the distance...that's El Yunque. We were up where the clouds are. On the little hill right in front of us, there is a white building on the left side of the little hill. That is the El Conquistador Resort, a fancy pants resort featured in the James Bond film, Goldfinger. Funny thing. That boat...it broke...our boat had to tow them back to Puerto Rico.

Day five. The Bacardi factory. Two free drinks!

Tasty Drink:
1 shot of Melon Rum
Top off with cranberry and 7-up.
Watermelon Jolly Rancher!

Guess who bought a big fat bottle of Melon Rum!?

Wall o' Bacardi.

Buildings in Old San Juan.

A water well in Fort San Cristobal.

Atlantic Ocean.

The Old Spanish war flag, Puerto Rican flag and the U.S. flag. Fort San Cristobal.

I'll head back some day. I could spend a few days in San Juan alone. A good trip.

8 comments:

DC Food Blog said...

We seems to be leading parallel lives with the whole tropical vacation thing.

Winnie said...

looks absolutely gorgeous :-D

Stef said...

Great photos! I'm so glad you guys had a good trip. Mmmmm..... rum drinks...

Anonymous said...

Can we go back now? I miss the ocean...

Barbara said...

San Juan is such a great place to visit. I loved the rain forest and the beaches, El Morro (spelling?), and the Bacardi tour *hic*

You look very relaxed. Glad you both had fun!

ScottE. said...

A question posed to me today:

The Barcardi logo.

Back in Cuba, where Bacardi was invented, perfected and first manufactured, shortly after the company was founded, the guy was looking for a logo. His wife piped in and noticed the bats in the attic. In Spain, where the family was from, bats signify family and good luck. So…we have a bat logo for Bacardi!

ScottE. said...

Barbara:

Next trip I'll head to El Morro. We didn't have enough time for both forts.

I could serious spend a few more days in San Juan alone.

Ramona said...

Tremendous pics! Who doesn't love a drink with a paper umbrella? It's gotta be tought getting back to "normal"....