This post is completely unrelated to anything house and is more a quick picture post of my trip to Puerto Rico with girlfriends in late July. So if you are not into beautiful destinations photographed poorly by an amateur with a point and shoot, you should probably skip this post.
At some point when all of us ladies that went on the trip compile our pics on the group site, I will do a photo book. (Photo books are about as 'scrapbooking' as I get.) For now, this is my way of remembering the key highlights of our trip until that time comes.
We stayed at El Conquistador in Fajardo most of the trip.
On our first morning we prepared to head to Marina Puerto Del Rey to catch an East Wind catamaran ride to Luis Peña Nature Preserve in Culebra for Snorkeling and Lunch. After that we pulled anchor and headed 15 minutes over to Flamenco Beach to visit the beautiful beach which is supposedly Number 3 on Travel Channels Best Beaches show. I was not able to find backing for that on the interwebs, but it was beautiful enough for me to believe it. I did not get to take pictures on the island because we had to swim ashore to get there. There was a decision to take my beer in the water instead of my camera (which by the way, is not waterproof).
That night we got ready and went to dinner off the resort at a local spot recommended to us by one of the crew members, La Estacion. Yes, it was an old gas station. The food was fantastic and you should not miss this place if you stay in Farjado. We tried a lot of local fare (mofongo relleno, pinchos the green papaya salad).
The next day we took the ferry over to the resort's private beach.
That night we took a cab back to the Marina Puerto Del Rey to do go on a crazy fun adventure to see one of the bioluminescent bays. There are three bio-bays in Puerto Rico. One in the SouthWest – "La Parguera", one on Vieques – "Mosquito Bay", and one in Fajardo – "La Laguna Grande". Out of all three, Mosquito Bay is the brightest, and La Parguera is the least bright and La Laguna Grande is in the middle. We did Mosquito Bay (where I did not get eaten alive by mosquitoes amazingly enough) because of the brightness and this is the only one that you can get in and swim and they did dinner. It was a cooperative trip between East Winds and Island Adventures. You can learn more about the entire experience here. The description is dead on. The school bus ride through the woods on dirt 'roads' that were not supposed to be roads was worth it in itself. I did not know school buses were capable of 4 wheelin! The local dinner was fantastic and the quiet, electric motor pontoon boat was also nice and relaxing. The bio-bay was like nothing I've ever experienced because the concentration of the micro-organisms is so great. I did experience them when we were snorkeling at night in Barbados a few years ago, but not of this magnitude. The only thing that could improve the experience is to take a dive mask. Seeing them underwater is more amazing then seeing them light up from above the surface. They look like little bright sparks from a fire. Truly Amazing. I did not get any good shots but I attempted and you can only see that the water is definitely brighter under us than it would be at night in normal water.
