Puerto Rico, Last Stop

For our final stop, we flew to San Juan on a little airplane (picture). They had to balance the plane out by our weights. Since I was the lightest, I got to sit up front with the pilot. Bret was jealous, but I told him that was my reward for being vegetarian. The ride was smooth and I got great views.

We ate at a PRican restaurant where the waitress finally spoke some Spanish to me. Our hotel was awesome and had a hot tub on the roof which we took advantage of at night. On our last day we explored Old San Juan and the fort of El Morro (picture).

It was an awesome trip. For more pics see my web album. Next big trip is to Israel with my family in May. Stay tuned.

Puerto Rico Stop 2

We then took the ferry to the small island of Culebra. We settled in our adequate guest house (no great view here). But we were next to the night spot, as well as the restaurant where Iguanas freqent (picture). The first day did two Scuba dives in the surrounding reefs. The diving was great with awesome reefs and lots of cool fish. Bret got burned on the beach and was a lobster for the rest of the trip. The 2nd day, I got some tan on Flamenco Beach (picture). It was one of the nicest I've seen. We tried to find the "good" snorkelling beach, but after hiking for 25 min in the blistering heat, the trail ended. We turned back and did some good snorkelling at Flamenco. Finished the day with a nice smoothie.

Puerto Rico Stop 1

I just returned from a trip to Puerto Rico with my friend from Cornell, Bret. For our first stop, we drove from San Juan to the rain forest in Eastern PR. The drive was fun along the water. We even stopped on the way to get fast food for lunch. I used my spanish to order the only vegetarian options: rice, beans, and plantains.

We stayed at Casa Cabuy in the middle of the rainforest (picture). Our room looked out onto the forest and we hiked from right outside our door. We hiked down to waterfalls, but the coolest flowers were right outside our door (picture). We also hiked in the only tropical rainforest in the USA (El Yunque). We made it up a "40 min" hike in 18 minutes. We were in a rush to get to night time kayaking. After of course meeting a fellow Cornellian on our trip, we kayaked into the night. After getting to a protected bay in the middle of the night, we jumped in! We started swimming and when we disturbed the water, the algae glowed! Sorry no pictures of this one, but it was the highlight of the first part of the trip.

LA Again

LA is a bit crazy, but it's natural features (including the weather) can be beautiful.