Puerto Rico 2014: Culebra and Cabo Rojo

Tuesday, January 29, 2014

We left Minnesota Monday morning, trading temps below zero and ground blizzards for temps in the mid-80's and ocean breezes.  Ahhhhhh!

First stop:  Isla Culebra.  Located about 17 miles east of the Puerto Rico mainland, Culebra is 7 miles long by 5 miles wide and is a Puerto Rico municipality. The tallest building on the island is two stories tall, there are no stop lights, no fast food chains, no mega resorts.  There are chickens wandering around everywhere, laid-back friendly residents, a sea water temperature of 72 degrees, and fantastic beaches.

The trip on a 10 passenger plane from San Juan to Culebra was uneventful.  We were seated directly behind the pilot so had a great view.

We're flying over the Puerto Rico main island heading out to sea.

View through the cockpit.  Culebra can be seen through the windshield.

Culebra airport with the airport restaurant, Cafe Delizioso on the right and our allotted 50 pounds of luggage on the left.

We are staying at Casa Resaca, which is a guesthouse with five guestrooms.  We have a nice, large bedroom, private bathroom, and access to a kitchen and screen porch we share with the other guests. Dinner tonight was at Zaco's Tacos, where I had the best fish taco ever.

Wednesday

Had morning coffee with several other guests, then headed out for the beaches.  Our first stop was Flamenco Beach, ranked #2 on the list of the world's most exotic beaches.  I don't know who this guy is, but what a great spot to sit and read a book!

Flamenco Beach, the most popular beach on the island, is long with a wide sugar sand beach. a large campground (tents), showers, and food available at six or seven kiosks.  Dave sat under a tree and enjoyed a sandwich made from fresh tuna, while the chickens waited for a nibble.

  

Just before WWII the US Navy began using Culebra for gunnery and bombing practice.  In 1975, after protests by the citizens, the use of Culebra as a gunnery range ceased. There are still a couple old army tanks on/near the beach and every now and then someone runs across an unexploded ordnance...including one in the water on Flamenco Beach a couple weeks ago!   Yikes!!!

  

Thursday

Another day of snorkeling and relaxing in the shade on the beach.  We started out at Playa Tamarindo, where Dave snorkeled and watched sea turtles feed on grass on the bottom of the ocean.  Chickens and roosters are everywhere, in town and on the beach.  The roosters seem to crow day and night.  Last night one woke me at at 2 a.m.  Apparently he missed the memo that said roosters crow at dawn!  This pair desperately wanted to get into our water bottles.

We went for a drive to check out a couple beaches we haven't seen before. 

Playa Melones

Punta Soldado

Friday

Dave has been snorkeling every day, I'm a bit of a wimp so didn't go in the water until this morning.  The water was warm, the fish were great, but getting in and out is always a struggle for me.  Where snorkeling is good it seems the beach is rocky.  I tried using fins today, which of course made walking in even harder, plus with fins you're supposed to walk into the water backwards.   After snorkeling we washed off our waterproof camera and noticed the battery/memory card cover was open!  Oh no!  Bad luck, the camera is shot and pictures not yet downloaded are gone.  We'll pick up a new camera tomorrow on the main island. I had planned to spend a chunk of this afternoon taking pictures of the island, but that won't happen now.

Culebra is very hilly and there are signs on the roads warning people they are entering a tsunami zone then as the road goes up hill the signs let us know we're leaving the low area.  Don't see many of these at Big Sugar Bush Lake!

Tomorrow we fly to San Juan, pick up a car, drive to Cabo Rojo, and buy a new camera!

This guy was sitting beside the road.  It's the last of our pictures before the camera and memory card got water damaged.  Iguanas grow as long as 5 feet from head to tip of tail.  This one was about 3 feet long.

Sunday, February 2

Eight passengers were scheduled to fly to San Juan Saturday at 8:00 a.m.  Each was allotted 25 pounds of luggage.  Dave and I were 8 pounds over combined.  Someone was waaaay over.  After a 45 minute delay (island time, you know) we learned that the passengers and luggage were a total of 100 pounds too heavy for the plane.  One couple graciously offered to take a later flight.  It's nice to know that Vieques AirLink is safety conscious!

Picking up the car in San Juan on Saturday was a bit of an experience.  Thinking it would be easier to get a rental at a non-airport location, I found one and booked it.  That was a mistake.  A very nice man from Connecticut noticed our concern, took pity on us and led us to the highway out of town.  The kindness of strangers!  Hopefully we'll figure out an easier way to return the car. 

We still needed to buy a camera so Sunday we headed to WalMart in the nearby town of Mayaguez, population about 100,000.  Of course we missed the mall the first time by, so what should have been a 20 minute drive was more like 40.  We arrived at WalMart at about 10 a.m., found the cameras in a locked glass case, tried to get a gentleman to take one out for us.  He ignored us.  A kind woman from Chicago told us that in Puerto Rico only items that can be eaten can be sold before 11 a.m. on Sunday! Who knew? The store was packed and the lines for check-out were long, but no one could buy anything until 11.  We finally have a new camera; picture taking will commence.

Driving around and exploring a new area is on of our favorite activities.  Here are pictures of the Corozo Salt Flats.  The water comes in during high tide and sits in evaporation pools until the salt can be collected, dried, and shipped out.  I guess I never really thought about where salt comes from.

Pile of salt waiting to be shipped out.  

This is a Catholic church in the town of Boqueron.  Many homes and .public buildings are very colorful and Caribbean looking.

Monday

Got up this morning and went for a walk on the wildside!  Our condo is on the beach, but this morning when we tried to walk on the beach the tide was in and because it's a narrow beach there wasn't much beach to walk on.  We noticed a path leading into the forest next to our building.  People who live here call this a forest; I don't know what the difference between a forest and jungle is, but this is a forest.

We checked out a couple beach towns, including the fishing village of LaPaguera where we went on a boat ride.  The boat was about 20 feet long; I would not want to go on the ocean in anything smaller, especially on a windy day like we had.  We rode along the shore admiring the houses built right on the water, the many boats (fishing boats, sailboats, yachts, and even a pontoon), and through the mangroves.

Tunnel through the mangrove.

The restaurants around here are pretty basic.  Here's where we had lunch today.  It is decorated for Valentine's Day.  Dave had some sort of fish soup that he loved and I had my first empanadilla, which was yummy.  An empanadilla is basically a pie crust filled with meat.                                                                

Catholic church in La Parguera

Tuesday

A pretty uneventful day.

Toured the Guanica dry forest, about an hour drive each way, then had an easy napping, reading afternoon.  

The nearby town of Joyuda is famous for several blocks of seafood restaurants; we've eaten at five different places and all were good.  One night I had chicken, otherwise we've had a steady diet of really good, fresh fish. The fillets we've eaten this week were either grouper or red snapper and were prepared one of four ways: butter, garlic, breaded or stewed (which is also called island sauce or Puerto Rican sauce).  Tonight we ate at Gatita, so far our favorite.  Photos are of the restaurant and my fish fillet with island sauce.  The Puerto Rican sauce is our favorite so I hope to track down a recipe I can try at home.

Wednesday:  our last day before we head to San Juan and start the process of going home.

We started at yet one more beautiful beach. Playa Sucio (which means dirty, but this beach is truly very clean) has the finest sugar sand beach we've ever seen.  This is the most southwest corner of Puerto Rico.  The limestone cliffs around the lighthouse are awesome, our camera does not do them justice.

Small birds standing in the shallow water, maybe enjoying the clouds reflected in the calm water.

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On the climb down from the lighthouse we spotted many little crabs.  When I find out what they're called I'll update this.  The first photo is "where's the crab?" Pretty good protective coloring! The next two are larger versions of the crab, who was a bit larger than a silver dollar.  If you look closely you can see his claw outside the shell.

Next stop was Playa Combate where we had a beverage at Annie's Place.  Naturally, with a granddaughter named Annie we needed a photo.

I tried to take a picture of a bird sitting on the buoy, but that didn't work so well.  What the picture does show -I hope- is the amazing layering of colors of the Caribbean:  tan-yellow-aqua-blue-purple, and then the blue sky.

There is a large wildlife refuge here.  This area of the coastal plains is the winter home to migratory ducks, herons and songbirds.  Over 130 species of birds have been sighted here.  These are random pictures of the refuge.  

Although the condo we're renting is pretty basic it's in an upscale area that includes a golf course and tennis courts.  There are perhaps 4 or 5 different house plans used, but the homeowners use landscaping to make each home standout.  

The shortfalls of the condo are offset by the early morning view from the balcony.  Tomorrow it's off to return the car to San Juan and spend the night at the Marriott before heading home Friday.  Good-by warm Caribbean sun, hello cold and snow.