Home at last

We arrived back at the lake late last night, after a quick visit with our beautiful new baby granddaughter, Anne Elizabeth.

Dave dropped off the disposable underwater camera this afternoon and we'll have pictures in a week, so check back then to see the underwater shots of turtles, rays, and more.

Last Day on Culebra

This is our last night on Culebra and we are already planning a return trip.  We found two paved roads (we are allowed to take the rental car only on paved roads) on the map that we haven't yet driven down, so we need to come back to do that.  Tomorrow we fly back to San Juan, then Saturday fly to Minneapolis where we'll take a quick peek at our new grandchild, Anne Elizabeth, then drive back home---where the temp will be at least 75˚ colder than we are now accustomed to.  We're trading shorts, tees and sandals for Ugg boots ,jeans and turtlenecks.   What are we thinking!!!????  I'll blog again after we get the underwater pictures developed. 

Our morning started with breakfast over the water, visited by tarpin who fought over pieces of Dave's pancakes.

Then we headed for Flamenco Beach, one of the world's top 10 most beautiful beaches. The sand is sugar sand like I have never seen before, as fine as baking sugar.  Not only is the beach long, but there is an area for tent camping, swimming, food vendors, and the beach gets groomed daily.  The perfect place to hang out, catch some rays, and swim.

This is our favorite beach, Tamarindo Beach.  The sand isn't nearly as fine as Flamenco, it is rockier both out and in the water, lots of coral under water, and this is where we found the great snorkeling.  This beach has character.   But.....it also has sand fleas, which aren't fleas at all, but are teeny tiny crustaceans.  Mosquitoes love me, so it's no surprise that bugs here would love me, too.  I learned NOT to lay/sit on a beach towel, but to use a chair and get my body off the ground.  Most people aren't bothered much by the sand fleas, but of course my bites itch like crazy.

The Day of the Iguana:  While I was beach walking I watched a 4 foot long iguana climb out of the ocean, walk across the beach and into the woods.  This was a green iguana, others saw a purple one in the same area.

When we returned to Casa SuMarco, 

this iguana was waiting on our front step.

This next picture is a puzzle for Mox and Marty.  Can you find the iguana in the tree?  Look for his feet on the lower left-hand side, then he disappears behind a branch, and then you'll see his head.  Great camouflage!

We made a list of Dos and Don'ts for this trip.  The dos outnumber the don'ts so I'm going to start with the negative.  Do not:  sit on the beach on a towel, use a chair in case there are sand fleas.  Do not tell anyone about Culebra, we want to keep it just as it is.

Do on Culebra:  Ask Jerry for a nicer jeep next time, go hiking on Luis Peña Island, check out the paved roads we missed, get Betty in the water for more snorkeling (this may require serious pre-vacation conditioning), bring bug spray with deet for sand fleas, stay longer, go sailing

Do in Rincon:  Eat at the Lazy Parrot, take a guided tour inland-don't try to drive ourselves, rent a car in San Juan - we can drive just fine, take the Catamaran snorkel trip

Do for Puerto Rico:  bring more books or my Kindle, bring fewer clothes, and no long pants except jeans for the plane ride.

Goodbye from Casa SuMarco, Culebra.

We have found our perfect winter vacation spot....Culebra!  The vacationers seem almost as laid back as the locals:  no fancy "resort wear" or fancy jewelry, mostly shorts and teeshirts and walking sandals, even for dinner.  The homes and businesses are basic small Caribbean/Mexican/Central American concrete buildings, the area looks unkempt, the people are helpful and gracious and most speak some English, many are fluent. The weather is perfect; we wear shorts during the day and usually evening, unless we're outside in a breeze, in which case I grab sweater. Each day there has been a shower lasting about 5 minutes, we don't even bother to look for cover. 

Sunrise from our deck.

Breakfast for us has been:  day 1, French toast in a panaderia run by an American ex-pat, today breakfast in a panaderia that made me an excellent latte when I asked for café con leche, tomorrow we're breakfasting on a deck over the ocean where giant tarpin swim up looking for scraps.  All meals thus far have been super.  My diet starts the instant I'm back in Minnesota!

There is a U.S. Fish & Wildlife station on Culebra, which we visited yesterday.  They help coordinate a program that uses volunteers to record giant sea turtles laying eggs. I thought it might be fun to volunteer....until I found out the volunteer recorders start at 6:30 pm and stay out until dawn.  I'm just too old for such nonsense.  Here are photos of their office, logo, and one of several boats they use. Culebra is home to two endangered species of sea turtles (the largest turtles on earth), the Leather Back and Hawkbill, and two proposed for the list, the Loggerhead and Green sea turtles.

Yesterday we snorkeled in Tamarindo Bay, and what an experience!  Dave always scouts out the underwater sights first, and he was excited to see a giant sea turtle feeding on grass on the bottom. Dave swears he could see the turtle take bites of grass and chew!  Today we went back to Tamarindo.  I snorkeled a bit yesterday, but got panicky when I saw how far I was from shore, so sent Dave out alone - with lots of other people around.  He saw 20+ sea turtles, manta (or sting) rays, sea urchins, banded jawfish, angel fish, trumpet fish and other fish we don't know the names of.  He was absolutely thrilled with the snorkeling.  We're going back for more tomorrow.  Dave took pics with our disposable underwater camera, once we get those developed I'll add them to the blog.  

From the road this looks like a hill, but it is a tree covered with vines.

This is the road to Tamarindo Beach: count the potholes!!! Who says potholes are caused by the freeze, thaw cycle???? No freezing here.

 We love our Casa SuMarco, but might consider a resort/hotel next time, to try something different.  Directions to SuMarco given to us by a local:  take Hwy 250, when you pass the cement mixer for sale on the right, don't turn at that corner.  Then you'll pass a fire hydrant on the right, turn at that corner, go to the end of the block, it's the blue house on the corner.  Who needs a street address?  This is the view from our road.

Culebra has green leafy areas contrasted by dry areas:

cacti and mangroves 

Here are shots of the school and the playground.

Most of the homes are in the same pastel rainbow as the public buildings, very Caribbean looking.  Tomorrow I hope to get a good photo of Flamenco Bay, one of the top 10 beautiful beaches in the world, then I might wrap up photos until we get our underwater shots.

Culebra

Culebra is more like a Caribbean island than like Puerto Rico, since it isn't quite as lush and green.  It was about a half hour plane ride, much of it across the main island of PR.  The plane was small, loud, rackety, flew low, the wheels were down the whole time.  Because we flew so low, we could see houses, roads, everything we flew over, which was fun.  Before we took off the young pilot said, "under the window of the side door (beside me) is a handle, use it to get out in an emergency.  If that doesn't work, use the red handle on the window (again beside me).  There are life jackets under your seat."  That was it.  When we landed we flew between two low mountains, there was lots of turbulance, then the pilot cut the engine and we glided in.  Next time we come I'm taking the ferry! 

Our home for 4 days is Casa Sumarco, a great little Caribbean beach cottage.  Here are photos from today, lots more to come.

Our tiny plane-and 8 or 10 passenger.  Our Geo Tracker, pretty much a wreck, no air, too may rattles for Dave, no  power anything.  The roads are one pothole on top of another, which explains why this is where Trackers go to die. 

Casa Sumarco, the back porch, our welcoming gecko, the master bedroom.

View of Ensenada Honda Bay and the Caribbean from our back porch.

Rincon to San Juan

Our last night in Rincon we ate at the Lazy Parrot for the third time, clearly our favorite restaurant!  Our worst meal was at a sports bar, most other places were pretty good.  Amazingly we had great lasagne for $5 each at a pizza joint.  There are roadside stands all over the place, both in town and along the highways, selling fruit, simple lunches and breakfast mostly to Puerto Ricans.  We didn't try those, though we maybe should have. 

Here are a couple shots of Rincon, taken from the hills when we were exploring the countryside our last day.  It really is a beautiful area.  

We left Rincón about 8 am heading for San Juan.  The directions we had seemed straightforward, sure, we could drive this.  There are 'only' 3 million people in San Juan, and who cares if all the road signs are in Spanish (no English subtitles).  We just needed to follow Hwy 115 from Rincon to Hwy. 2,  take that into San Juan, then 26 to the car return.  We somehow got off 115 in Aguadilla.  (The highways go right through the middle of the towns, on very narrow streets.)  A very kind policeman got us squared away.

While wandering aimlessly around Old San Juan, we took a couple photos.  I couldn't resist the "cat on a hot tin roof."  The shiny car is reflecting so much light, it's hard to see the cat sound asleep on the roof with cars whizzing by and people all around.

The streets in OSJ are extremely narrow, with interesting and often colorful buildings packed together. 

Several times this week we have been saved by the kindness of strangers:  the policeman in Aguadilla, a woman in Old San Juan who noticed our confusion and gave us directions in perfect English, the desk clerk in San Juan who found us a cab driver to take us to Aguadilla our first day, the young man in our condo building who graciously showed us how to open the door (just hit the button, duh) and didn't make us feel stupid.

Tomorrow we fly to Culebra, rent a jeep from Jerry's Jeeps, and begin our second week in Puerto Rico.  Photos of our little house on Culebra coming soon!

Weather forecast for the foreseeable future:  low 67, high 85. 

Rincon has many little panaderias (bakeries) that serve pastries, coffee, juice, some will fry a couple eggs, some have lunch items.  Most of the pastries are fried, we haven't seen anything like a cinnamon roll.  Each morning we drive 2 blocks to a public parking lot.  We would walk, but we can't figure out how to get in and out of our super secure building's premises without using the car and remote gate opener.  Then we walk to the panaderia of the day, have one pastry (me) or two (Dave), coffee, and plan our day.

Today we spent most of our day on Steps Beach:  beach walking, snorkeling, and sitting in the shade reading.  Here's a shot of the coral on the beach.  It is rock hard, slippery to walk on, but I love the rivulets that wash the water back out to sea.

Above is a shot of Mona Island (on the left), which is 12 miles off shore and kind of hard to see without enlarging, also the "steps".

Throughout the area are Tsunami warning signs. 

A defunct nuclear reactor dome, for which Domes Beach was named.

Whitewater on Sandy Beach, where there is supposed to be good sea glass hunting, but it was too windy to do anything the day we were there.   

Many homes are brightly colored, but none as bright as this church! 

Another day in the sun!

We planned a drive to find a waterfall and hiking area inland, but only managed to get lost, so we headed back home.  We ran across a national park with this fabulous beach which is a sea turtle nesting ground later in the year. 

Surfers or artists or someone has created wonderful murals in town.  Here are a couple.  They're pretty neat if you enlarge them. 

The afternoon was spent on Maria's beach, a surfing beach, sitting in the shade reading and people-wataching.  We were definitely the oldest people on this beach and I may have been the only woman not wearing a thong bikini!  It's tough to be old.

This is Rincon's version of riprap we found in front of an elegant waterfront home.  This  was actually the only place we found something like this.  Most of the oceanfront area is pretty neat.  Well, except for the horse poop we walked in today.