Free Belize has moved

catdance62 · Joined: 12 Aug 2007 Posts: 725 Location: Texarkana, USA

Ok, I am back to pester ya'll!! We had a good time in Puerto Rico!!

First we stayed in the Ocean park area of San Juan for two nights. The place we stayed at, Hosteria Del Mar, was small and pretty and right on the beach. We had to do the tourist thing and went to Old San Juan all day the second day checking out El Morro, San Cristobal and the whole area. It is really nice and well maintained. I thought it would be overrun with cruise ship tourists, but it was nice to see locals shopping, sightseeing, and kite-flying on the grounds of El Morro.

The local beer there is Modella Light. I never saw just "regular" Modella--just the light version. There is a pre-mixed drink called "Gasolina" which I thought was funny because there is a really obnoxious reggaeton song called the same thing!!! Whenever it comes on the XM Reggaeton station me and Susan (my employee) make fun of it "Gasolina gasolina"!!!

The next two days we spent in Fajardo and went to visit El Yunque rainforest. It is truly lovely and maintained by the National Park service. We did two trails, one of which I swear to God/dess was at a ninety degree angle!!!! My calves let me know that I need to work out a lot more than I have been!!! HAHA!!

The only other thing that I didn't like, aside from the fact that there were a ton of people there, is that the trails, instead of being like in Belize--au natural--they were paved with rough cement but imbedded with these smooth rocks (for esthetic value?) that were extremely slippery since it is always wet there. I am pretty damn uncoordinated (my DH calls me "Marmaduke" sometimes!) but I saw people carrying babies (that made me cringe!) and old folks trying to navigate these paths. I think that just dirt like Belize would have been a lot better. We stayed in Fajardo at a B & B called Passionfruit that was really nice and reasonable (for there).

For our final three days we took the ferry over to Vieques island which is about 6 miles offshore. It has two main towns, Isabella Segunda and Esperanza. We stayed in Isabella II at a place called Trooical Guesthouse which kinda sucked but was cheap (for there), but spent a lot of time in Esperanza (I couldn't get a room there, even 3 months in advance!) because that is where the "action" is. Only the middle of the island is "developed", the rest used to be a US Navy base on both the west and east ends of the island, but is now is a wildlife sanctuary.

The best beaches are all around the island in the wildlife sanctuary, but there is a pretty beach right on the malecon (boardwalk) in Esperanza. They are really pretty, the water is clear and there is a fair amount of fish and crabs to look at while snorkeling right off the beach.

On New Years Eve there was a big (for there) street party in Esperanza on the malecon with bands and fireworks--it was GREAT!!! We had a lot of fun drinking and dancing and meeting folks. That was the funnest night we had on the whole trip! We even hitchhiked home at 1 in the morning because there were no taxis. That was something I hadn't done since I don't know when!!!

Oh yeah, we did do one cool tour thing - - the BioLuminescent bay tour where you go out into this protected bay at night and get in the water with these little critters called dinoflagellates (a kind of plankton) that glow when you stir them up. It was so cool! The night was starry and when I got in the water the little critters looked like stars on my arms; it was almost magical!

All in all it was a great trip, but like most Caribbean destinations it was fairly expensive. The convenient thing is that it was in US dollars, and I can see where it would be easy to move there because there would be no duty or anything like that. Even gas was pretty much the same as Stateside. (No, I am not moving there!).

I think that Belize has got me spoiled!!!
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**Zelda** · Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:59 pm Post subject:

glad ya had a good time!
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