Puerto Rico

Vieques

Our first stop in Puerto Rico was the island of Vieques. This little island was paradise! Some of the nicest and most secluded beaches we have ever come across! We rented a golf cart to get around the island and spent our time uncovering beach after beach! We also had the opportunity to go kayaking in a bioluminescent bay. At night the water glows when it moves due to special organisms (dinoflagellates) in the water. Unfortunately, the pictures we tried to take couldn’t capture the glow, you’ll have to experience it for yourself!

Mayagüez

Even though Mayagüez was on the west of the country, we decided to use as our base to explore the entire island (you can pretty much get from one end to the other within 4 hours) The city itself was nothing to write home about but the Airbnb we stayed in was amazing! The family that ran it had a number of rescue animals. They had 2 cats, 2 dogs, and a rooster that greeted after each day’s excursion.

La Parguera

We spent part of our day diving in La Parguera. This was the first place we had been diving where they treated the Lion Fish as an invasive species. Whenever one was spotted it was captured using a spear gun and then cut up and fed to other fish once we were back on the boat. Having seen them in Southeast Asia, their natural habitat, we were a bit torn on this practice. However, lionfish are destroying Caribbean wildlife and posing a major threat to the food chain.

Rincon

We spent a day in Rincon exploring a few of the beaches in the area and a hidden waterfall up in the mountains. Most of the day we tried to make sure we kept ourselves ahead of the rain.

Guavate- Pork Highway

This stretch of road, dubbed the Pork Highway is a strip of road that had BBQ restaurant after BBQ restaurant that all sold drinks and pork! It was delicious and well worth the few hour drive to reach it!

El Yunque National Forest

El Yunque National Forest is a tropical rainforest in northeastern part of the country. We had planned to spend our day hiking along trails to various waterfalls, however the national park has not been able reopen most of the trails that were damaged after the devastating hurricane in 2017. So instead we hiked up to a view point and explored some of the waterfalls along the main road within the park.

San Juan

San Juan, is the capital and largest city in the country. We spent our time here wandering the picturesque cobblestoned streets of Old San Juan and admiring the colorful colonial buildings.