Entries from January 2010 ↓

And here’s my review of the Villa Montana, the resort where we stayed, in case anyone is thinking of a trip to Puerto Rico (or happens to stumble across this on Google).

The Villa Montana is a great place if you want a quiet vacation in a warm place.  The rooms were comfortable and amazingly spacious: we had two suites that were joined together, sharing a staircase and entrance.  The two-bedroom suite was surprisingly large, complete with a full kitchen and a vast dining/living room, two full bathrooms, and a large patio.  The one-bedroom suite had a nice sized living room and a kitchenette.  Both suites had washing machine and dryer.

The beach is lovely and quiet.  While there are several adjacent houses, there are no other resorts nearby.  The beach is on the north coast of the island and has waves active enough to attract local surfers.  But a short walk down the beach there’s some of the nicest snorkeling I’ve ever done with a complex coral reef system on a stretch of beach protected from the waves by an offshore reef.

The facilities at the resort are fairly sparse.  There are two small swimming pools and one restaurant, Eclipse.  The food there is good but not great, though the service is slow: even for lunch it was typically an hour after sitting down before we were served.  But while waiting you’re sitting overlooking the beach and enjoying the warm breezes, so it’s not exactly a hardship.

There isn’t a whole lot near the resort.  While Puerto Rico has many attractions, including Old San Juan, a rainforest, and bioluminescent bays, they are all at least an hour’s drive from the resort.  If you’re looking to do a lot of touring, this really isn’t a good home base.  Similarly, we never did find a really good restaurant nearby, though we tried several that were recommended by both the resort staff and other local people that we encountered.

The front desk staff were all helpful and had brochures and information about several of Puerto Rico’s attractions.  There is a stable a short walk from the resort if you are interested in horse rides up the beach ending in nearby cliffs complete with caves: Julie and the girls enjoyed a ride there.  And there are several local options for snorkeling, surfing, and scuba: I recommend Aquatica as a dive and surfing operator - you can get a brochure at the main desk.

All in all, a great place to stay if you want to spend some days enjoying the beach and the water, especially if you’d prefer to do your own cooking.  If you’re looking for a more active vacation, however, this is probably not the place for you.

Thursday evening the girls and I went snorkeling in a bioluminescent bay.  In this bay there is a sort of microorganism that, when you brush against it, lights up much like a glow-in-the-dark watch dial.  Swimming in the waters under a moonless sky was amazing: when you are still, the water is dark.  But make one move and you are covered in glowing glitter.

I would hold my hand still under the water, then move my fingers and watch them glow.  Or dive beneath the waves and watch the glitter stream past my mask.  Once the Unidentified Humanoid swam by me and I could see a large glowing object looking like a comet passing within a foot of my face.

I’ve read that there’s only around a dozen of these bays in the world and Puerto Rico has three of them.  All I can say is that I loved my time there - it was like swimming in a pool of stars.

Unfortunately it was all too dark to take pictures.  I tried with the underwater camera, but the glitter was too dim to be captured.  But here’s one of us on the boat on our way to the bay.

That was the last adventure of our trip.  Friday it rained much of the day, and we had a lazy day.  (Though I did get out for a last snorkel.  What, should I have been worried about getting wet?  I saw what looked to be a school of newborn fish, tiny little things the size of a fingernail with yellow and black stripes swimming beside a much larger fish of the same sort.)  And then Saturday was the usual scramble to get to the airport and home - the first sight of ice on the rivers seen from the plane was quite disheartening.

But we’re home now.  It’s nice to be home, but I do wish it was warmer!

On Tuesday, we drove into Old San Juan, a roughly two-hour drive from our resort.  Once there, we visited the Castillo de San Cristobal, an immense fort built over 150 years starting in 1634, first used by the Spanish to defend their gateway to the West Indies, but later used to watch for submarines during WWII.  An impressive place with incredible views.

Here’s one of the watch stations built during WWII, a strange thing to see grafted to the side of an old-style fort.

After that, we shopped for a while in the streets of Old San Juan, a place filled with shops catering to the cruise ships that often make this a port of call.  Then it was dinner at a nice Japanese place that Andy visited while on cruise last year, then a stroll back to the car passing by the decorated plaza.

And on Wednesday, we rested.  A little body surfing, a little snorkeling, a lot of sitting by the beach and reading.  Then we finished off the day by paying a visit to a local theater and watching “Sherlock Holmes” (in English, with Spanish subtitles).

A restful and delightful day.

I’m woefully behind on these posts.  That’s in part due to connectivity failures - internet isn’t great here.  Which is probably just as well - it forces me to spend more time resting, reading, and doing fun stuff - lack of connectivity can be a real blessing!

Another piece of bookkeeping: one of my fellow travelers has expressed a dislike for being mentioned in this blog.  I shall still recount tales of this person as they intersect with mine, but will no longer use the person’s name.  If you know the Dzikiewicz’s, it should rapidly become clear who it is.

And yet one more: thanks to Steph, whose travels in Latin America are much more extensive than my own, for the correction on the status of Puerto Rico.  Puerto Rico is apparently a commonwealth, complete with congressional representation, and not a territory.

Now, to catch up a little.  Monday was a fairly busy day, including several water activities aided by the fine folk at Aquatica (a local surf and dive shop).  Monday morning featured scuba diving with Andy.  Shore diving, which means that you carry your gear to the beach, wander into the water, and swim off.  We drove first to one dive site, then to a second that turned out to be about a hundred yards from our resort.

My impressions of the scuba were about the same as my impressions of the snorkeling: some nice fish life, though not as good as other places I’ve been.  (Highlights were a pair of spotted eagle rays swimming in formation and a couple of mid-sized turtles.)  But the coral formations are spectacular.  In fact, the second dive was pretty much all a bunch of coral tunnels that we swam through: we’d come through one tunnel, get to open water, then turn around and head through another, sometimes with the current behind us (which was marvelous), sometimes having to kick into the current (not as much fun).  Here’s a picture of Andy in one of those tunnels:

Then in the afternoon, I took a surfing lesson with Kate and Unidentified Humanoid.  Surfing turns out to be pretty darned vigorous, requiring agility and balance, two words that don’t describe me.  So I stayed out on the waves for a while, then sat on the beach with Julie and cheered on the girls (who took to it rather well).  Here’s some pictures from the day:

After that, we grabbed dinner, then I went for a night-time snorkel.  Nothing amazing in the waters, though I did see a spotted eel that was around four feet long, just slithering across the coral.  And the spiny sea urchins are a scary site illuminated only by flashlight: they come out from their nooks and crannies and sit on top of the coral, looking about ten times larger than they do by day - like a black softball with foot long spikes emerging from it.

Anyway, I may try to catch up with the last couple of days today.  It’s rainy here now, so I may have a chance to blog more.  Or I may not - I’ve found a good beach book (”Carter Beats the Devil” - details when I get around to writing it up in a “What I’ve been Reading” post), and the taste of lotus leaves is starting to grow on me…

Today Julie sat overlooking the sea

while the girls and I went snorkeling.

(The coral reefs off the beach are as good as any I’ve seen - great snorkeling.  And I saw an octopus - first time I’ve seen one by day.)

Later, they went horseback riding down the beach (I was too big for the Puerto Rican horses)…

while I went for a long walk, down to the cliffs at the end of the beach.

I’m not sure what Andy was doing all day, but he seemed to be happy when I ran into him.

Then we all got together for a nice Italian dinner, then it was off for the traditional family trip to Walmart.

G’night all!

Here we are in the warmth.  Starting the day with temperatures in the 20’s, ending it in the 80’s.  A boost of 60 degrees: definitely an improvement.

We’re in Puerto Rico for the week, all five of us.  Flew in this morning (and boy are our arms tired, nyuck nyuck nyuck), direct flight from Dulles to San Juan, then way too much time getting a rental car (but they gave us a 10% discount for our troubles, so all is forgiven), then an hour and a half drive to our resort.  A quick dip in the ocean (refreshing but not cold, fairly rough water, not too much sealife but a few fish, clownfish mostly but some others too).  Then dinner, and a brief adventure finding a grocery store.  (But more on that in a later post.)

My opinion on Puerto Rico, based on a full ten hours of mostly driving around in it: over the years we’ve visited several destinations in the Caribbean, including Mexico, Jamaica, the Turks and Caicos, and Grand Cayman.  Each has its own distinct feel, and often it seems that the only things they have in common are warmth and beaches (which is okay, because that’s what we keep coming here for).

Puerto Rico is similar in its uniqueness.  In the case of Puerto Rico, though, it’s an interesting mix of the US and a Spanish island.  It’s a US territory, of course, so US law and customs apply, and US corporations abound.  Everywhere you look there’s an American brand name, including McDonalds, KFC, Walmart, and even an outlet mall with brands you’d see throughout the US.  The post offices are US post offices, indistinguishable from the ones at home.  All prices are in dollars.  And the highway system feels an awful lot like the US highway system, largely because it is the US highway system.

But the signs are in Spanish, and some of the mileposts are actually kilometer-posts (though the speed limits are still in MPH, not KPH).  And there’s something about a lot of the houses and small shops that remind me a lot of Mexico, and I’m pretty sure that the free-range chicken on the menu is really free-range, given that we saw several roosters roaming around by the side of the highways.  (This place even reminds a little of India, which is strange.  Especially this resort, which is a wilderness resort similar to several that I stayed at in Rajiv Gandhi National Park far away in Nagarhole.)

No real conclusions on all of that yet.  But it’s always interesting to go somewhere else, because it’s always a bit different than you expect.  And a bit more similar too.

Anyway, we’re here now, and we’re tired (got up at 4:00 AM this morning, and it was an active week with too little sleep as it was).  So good night!