Another good weekend.

This past weekend was pretty awesome. My friend Jason flew in and we visited some places that have been on my list of things to see. First off, we went to El Yunque, which is the sub-tropical rain forest here on the island. We did some hiking in the park and climbed up to El Morro Tower which had a spectacular view. We also did a day trip to Vieques, which is a relatively large island off the Eastern coast of Puerto Rico. My friend Krista and her boyfriend, Colin, also came with us. Vieques was beautiful! We really wanted to go to Culebra, but the ferry tickets sold out before we got there (which was a little frustrating because we left at 6 am to get to the ferry). It ended up being a great day anyway. We spent the day at Sun Bay Beach. There were an alarming number of wild horses running free on the island. There was a large herd of them at the beach and even more along the sides of the road. It is common to see wild dogs all over the island, but this is the first time I have seen loose livestock of any kind. After lots of sun (and layers of sunscreen), we took the ferry back to Fajardo and had some local cuisine.


I had a chicken mofongo. Mofongo is a very common dish here and it is made many different ways. It is mashed plantains (either tostones which are unripe plantains that taste sort of like potatoes or maduros which are ripe plaintains that are sweet) with some sort of meat in the middle. It is served in a large wooden goblet lined with the plantains with the meat in the middle. It is really good. I've had it with mahi mahi and chicken. The restaurant we went to prepared all the meat on the grill first and it was amazing.

Then we went on a night kayaking expedition in Bio Bay. This was my favorite thing that I have done since I have been to Puerto Rico. There are pics of it online, but none of them capture how cool it really was. We kayaked for a few miles through a channel that was completely covered by mangrove trees. It opened up into a large bay. The bay is home to these tiny microorganisms that are bioluminescent. Every time our paddles, hands or feet touched the water, the water would start to glow a pale blue. It was like Avatar when they walked through the forest. Krista and I were splashing each other and it was like throwing tiny drops of light. Unfortunately, they do not allow swimming in the bay anymore. The sunscreen/bug spray/body oils of people were starting to affect the microorganisms. It is something that can't really be described or captured on camera. Puerto Rico has three places on the island that are home to the dioflagellates that produce the glow. There are only 5 places in the world where you can see this. Clearly I hijacked the pic, but we couldn't bring our cameras because we got wet in the kayaks.

Missing home.

So this weekend was really nice. Cathleen's fiance came to visit and it was great finally getting to meet him!! They spent most of the weekend off on their own excursions, but the three of us went to Old San Juan on Friday. I played official photographer for their save the date photos at the beach. We found a new favorite beach too. It is called Escambron and it is beautiful. The tropical storms were causing some decent sized waves, so we even saw surfers for the first time since we have been here. For some reason it is really hard to find a map that shows the beach even though it is run by a branch of the National Parks Service. Oh well, I liked it partially because there weren't that many people there. The pictures turned out really cute!! I think the hard part is going to be choosing which one to use.

We also went to El Castillo de San Cristobol. The pics above are from the visit. It is very similar to El Castillo de Morro that we went to when I first moved to Puerto Rico on our class trip, but just a mile or so down the road. I actually liked El Castillo de San Cristobol more. Both were built in the 1630s and haven't really changed all that much. They were used to protect the harbor and the city. It was crazy how many soldiers lived there. A ton of them died from various diseases that happen when you shove too many people into a small area. One of my favorite things was the dungeon. It was kind of creepy, but not as big or deep into the fort as you might think. It was sort of like a long, narrow holding cell. There were a few drawings of ships on the wall that were thought to be of Spanish ship captains who were awaiting their executions for mutiny. (That is the top pic.)

Although it was a great weekend and Cathleen enjoyed Travis' visit, dropping him off at the airport was still pretty tough for her. I think a little bit of that rubbed off on me today. I'm missing home. Most days I'm just fine, but today I really want to be on a trail ride with Nicole and Wendy just enjoying the pretty colors of fall (I appreciate them more now that I know I won't get to see them.) Or helping Brett with his homework--which is so much easier in person than over the phone. Or at wine night with Nicole and Dani. Or watching Millionaire Matchmaker with Elizabeth (its a guilty pleasure--I know its shallow.) Or Packer Football with either Dad or Dean.Or catching up with Anna and Molly which usually involves cheese curds. Or taking the bikes out and then watching UFC with Wade, Kate and Dillon. Or going to Parfrey's Glen with Geoff. I guess this is the hard part about living on a tropical island. It has its perks, but it will never be home.

Rincon!

We finally have a break in exams. This month only has one exam. It is next week and it is optics. To reward ourselves for studying so hard and not having a weekend, we rented cars and a beach house and went to Rincon, PR on the far West Coast of the island. It was super cheap because it was the off season and the beach house was amazing. We spent most of the time at the beach or just hanging out on our rooftop patio. I wish we could have seen more, but we really needed to relax and that is exactly what we did.

Cathleen's fiance is coming today. He is coming a day early to surprise her and she is going to freak out. It is payback for her surprising him last month. I will be nice to meet him and put a face to all the stories I hear. It should be another good weekend.