10 day’s around the island

Starting with a 2 hour plane delay, again…

Must be something about this side of the world where all the planes are late – had none of this in asia, only very occasional tiny delays.

Nice views coming into land.

o sim cards and no wifi on arrival in the airport – very odd. Really hard navigating from the paper map which does not show enough detail to know which lane to take among other things.

The driving is not only manic but so busy with long traffic jams but eventually we found a shopping mall – HUGE, round and round for parking too, crazy.

Interesting that here (and Dominican Republic) do not have front numberplates on the cars, must make it harder to catch criminals I would think.

We decided to get an UBER into the old town as had heard it is impossible to park. When he picked us up he said “Is this an airbnb?” yes we answered. “Should not be allowed this is  Cracksville, not safe at all.” The interesting thing then was that he got a phone call and was talking all the way to our destination about his guns, storing of them, money transfers etc…… Not sure this is going to be my favourite city. We are starting to top end near one of the forts.

The old town is lovely but we only had about 1.5 hours of daylight so had to rush, not great for photography but we won’t have time (or rather do not want to) come back into this city again.

We could not believe it was so busy or why – till we got down to the port and saw 3 massive cruise ships in dock, around 8000 people descended into the old town for the day- Yikes.

I love the colourful and old buildings, it certainly is very pretty (or would be with less people).

One of the things we wanted to see was “Umbrella Street” – always up we are told, but no when we get there only the hangers and no umbrellas.

Birding and beaches along the way to Arecibo, it certainly takes a long time to get anywhere here, traffic is thick and very fast with the usual dangerous driving thrown in for fun.

Nice being back where English is spoken in some form or other (hardly any English at all in Dominican Republic), easier than always using google translate. We have also discovered that What’s App translates messages, so when I think I have been communicating with someone who speaks English – but not so.

World Title Surfing Comp starting in this town in a couple of days and the last chance for a few to qualify for the Olympics. Many Olympic surfers are already here to practice nice to watch but not particularly large waves. The Chinese surfers are staying where we are – will have to watch how they go.

Hairy windy road up to a birding spot – only to find Danger signs do not enter when we get there – odd, it is a national park and we know others have been this month. Bump into another couple later who were there the same morning – now we know to ignore that and just walk in, but it is a long way from where we are staying now so not sure we will make it.

Visiting quite a few beaches on our way round but nothing stands out and all very crowded. The town of our stay is very quiet, we came here for 2 reasons, best place to swim in Bioluminescence and of course some good birding around. The first thing we find in the wild department is huge green lizards with stripey tails.

After seeing them once we found them everywhere, sometimes orange in colour.

Weather has been great so far and our first day here no exception, spent birding with the plan for Bioluminescence in the evening. But for the first time on this island the wind picks up and clouds start to form – not worth going out to swim. Hopefully another of the 4 days we have here. Interesting seeing a blimp hovering above town, thought is may be filming some event, Nope part of USA radar according to google. – We are all being watched.

Off to another high mountainous National Park, start out at 5.45 am, in slight drizzle but forecast is to clear shortly – off course that did not happen – over 1 hour later up windy mountain roads where you can not see a thing as in thick cloud we give up. Not only is it thick cloud but also raining and very very windy.

The next day was lovely so we repeated the process back up the windy road, could actually see the view this time.

What a difference a day makes.

By evening the wind had picked up again, too rough for Bioluminescence so just scouted for a few birds and had a bottle of wine. Did not happen the next day either.

Weather now pretty much changed for the rest of our time on the island – bang goes the snorkelling out on Culebra Island off the top East Coast that we had 2 days to chose from and neither will now be any good. I think the universe is telling us not to go in the water – seems to be a consistent theme going on so far on this trip. On our way to the North East we stopped in at Ponce – very colourful town with the main attraction the historic Fire station and museum – also closed for renovation, (and it was not last time I looked when planning this).

The town is not only colourful but obviously quite old, with many once beautiful buildings, unfortunately it all feels very run down and unloved with many of the best buildings in a really bad state of repair or half demolished with a few exceptions like the houses below.

Next stop a PORK HIGHWAY. There are 3 in the country and we felt like it was worth for once buying an actual meal – many many places and all packed. Loud, loud music to go with the food. The Pigs are roasted whole on a spit after being marinated for over a day, we tried one dish between us and I must admit the pork tasted great. (Neither of us though were game for the many other strange foods on the stalls.) – Not my picture below as ours did not really work.

Then on to Route 66 (Puerto Rico style) not as long as USA one but it sounds good. Always did want to drive Route 66 – even if not this one……

Even though the weather was wet and revolting we wanted to do something so explored El Yunque National Park – unfortunately most of that was shut, nearly all the trails, the towers and even a road to one spot. Still we were so luck to find in the wild the Puerto Rican Amazon (Parrot) – only about 260 left in the wild (but up from 22 around early 1990’s).

Rio Grande town where we are staying is really colourful and many buildings have the same pattern.

After 10 days of driving around Puerto Rico, still confused, distances in kilometers, speed limit signs in MPH (nobody takes any notice) and cars have orange lights (indicators) that appear not to work – or is that the driver that does not work…..

Service stations here sell more alcohol than any other shop (or anything else it sells apart from fuel – odd.

The end – well of this saga, next Costa Rica.