No Words....just laughter

Day 4. Old San Juan

Our last day we checked out of the resort and headed to Old San Juan. I think OSJ is one of the neatest places I have ever been. We kept hearing about how pretty it was so we decided that we had to check it out before we headed to the airport. Our flight didn't leave until 4 so we had plenty of time to do some exploring. That is one thing that I really loved about this trip, the amount of exploring we did. OSJ was super clean and had the most beautiful buildings. I wish that we had been able to spend more time there because there was alot more that I wanted to see but we didn't have the time. We just walked up and down the streets and went in and out of the shops. There were all kinds of shops down there from souvenir shops to Radio Shack and even a Starbucks. They obviously take a lot of pride in this area because several buildings were being painted as we walked past. They do a lot to keep everything looking neat and clean.



We asked a lady in one of the shops where we should eat lunch and she told us to go to a local place. We went in and found a seat. Luckily the menu was in English and Spanish. I ordered chicken strips and french fries thinking I couldn't go wrong with that. We were after all getting on an airplane shortly and I did not want an upset stomach. The chicken strips were not at all what we eat. They were AWESOME!! It was fajita meat that had been lightly battered and fried with onions served on top. I'm not a fan of onions but they gave a great flavor and I easily moved them to the side. Terry got another fabulous sandwich.
This was right after we ate lunch. The group of guys in this picture were US Coast Guard. There was a very strong police and military presence down there. I loved this view because there we were in a downtown area and you could see the ocean and even further in the distance, mountains. Beautiful!!




You can see how narrow the streets were. When we were driving around through here it was slightly stressful so I was glad when we found a place to park and got out.



This is the last picture we took while in Puerto Rico. We left from here and headed to the airport. It was such a great and well needed vacation. We had such a great time and I really do hope that we will someday get to go back.

Day 3. Water park

Our third day in PR was pretty relaxing. We hung out at the water park at the resort. There 3 different slides, a lazy river, and several pools. Terry was all about the slides. I only rode on one slide but Terry kept going back for more.

I stood here and waited for him to come down this slide in the heat for a good 15-20 min. When it was his turn I couldn't get the camera to work fast enough and completely missed him sliding. Not good.
This is where I spent the majority of my time at the water park. They had a zero entry pool that I thought was fabulous because I could keep cool in the sun. Terry was off playing and I was relaxing. It was really hot that day so the water felt really good.

After the water park we were walking back and we took a detour to sit on the grass out by the water. We found a nice shade spot under a palm tree and just sat and watched the water for a while.
This is the ferry that took us back and forth between the resort and the beach at Palomino Island.

View of the resort from the bottom up to the top.
This is volcanic rock that lined the ocean.

We stopped for a snack on the way back up. The wind was blowing through here and I think I could have stayed right there until bedtime but we decided to go get cleaned up and have a nice Italian dinner instead.

On our way to dinner.

Day 4 up next - Old San Juan

Day 2. Ziplining through the Rain Forest.

We woke up early Tuesday morning so that we could me up with our Zipline guides at "the basketball court beside the baseball field". OK? I was so excited about ziplining but was a little confused about the meet up place. We needed to grab breakfast so we stopped at the drive-thru at Burger King. Great idea, right? Good thing there are pictures and numbers, unfortunately there are also choices within the numbers. Needless to say we didn't get it quite right but luckily we liked what we ended up with.

So we headed to "the basketball court beside the baseball field" and see 3 other people waiting as well. Turned out they were a mother/daughter and daughter's bff. The mother, Diana, was originally from PR but now lives in New Jersey. Daughter, Nicole, lives with bff, Ashley, in Hollywood, CA and they are both teachers. They both just graduated from UCLA with their master's degrees as well. They were all really sweet and they loved Terry because he helped Diana so much when we were hiking.

Anyway, our guides, Jaime and Roque, met up with us and we jumped back into the car to their little house that they store all of the equipment. This was why we met at "the basketball court beside the baseball field", we would have never found it. So we signed our lives away and got our equipment and started hiking through El Yunque Rain Forest. BEAUTIFUL!!
On our hike up I couldn't stop taking pictures. I couldn't believe the beauty that was around me. Talk about God's country!!! This was unreal.



Disclaimer: From here on out you will see MANY self portraits of Terry and I. Love it or leave it, it's my blog :)
We hiked up and up and up and up and I was pretty much worn out by the time we got to the first zipline. But I was still REALLY excited.


Helmets on and we are ready to go. The first line was short and sweet. They eased us into it nicely.


At the end of the first zipline we had an assisted rappel. So fun. I love to rappel. I haven't done it ages but it was alot easier than I remembered. Maybe because of the "assisted" part.
Made it safely to the ground. By the way, it never did rain on us in the Rain Forest.
Terry thought he would play with the camera while he was waiting on everyone else to rappel. Funny little guy.
And here we go again. In all there were 7 ziplines and 3 rappels. The longest zipline was 900 feet.
The whole time we were going through all of this, Jaime and Roque were giving us biology and geology lessons. They are both from PR. Jaime has his bachelor's degree in geology and Roque went to Michigan State and is working on something at Berkley now. They are both unbelievably smart. They previously worked on a zipline on the other side of the island in another rain forest. There wasn't anything like this in El Yunque so they decided to go out on their own. They lease this land and built all of this course on their own. They are great at what they do and we learned so much along the way. They are the ones that told us about the haze being from the Sahara Desert. They also told us all about how the island was formed, from volcanoes. They told us about all of the fruit trees and so much more that I can now not remembered. I guess I should have taken notes.


This is me coming across the last zipline that was 900 feet. It was amazing. You start out in the canopy and then it opens up and you are out in the wide open area. I can't say enough how beautiful it was.
I slowed down to much and didn't make it all the way so they had to send me a backpack to hang on to and pull me in. I don't feel bad because Terry didn't make it either.
The day spent in El Yunque is one that will not be forgotten any time soon.




After it was all over Terry and I decided to go exploring through the rest of the rain forest. We were starving so we got directions to a great little bakery. We were able to communicate well enough to order the best ham and cheese sandwiches we have ever eaten. I would go back to Luquillo, Puerto Rico just for these sandwiches. We ordered 2 but ended up sharing one and saving the other for breakfast the next morning. They were THAT GOOD!!




We kept hearing about this great waterfall that you could swim in but we couldn't find it. This was as good as it got for us. We later figured out where the waterfall was and I was really disappointed we didn't find it when we had the chance. There's always next time!!




When we got back to the resort the haze had really started to clear up and we had an even better view than the day before. We had a fabulous steak dinner that night and headed to bed early. We were stuffed and dead tired. Besides we had the waterpark to look forward to the next day!!