Andy & I looooovve to travel. Travel and take photos of the new and interesting things we see…that’s our thing. We met while traveling through Spain, then after living there a while, we left to spend a month touring Morocco. And since then, we’ve traveled together through Italy, Mexico, England, Wales, and Nicaragua. (Geesh, that list is way shorter than I’d like.)  During the past few years, we’ve also spent some time in Canada, Colorado, Austria, Hawaii, Washington, DC, California & Switzerland. And between us, we’ve separately visited most of the 50 states and 22 different countries. The world is a big place and we’d like to see as much of it as we can.

Most recently, we spent a very quick 9 days visiting sunny Puerto Rico, namely San Juan and the island of Vieques. It had been 2 years since our last big vacation (Nicaragua) and we knew we couldn’t take as much time off as we’d like with the wedding season so close, so this felt like a nice mix of the Latin culture we so enjoy and an easy non-stop flight.

After two days of exploring Old San Juan, we took a ferry to the tiny island of Vieques. We met a very cool couple from Vermont, Laura & Brian (Brian is also a photographer) and their too-cute-for-words daughter, Harper. They decided to come to Puerto Rico after swapping a sweet surf board Laura won at work for a week at a guest house outside of Isabella Secunda, on the north side of Vieques….How cool is that?

We stayed on the other side of the island, in the town Esperanza, which had one main drag along the water, dotted with a few outdoor restaurants & hotels, all owned primarily by expats living la vida buena! (The good life). It was a bit hard to find a truly authentic Puerto Rican experience, but come the weekend, a few stalls opened up that sold these delicious meat-stuffed fried tummy tantalizers, called Pastelillos, of which we had our fair share.

We also managed to arrive in Vieques just prior to a cultural festival that was held over the weekend at the old fort in Isabella Segunda. We spent one evening there and it was great!! We got to sample local festival food (including a pigs ear stew that Andy braved, but that I stayed far far away from) and listen to local musicians play some jump-out-of-your-seat-and-dance salsa. We found the people of Puerto Rico to be incredibly friendly, warm, loving and completely dedicated to family.

Our first couple of days in Esperanza were filled by walking 2 miles down the beach, parking our very white butts under a palm tree and just chilling…mixed in with some snorkeling, swimming, and beach glass hunting. We were in heaven.

By the third day, we met this really sweet couple from Scituate, Kim & Stefan. Kim has been coming to Vieques every year for 20+ years. They had rented a Jeep and offered to show us around. It was excellent and we saw places we never would have seen had we not met them. We got up at 5:30AM to go drive out to this little lighthouse they love and watch the sunrise. Unfortunately, the road had closed since their last trip so we tried hiking in….we went the wrong way, got lost, and later discovered that our bush whacking landed Andy some nasty Puerto Rician poison ivy. But, it was a fun adventure with our new friends and the next morning we tried again, this time our adventure was met with success. And the views were certainly worth the trip.

Kim & Stefan also took us to feed apples to some of the island’s wild horses and to several secluded beaches, one of which we arrived at just after a sea turtle had left a clutch of eggs buried in the sand. I swear we missed it by minutes. Her tracks down to the water were fresh and because we’d had a little rain that morning, we could tell that she must have come up during the night to lay the eggs. It was a cool find and we let the naturalists at the local conservation trust know about our discovery when we got back into town, so they could rope the area off. Go little turtles, go!

I think the highlight of the trip was our evening kayak and swim in Vieques’ incredible bioluminescent bay. Apparently, Vieques’ bio bay is one of the most spectacular in the world. The bay, which maintains a fairly constant temperature…around 80F, is the perfect habitat for single-celled bioluminescent dinoflagellates. These half-plant, half-animal organisms, of which there are some 720,000/gallon of water, emit a flash of bluish light when disturbed, as a sort of defense mechanism. Apparently, you can’t see the light during the day, but with a new moon, it’s a site not to be missed. Swimming in the water with these flashy guys was nothing short of magical. You can’t actually see them, because they’re microscopic, but when you move in the water your movements leave a trail of their blue lights. And, if you lift your wet arm out of the water it will sparkle as the water drips off of you. Very cool!!! It’s like swimming in a big glow stick. Unfortunately, we didn’t bring our cameras to that, but, we did get a bunch of great shots from the trip that we’d like to share with you over several posts.

Here’s the first installment, featuring photos from Old San Juan. Enjoy!! Chris & Andy

Se Aquila means “For Rent”….cute, right? We would have loved to have seen inside! A lot of the city houses in tropical countries like this tend to have open courtyards in the middle of the house. Yes, please!!!

Stray cats were everywhere in Old San Juan…particularly by the Fortaleza (Old Fort). It’s sad, but there definitely were plenty of tourists around feeding them.

There were even more geckos than there were cats.

My honey cracking up….he’s so cute, isn’t he?

Puerto Ricans seem to have an affinity with all things American, particularly big old cars…although I admit, I think these beauties were lined up for a shot in a new Johnny Depp movie being filmed while we were there. Unfortunately, we didn’t see Johnny.

What I like about this next shot is just the juxtaposition of this woman in beautiful Old San Juan, with its cobblestone streets and colorful building fronts, talking on a modern day cell phone. Cracks me up! The quizzical look on her face doesn’t hurt either!

Renovations to a gorgeous building in Old San Juan…I just love the wrought iron door, the arched doorways and the contrasting black & white tiles against the beams in the ceiling. The worker walking through the shot just completes the picture for me. Talk about a sweet pad!!!

Our last day before leaving, we headed over to the Condado area, where we found this terrific Mexican restaurant (strange, I know) with killer views from  our table…..aaaaah, I just feel more relaxed looking at this photo!

This particular plaza was named for hundreds of pigeons that call it home. You can buy food from nearby stores and feed the pigeons, but be warned, they’re a lot less afraid of you than you may be of them. Looks like they’re living pretty good here at Parque Las Palomas, as these were some of the fattest pigeons I’ve ever seen. Love this perspective!

Stay tuned….more photos to follow manana! (That’s tomorrow in case your Spanish is as bad as mine.)