Monday - After leaving old San Juan we picked up a hire car and headed east for Ceiba. On this day I did the driving and it is a bit unnerving driving on the wrong side of the road through an unfamiliar city and skinny mountain roads. On the way to Ceiba we drove up the mountains to a national park and went for a hike to a waterfall called La Mina. The trek was quite steep at times but the scenery was spectacular. After that it was off to our B&B to get organized for the nighttime activities. We had booked a dusk kayak excursion into an isolated mangrove lagoon called Bio Bay. After about 15 minutes of paddling we were in a huge lagoon where the water contains microorganisms that glow when disturbed by the paddles, kayaks, your fingers, hands, feet, etc. By the time we arrived there it was dark and the effect was spectacular. About 20 minutes later we paddled back through the canopy of mangroves to the beach. A most magnificent outing.
Tuesday - Today we were all up in time to watch the sunrise over the Caribbean. It was gorgeous. I don't have any pictures to post because Ashley took heaps on his camera and I haven't downloaded them to my iPad yet. Today was also Chris' turn to drive (hooray). We headed south using the freeway and older coast roads. Many times we were right along side the Caribbean with spectacular views to the horizon and up and down the coast. For lunch we went off the track to a little town called Salinas and found a pub/restaurant that literally butted up to the ocean. The food was fantastic; Chris had a conch mofongo (a mofongo is a sort of pastry made from cooked, mashed-up plantains and garlic molded into a soft shell that is filled with whatever you order), Ashley ordered chicken stuffed with seafood rice (and got an entire chook), and I ordered prawns wrapped in bacon (Ash called them devils on sea-horseback). After lunch we headed to Ponce on the south coast to settle in to our hotel. But of course it did not go smoothly. Ponce is a biggish city with lots of one-way streets, so we worked out our route and headed in. However, there are roadworks on one of the streets we had selected so we had to change plans and find an alternate route. The roads here are about one car width wide and chokka with cars. We got to the hotel in the end but it took us about 30 minutes longer under stressful conditions. Chris did extremely well driving under those circumstances.
After settling in to our room we wandered round Ponce for a while but there was not much to see, just about everything is shut on Tuesdays so we are going to try again tomorrow. For the evening we had a few drinks and chatted to the locals (who were very keen to chat!), had some dinner and then came back to our hotel room.
Tomorrow we are off to Arecibo to see the world's largest single aperture radio telescope. You may have seen it in the James Bond movie Goldeneye.
But for now it is goodnight.
Driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.
Lace leaves on a tree in the national park.
La Mina falls.
Some of the steps on the track to the falls.
Ashley's chicken stuffed with seafood rice.
My Devils on Sea-horseback..
Chris' conch mofongo.
View to the right from our table at the restaurant.
These seagulls were on all the posts just to the left of our table.
View from our hotel window in Ponce.
And finally, this sign is in our hotel. It's nice to know we will be safe should such an emergency eventuate!
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