Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Puerto Rico, Part I

Two weeks after the boy and I went on our first date (literally), the following took place:

Him: Do you like the beach?
Me: Yes, in fact I am a human and not a vampire who is afraid of the sun.  Ergo, I like the beach.
Him: We should go on vacation together, like, to a beach.
Me: Okay, you're probably kidding, but in case you're not, my last day of school in December is the 17th but I want to spend Christmas with my family so I'm not free till the 26th.

That was the the only real conversation we ever had about going to Puerto Rico.  Half of me did not - could not - believe that we were actually planning going on a vacation together after knowing each other for less than a month.  Also, school happened and I was a little, you know, busy.  And then, all of a sudden it was Christmas break and I realized I needed to drive back to New Haven in order to catch an 8 AM flight out of White Plains on the 26th because - yes indeed - we were going on a beach vacation.

And it was incredible.


First of all, Puerto Rico is 86 degrees in December.  Every day.  Frogs chirp as you fall asleep, it rains for about an hour in the morning and then clears to breezy, sunshine-y paradise every day.  Every.  Single.  Day.  We stayed at the Puerto Rican equivalent of a B&B - a fun couple that own a horse farm rent out the rooms in the "little house."  Complimentary hammock outside each room.


We had lots of relaxing beach time, mixed in with plenty of adventurous rainforest hiking time too.






This was a 300 year old ceiba tree...
...whose roots actually get stretch marks as they expand to hold water.




Rather than overwhelm my picture-loaded post with a glut of words, I'll save the PR stories for another post.  I'm going back to the mirror to longingly admire my fading tan before it's gone completely.

2 comments:

lissell said...

It looks so beautiful! I lived there from 1984 - 1986 - in fact delivered my son (via emergency c-section!) at a tiny little hospital in Arecibo. If you don't mind my asking, where is the B&B? It looks gorgeous. We go back from time to time (have a piece of land overlooking Rincon)and that B&B looks like somewhere I'd like to stay ;)

Cait said...

It was gorgeous, yes. We stayed in Rio Grande, which was about 20 minutes south of San Juan. The place was called Hacienda Siesta Alegre, and the couple who own it are Linda and Greg. Super nice people. I think they have a FB page and maybe even a website? And that's awesome that you lived there for two years! And had your son there too!