Isla del Encanto

One of my friends asked on Facebook how long she could get away with "I survived 1L year so I deserve to buy this." Well, I got an entire last-minute vacation thinking like that. I spent most of my 3 weeks of 1L year law finals and the writing competition trying to convince my dad to take a vacation to Barcelona when I was done. However, between caring for my grandma and trying to find me a parking spot in the city for the summer, vacation plans were not top priority. Finally, on Saturday morning after the writing competition was done he called to tell me we were booked on a flight for San Juan, Puerto Rico in 48 hours.

My parents and I had our first excitement upon arrival before we even left the airport. Michelle from law school had been on our flight, and as we were talking with her waiting for our bags, two girls in short tight dresses and heels walked by, followed by a number of camera men and a posse of people. They looked at us and smiled and waved before being greeted by even more fans waiting to take pictures outside of baggage claim. The women were the Puerto Rican contestants in a Latin American modeling contest! Unfortunately, they weren't the winners, but they were kind of famous so it was still cool to see them. The rest of the evening my family walked around our hotel, which was on the beach, then went into Old San Juan for dinner before turning in after a long day of traveling.

Model in the center with the blue dress, greeted by fans

Dinner at the Parrot Club with #1 mojitos

View from our hotel room

Picture by the pool and beach of our hotel

Tuesday morning, as well as Wednesday and Friday morning, began with a few hours down at the beach. The sun was wicked hot but a constant breeze created by the trade winds made it bearable to stay in the sun for a while. The winds also created the best body-surfing waves, and the water was the perfect temperature where one could walk right in without too much effort, but it was still refreshing.

Tuesday afternoon we ventured to Casa Bacardi, or the Bacardi Rum Factory. Although I've seen my fair share of alcohol-making facilities, including beer in Strasbourg and Boston, and genever in Amsterdam, the Bacardi factory was well set-up and actually taught me some new things (like that rum is made from sugar cane). They also had one room on the tour where an employee gave customers information on Bacardi in mixed drinks and taught us how to make 3 rum cocktails. The best part was that the tour itself was free and came with 2 free drinks in an open-air cafe on the premises. In addition, bottles of rum at the gift shop were unbelievably cheap, so we took advantage of that before leaving.

Enjoying our free drinks

Replica of a Cuban bar room with bartending instructions

After the tour we took a taxi boat to Old San Juan and wandered around the streets before going to an African-Caribbean restaurant for dinner, Raices. Here I tried mofongo for the first time, what seems to be a typical Puerto Rican dish. It consists of mashed fried plantains with some sort of meat on top, served in a wooden bowl. I already love plantains so making a whole meal out of them was incredible and I had it twice in the 5 days we were there (in addition to tostones and many bags of plantain chips).

Wednesday afternoon we were again back in Old San Juan to see El Morro fort. Again, though I've seen a number of forts and military outposts over the years, there was something different about this one. It might have been the sweeping green lawn and pathway in front of it, or the clear influences from various countries that contributed to its defenses over the years. It was also one of the first pure water forts I've seen, one that was meant to defend against enemy ships sailing toward the island. El Morro was also one of the biggest and well-built forts I've been to. Ultimately, it was really impressive and even though I'm not a huge war-history person, I enjoyed spending a few hours exploring around it. There were also spectacular views of the ocean and the rest of the city and the island on every level.

Entrance to El Morro

View across the harbor from the top level

Giant cannonballs- we couldn't even lift them

Hiding in an original Spanish lookout post

Standing by the side of the wall on the 3rd level

Thursday was definitely the most active and probably the best day of the vacation. We rented a car to drive to the rain forest. The company we rented from was local, so the woman helping us didn't speak much English, which left me as translator. I've been trying to teach myself Spanish for about 18 months so leaving me as family translator is still pretty questionable. Somehow we managed to get a nice, almost new car, and a few sets of directions to take us to El Yunque national forest and the Bioluminescent Bay. Of course we took some wrong turns because that's what happens when I'm in charge of navigating, but eventually we made it to El Yunque visitor's entrance and stopped at the first waterfall and lookout tower before parking at the foot of the trail to the second big waterfall.

In the middle of the first waterfall, Cascada La Coca

View from the observation tower of the rain forest and the coastline

The best part of the rain forest is definitely the second waterfall. We survived the half hour hike through some pretty hard-going trails to make it to the swimming area. Swimming under a waterfall that is not man-made or regulated is one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done. Since I've been a lifeguard for 6 years and a swimmer my whole life, I am a pretty strong swimmer, but as I inched closer to the falling and rushing water, even I could feel how strong the current was and how it could probably overpower me. In addition, once I hopped into the cool water I realized I couldn't see the bottom, so I had no idea how deep any of it was, nor could I see the rocks I knew were there. I had to feel with my feet in front of me for anything to step on, always hoping it was a rock and not a gaping hole or something living. Of course my parents weren't in the water so they kept encouraging me to go back into the waterfall so they could take pictures. My heart was racing from the true risk but I was also smiling the whole time because it was, as I said, exhilarating.

Moving toward the unknown

After going in the big waterfall we took some time to swim around the pool area one level lower. This area was more fun because you could actually swim around and not be afraid of getting pounded by water or swept away by the current. After about an hour we left to take the half hour hike back to our car and drive out of the rain forest toward Bioluminescent Bay.

Of course we took a few more wrong turns but after another hour of driving we came upon a "park" with a couple of companies pulling kayaks out of their trucks. Because we were not sure what time we would get to the park that night, nor if we would even have time to go on a tour of the bay, we hadn't made reservations. This turned out to be a terrible idea. Even though there were 11 tour companies each taking about 30 people on both an early and a late tour, we found only one group with 3 spots left and signed up for the early tour.

This turned out to be another rather exhilarating experience. Each kayak was for 2 people, so I was paired up with a girl from Maryland working on her master's degree in English. She didn't look too athletic at first, and admitted she had never been in a kayak before, but then confessed that she had gone canoeing and even white-water rafting, so we were ok I thought. However, the first thing to happen once we were situated in our kayak is that she leaned over as she was about to paddle and the entire thing flipped. Good thing I still had my bathing suit on and we were close to shore! That was the only mishap of the trip: otherwise we were a great team. We paddled together as a team the entire way across the bay and through the mangrove trees without hitting any trees or any boats. When our group arrived at the bay it was still too light to see the organisms glowing so we paddled around for a while until our tour guide called us over to look at the water. 

The water wasn't quite as glowing as this, but honestly it was pretty close to this

The bay is one of 5 bays with that organism in the world. Two others are in Puerto Rico, though one is almost dead. Another in Jamaica is almost dead and the last one I think is in Cuba. A similar type of organism creates red tide, but that water is poisonous so most people don't go out in it and move the bacteria around. The glow is a defense mechanism, and when you agitate the water the organisms create the glow, similar to fireflies, to try and scare away predators. It was fascinating to see such a phenomenon.

Since we had to wait for it to get dark, the trip paddling back was in pitch black darkness. It caused me to decide that my new favorite activity is paddling a canoe through mangrove trees in the dark. The only thing we had to guide us were the lights on the fronts and backs of everyone's boats. With me directing from the front and my new friend Kandice giving our boat power from the back, we managed to stay with the group, turn every corner, and not hit a single tree or kayaker, even though we couldn't see a thing. Kandice described it like a video game where you had to try not to hit anything and make it through the path. This became even more true once we cleared the mangrove trees and had to get back across the bay to our launching beach. There were about 20 boats anchored in the bay, and with a strong wind and current blowing us to shore, it took all of our strength to avoid the boats and make it to our destination. It's unfortunate that no one would think of taking a kayak out at night unless you had to go in the dark, such as with this excursion, because it was one of the most exciting things we did on the trip.

Friday we had to fly home after a final relaxing day at the hotel. I was sad because the vacation was over, but not worried about not getting to see some things I had wanted to, such as Ponce, Las Cuevas de Camuy, and the island Culebra, because I have a feeling I will be back, hopefully soon.

Muchas gracias a todos mis amigos por sus recomendaciones!! Me gusta mucho su isla!