Oh, Happy Day!: Puerto Rico Heaven

Jonathan and I took a quick jaunt down to Puerto Rico. It may be one of the best trips we had, and as usual it was chalk full of adventure. Jonathan and I arrived in the evening, and by the time we were at the hotel it was late afternoon. After a little beach time we checked out a restaurant downtown. (Side note: This restaurant by far had the best Pina Colada of the trip, although we had to leave given some...dancing...that began occuring.)
Day two included a trip to the rainforest, and a long wait in traffic while on the way to the Bio Bay. The bio bay glows when disturbed because of micro-organisms. The entire trip was fantastic. We kayaked out in the dark, in a tralong string of kayaks distinguishable only by the green glow bracelets attached to their fronts, and red ones attached at the back. People are no longer allowed to swim in the bio bay in the name of preserving the micro-organisms.

I just happen to love this shot of Jonathan.

I don't love this picture of me, but...it does prove I was there.

As if that would stop me. There may have been three requests on my part to know of our tour guides what would happen if my kayak accidentally flipped. I may have then accidentally flipped the kayak after giving the keys and cameras over to the tour guides. EVERYONE needs to swim in a bio bay at some point in their life. They should try not to loose their keys in the bay, though. We did. A stranger walking along the shoreline kicking his feet through the water kicked them up an hour later.

No Chipman vacation is without a little mishap involving mother nature, and we're just grateful our experience with water was losing keys rather than being in a hurricane. (Especially since we went in the height of hurricane season.)

Our next day was nothing short of amazing. We checked out some gorgeous caverns at the Cuerva Caves, including a tour with about 30 teenagers. Awesome. (Really. It was!) We got some water from the Fountain of Life, and then headed off to the Arecibo Observatory, which has been in a number of movies.

We got drenched walking up to the observatory, and just figured that if the rain was coming, we might as well enjoy it. I should note that I still haven't grown up: the only appropriate souvenier seemed to be space ice cream. The afternoon was spent at the beach and then walking around Old Town San Juan. Dinner was amazing--we ate at Carli's Bistro, the owner of which used to play for the beach boys. The food was amazing, and we got to eat it while listening to live jazz. Loved it. It was worth every penny. Dinner cost a lot of pennies.

I really wanted to go to Ireland. We did Puerto Rico instead. Jonathan decided
our drive to the observatory would have to suffice.

The days kept getting better. The Hilton has a private island where guests can spend a day at a private beach complete with restaurants, water toy rentals, rusty tanks to explore on the shelly shoreline, etc. It just so happens that there is a small island just a short snorkel trip away. Sooooo...private island to ourselves? Why, thank you. We'll take it. (Pirates of the Carribean was filmed at that island.)