This is our 150th blog post. I guess we've seen a few places! There are still more trips from the past that I'm going to get to but for now, you'll just have to settle for these wonderful pictures from our trip to Puerto Rico. Izzy was hired to shoot a wedding on the northeast part of the island near the city of Fajardo. Since we hadn't been able to get away for a while, we took the opportunity to take a few days off of our day jobs and explore the island since we were already traveling down there anyways. We arrived Wednesday afternoon shortly before the soon to be bride and groom did. Izzy and I decided we'd rent a car so we could go exploring on our own Thursday and Friday. When we collected our bags, we caught a bus around to the rental agency. After a short wait, we had our car and were on our way. The only thing we weren't clear about was the toll system and how it worked. The girl told us to use the far left lane and that the camera would take a picture of our plate. She said their company had a contract with another company to negotiate toll rates for rental cars. Each time we passed through a toll plaza, we would be charged the toll and a daily $4.95 for activating the service of the company to negotiate. After picking up the car, we picked up the soon to be happy couple and made the long journey out to the El Conquistador Resort, where of course, the hotel people had not made our reservation and we had to hope they had a room for us. We spent the rest of the evening wandering around the grounds inspecting for good places to take pictures and seeing what they had to offer. Izzy and I are not resort people but we thought we'd give it a whirl once and stay with everyone involved in the wedding party.
After a good nights sleep, we awoke Thursday morning ready to explore the island. The island has a new set of highways that are nice but don't cut through the small towns and villages like the old highways do. We chose highway 3 and headed south towards a more secluded part of the island. We had two goals for the day: find the pork highway to enjoy some lechon asado and visit El Yunque National Park. Our drive along highway 3 led us through some tight back roads and lots of small towns. The southern coast of Puerto Rico had some beautiful beaches and we stopped to enjoy the views a few times.
We managed to find ourselves in the southeastern corner of the island near the town of Patillas. It was there where we turned onto Hwy 184 to head up into the mountains. At the base of the mountain, we stopped to check out Lago Patillas. The view was beautiful and inspired us to try out the panoramic setting on our phone's cameras. From there we headed up the mountain. The climb was steep and the road had no guardrails. The lanes were just big enough for two cars to pass each other but just small enough to make you cringe every time you had to. One online review said to honk the horn when going around curves. We saw houses that seemed to be hanging just over the cliff and somehow, didn't fall off. We saw other houses with driveways so steep, it seemed impossible to be able to get the house. In the midst of it all were small post boxes for everyone in the same area.
Finally, after five hours of driving(mind you we stopped along the way and were in no hurry), we got to the region of Guavate, home of the small town famous for roasting pigs. We had lunch at El Rancho Original. The restaurant was set up like a buffet and we picked what we wanted, paid, then ate in a large cafeteria type place. It was all open air and had places for bands to play and people to dance. Unfortunately, no one was out while we there except a group of graduating high school seniors enjoying their freedom from school. We had a plate of roasted pig, some burnt skin, and a serving of arroz gandule(local rice dish with lentils/pigeon peas). It was delicious and well worth the trip. We continued on through the small town and caught the toll highway back towards El Yunque National Forest.
In an attempt to understand the Puerto Rican toll system, I pulled over into the pay lane of the toll road instead of driving through the far left lane as instructed. My thought process was, if we're going to pay the toll anyways, I'd rather not incur the $4.95 daily charge for activating the use of the company to negotiate the rate of the toll road. I watched the car in front of us pay a few bucks and head on. When I pulled up, the attendant asked me for a card I didn't have. I asked if I could just pay the toll and go. She informed I couldn't. I needed a card or a magnetic pass that I had to pay for and then I could pay the toll. She printed me a ticket with a number to call and sent me on my way without taking any money. I was thoroughly confused and convinced I'd just gotten us a bigger fine. (It turns out I didn't, I just wasted my time and paid the $4.95 fee too.) We made it to El Yunque Park with a couple of hours to poke around. There's a visitor station you can stop at but you must pay a fee to walk around it. Otherwise, you can do like we did and just drive in for free. There were various spots throughout the park where we could park the car and go on hikes through amazing landscapes. We stopped at some of the waterfalls for some pictures and again at a place where we could hike to more waterfalls. The sounds, sites, and smells of the park were great. It was only made better because the resort where we were staying was trying its hardest to imitate what the park naturally did and it couldn't even come close to what the park did.
We had to leave by 6:00 because the park gates close and we didn't want to spend the night in the park without proper provisions. The drive back to the resort was short and we spent the rest of the evening hanging out with the wedding party. Our first day in Puerto Rico was definitely a success!
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