I Know, I know. it's been a while since I have updated. But I am about to finally update about Matt & my vacation to Puerto Rico!
We stayed at the Gran Melia resort on the east side of the island. Normally, it would have been waaay out of our price range, but thanks to that fun little website
LivingSocial, we were able to go for am amazing price and stay in an amazing oceanfront suite.
We were down in Puerto Rico from June 9 to the 12th, and packed in as much stuff as we could. We spent the first day renting a car and exploring the island. We went Zip-lining in the rainforest, wandering through the rainforest, and ate lunch at a local food stand. I had the Carnes Frita, which was AMAZZZZING. The rainforest was really cool, and it is the only rainforest in the US National Forests system. Pretty snazzy, right?
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| Throwing coconuts. |
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| Hangin' at a waterfall |
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| Guy who made our food |
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| Post-zip lining, don't we look like pros? |
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| Anyone who knows me knows I love the NPS. and yes, I got my passport stamped! |
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| Man chillin' on a street corner. Artsy photo mode in DT Old San Juan |
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| I love how the people who live here just bring card tables and play in the square in the middle of town |
Because I got a fancy amazing super awesome new camera, I went into an artsy mode and took over 200 pictures the whole trip. A lot of the ones in San Juan were of the buildings and doors. It was so colourful, and the city of Old San Juan has had over 400 buildings restored to look like they had back when. The streets were paved with a beautiful blue stone that was used to weigh the ships down as they came across the ocean? Someone else explained it a lot better than I can!
The next day, we got up bright and early to go horseback riding in the rainforest. It was so lovely, but so hot and humid (I guess being in a rainforest has that kind of weather) so we got to stop and take a dip in a river that ran through the rain forest. After jumping off rocks into the water, our guide made paint from stones. Apparently, the native indians on the island used rocks to make face paint that signified important events. After they painted Matt's face, the guide congratulated him on becoming a man. What a proud day! haha.
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| Swimming in a river in the rainforest |
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| Our guide used stones to paint our faces |
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| Matt 'becoming a man' |
After we came back from horseback riding, matt took a nap while I went and got a spa treatment (fo' free! Thanks LivingSocial!) at the spa on the resort property. Needless to say, it was quite enjoyable.
Later that night, we went out for dinner for my birthday (Yes, I am now the ripe old age of 23) and saw a man on the lawn with a GIANT telescope. I mean, this thing was seriously huge. So we went to see what he was looking at, and what a treat it was! He had the telescope focused on Saturn. Now I've never really used a telescope before, so I had no idea the kind of power and clarity they had, but you could see Saturn like it was a picture in the National Geographic magazine. We saw the rings, three of its moons, and then he pointed out to us where it was with the human eye. It was a fascinating thing to see, and immediately afterwards Matt asked "Can we get a telescope?!"
Our last day in Puerto Rico was incredibly low-key. We drank fruity drinks at the pool, Matt got to pet an iguana, and we went and played in the ocean.
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| Free Champagne in our room |
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| Petting an iguana |
We really enjoyed our time, but there were so many things that we didn't get to do! I want to go back to swim in a bio-luminescent area, and zipline in the middle of the rainforest. We heard about a place on the island were you're 800ft above ground, flying through the canopy of the rainforest. I can't wait to go back!!!
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| Relaxing on our last day in paradise |
