Final Day in PR

Day Six: Friday, January 15, 2016

In the afternoon, we headed to Pinones (think that's what it was called?) for a "local's day" near the water. I sat and worked from a restaurant while watching and listening to the waves, and then we had a snack at the Water Front overlooking the wonderful view.

View from the Water Front

I wish I lived in a place where this could happen more often:

Coconut Water

That night, we packed up and got ready to leave to Guatemala - so sad that our trip to Puerto Rico was ending! Diana and I went and got our nails done, and then we had a drink before heading home.

We weren't sure we were ready to say goodbye to David and Diana, and our new friends Mona and Grommit:

Mona

Grommit

As a final hurrah in San Juan, we went to Metropol, an AMAZING Cuban-Puerto Rican restaurant. I had the Ropa Vieja, which was by far the best Ropa Vieja I've ever had... everyone's meals were insanely good. But the craziest part of this story... we're sitting in this restaurant at around 10pm (late, even by Puerto Rican standards), and Brandt looks over to the table directly next to us, and then asks me quietly, "uh, Cat? Does that guy look like this guy?" He hands me his phone and shows me a picture of the CEO of his company (based in Denver)...

What are the chances that we would sit down in San Juan at 10pm for dinner, directly next to the CEO of Brandt's company, thousands of miles away from their office? Maybe 1 in a million. Anyway, we had a nice chat with the CEO and his partner, and then finished our meal - small world!

The CEO's table next to ours

Anyway, thanks Diana and David for an absolutely amazing week in Puerto Rico. We couldn't have had a better time. 'Til next time, PR... tomorrow, off to Antigua!

Scuba, Bob, and More!

Here's the video from Toro Verde - so fun!

Days Three and Four: Wednesday, January 13th-Thursday, January 14th

On Wednesday, we got up early, picked up a Mallorca to go, and headed to the southeastern tip of the island town of La Parguera to get scuba certified! We arrived right on time at Paradise Scuba and Snorkeling Center. The owner was an absolute doll - he calmed my nerves and got us all set for our two days of dives. Our instructor was... interesting, to say the least. We think he thought we were really late (we weren't - I think they had their times wrong), so he basically gave us some attitude from the get-go. Despite him smoking while putting the oxygen tanks on the boat - yes, you read that correctly, unfortunately - we got on the boat and prepped for our first open-water dives.

In a word, it was incredible. Over two days, we did four dives total.

If you ever go scuba diving in Puerto Rico, I highly recommend this place (yeah, smoking instructor and all haha!).

After scuba on Wednesday, we headed to Cabo Rojo beach to relax after a fun morning. While wading in the water, Brandt called over to me, holding out his hands... at first I had no idea what he was showing me, but then...

Baby sea turtle... likely his first time in the ocean! We named him Bob. He was having a rough go at getting out to sea... every time we released him, he just got pushed back over and over again. We learned later that most of these baby sea turtles don't live...

... hopefully Bob's still out there somewhere, flapping his little feet! That night, we drove to Mao's Seafood House for dinner by the sunset. The food, of course, was amazing.

Shrimp Ceviche at Mao's 

Delicious, fresh seafood, followed by Tres Leches Cake... and a perfect view of the sunset, of course!

View from Mao's Seafood House

That night, we stayed at La Jamaca in La Parguera - cute little hotel with small rooms, a little pool, and tons of hammocks. We'd stay there again, for sure! In the morning, we headed back to Paradise for the final two dives, and then back to San Juan.

Every year in San Juan, they have the San Sebastian Festival - a huge street festival in Old San Juan, with tons of stages with live music, food stands (yum!), and thousands and thousands of people! We spent the evening there with Diana and David... what a fun night!

All in all, an epic two days!

... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Day Three: Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Today was pretty epic - we headed to Toro Verde for a day of ziplining. I've never done it before, and  it for sure will not be my last time. We did the Zipline Tour and The Beast, which are 8 ziplines at various speeds and heights while in a "seated" position below the cable, followed by a superman-style zipline, where you hang beneath the wire - facedown - for almost 5,000 feet at nearly 60mph... So. Awesome. Superman-style was my favorite - Brandt took a video which I'll post at some point. We only got stuck once and had to pull ourselves into the landing area - so that was a win! For some reason, it's less scary when you're in motion... 

From the top of Toro Verde

After Toro Verde, we headed to Mar Chiquita to relax by the beach for a little while. The waves were quite big, which was fine since we weren't really dressed for swimming anyway. It was nice to just sit and watch the waves enter the lagoon area, while eating "pinches" (meat on a stick - it's as good as it sounds!) and chuckling quietly at the folks trying to swim and dodge the larger waves. They were laughing too, though, so I didn't feel too bad!

Pinches at Mar Chiquita

Karma is a bitch though - I certainly got manhandled by the waves later on this trip. Another story for another day!

It's only been 8 years since my last post, so...

ha! Who knew that these blogs never go away? I should change the name, though, as it's not just me on an adventure... Anyway, figured I'd use this blog again as we venture through Puerto Rico and Guatemala! 

I'm already a week behind, haha - it's been a whirlwind, to say the least. Last week was pretty epic - David and Diana were amazing hosts in Puerto Rico, and we did more than we could have dreamed in such a short time. A big thank you to them for schlepping us around and being all-around awesome!

Day One: Sunday, January 10, 2016

We arrived late Saturday night, and appreciated a nice, relaxed morning. We started off at Mallorca, David and Diana's favorite brunch spot in Old San Juan. Their specialty, of course, is the mallorca, which is basically a sandwich made of this amazing sweet bread (not to be confused with sweetbreads - yuck!), and pressed panini-style with some sort of meat and cheese. They top it with powdered sugar, and voila: deliciousness created! We had it at another place, too, but it didn't live up to this by any means: 

From there, we walked through Old San Juan. First stop, the Castillo San Cristobal (where that first photo was taken from). We then walked past La Perla (no, we did not go in!), and headed to Castillo San Felipe del Morro. 

After a leisurely stroll through Old San Juan, we were ready for another meal (surprise!). We jumped in the car and headed to Guavate, an area of Puerto Rico known for the lechoneras - basically open-air restaurants that serve roast pig. It's essentially Puerto Rican BBQ, with the best thing on the menu - pork! I'm sure it goes without saying, but - damn that was good. 

Day Two: Monday, January 11, 2016

I worked today, while the boys went to the rainforest (I'll get there one day, I'm sure!). That night, we went to the bio bay tours in Fajardo, where you kayak in the pitch-black-mangrove-tree-covered areas and head to a bay where you should see the "dinoflagellates" (yeah, I looked that one up) light up when you kayak through it. Unfortunately, they're dying out in this area, so we saw a few little sparkles, but it wasn't as bright as we thought it might be. Diana was lucky though and got to hold a non-stinging, fully-lit-up jellyfish - pretty awesome! We also had an amazing view of the stars from the kayak - so while we didn't get the sparkles we thought we would, kayaking in the dark was REALLY fun, and I'd definitely do it again... just maybe in another part of PR next time! 

Day Three to follow soon...

Stinky little buggers... (Sydney, Blue Mountains)

But SO FREAKING CUTE!



Today I took a tour to the Blue Mountains, which is about an hour away from the city. What a great trip! Jed was our tour guide, and he was awesome: "Come to Australia! Everything will kill ya!"

First, we stopped at the Featherdale Wildlife Center. I fed the kangaroos and pet a koala and a walabee (wallabbe? Whitney, spelling?) - they are ridiculously cute, I think I said aww about every 3 seconds, pretty much whenever they moved, or breathed... My head almost exploded by the cuteness. Perfect start to the day. Then, we headed to the Mountains. They're "Blue" b/c the eucalyptus trees emit this gas that turns the surrounding atmostphere blue - they don't look blue up close, but from far away really are blue! I couldn't get a good blue photo, but here's one from Google:

It was really foggy up at the top unfortunately, so the pics didn't really turn out from up there. We hiked to the bottom, which is actually a rainforest - it doesn't sound that hard, but it's more than 1000 steps down! By the end, I was sweating like crazy... I probably smelled as delicious as the koalas and kangaroos! Once we got to the bottom, we took the steepest railway in the world to get back up - it was almost completely vertical, it was fun! Here's a pic of the Three Sisters- mine wouldn't load so I stole this from Google:

After spending about 2 hours there, we had lunch and then went down to Tizzana Winery. It was really nice! We tasted about 5 different wines, and learned about how the winery started - the guy married a nun and was chased out of Sydney! Whoops... so they started a vineyard, and the rest is history...

We had a little extra time after our tour, so Jed the Bus Driver (as he likes to refer to himself as) took us to the Sydney Olympic Park - it was really cool! It was slightly strange, though - I felt like there should be hundreds of people around, and it was eerily quiet. The structures were pretty, though (from Google):

He also taught us how to throw a boomerang - I suck! From there, it was on to the Ferry that took us back to Sydney. Now I'm headed back up to my room to pack up all my stuff - my trip is coming to an end! How sad... I can't believe it's almost over! I can't complain, though - it's been nothing but amazing. And I'm sure I'll be back soon enough...

Bendy and spinny. (Sydney)

I arrived in Sydney, and it's very beautiful city. It has quite a modern feel to it, and is clean and easy to get around :).

I woke up around 8:30, and just decided to walk up to the Opera House and just kinda wander all day. I first stumbled on Darling Harbour, a nice open area with lots of shops and restaurants on the harbor. It was raining, but it was really pretty nonetheless. Here's a nice pic, which I couldn't really get since it was rainy and cloudy:

I then walked over to the SydneyTower to see if I could go up to the top - unfortunately, they warned me that it was super cloudy and I wouldn't see much, so I decided to do "OzTrek" which is basically this 25 minute ride within Sydney that shows you all the places in Australia you could go... it's a nice way to plug the rest of the country, ha! The coolest part was that you sit in these moving seats and watch a movie that looks like you're flying through it - pretty cool.

From there, I walked over to St. Mary's Cathedral - what a huge, gorgeous church. It was beautiful inside, except I was slightly disturbed by the Asian tourists who (no offense to them) seemed slightly disrepectful. I'm not an overly religious person, but I was slightly offended by the Asian woman standing in front of this statue, posing like she was going to be on the cover of Time Magazine, all smiling and leaning on Jesus like it was nothing... I guess I can't judge her for it, but the statue pretty does clearly depict Jesus lying in his mother's arms... I dunno. It was just odd to me.

Anyway, from there, I walked through the Botanic Gardens, and they too were really pretty.

The road leads directly out to the Sydney Opera House, as well - what a site. It truly is something to marvel at - even if the front part is being worked on to prepare for Australian Idol finals on Sunday, ha!

Once I'd taken about a thousand photos of the Opera House, I jumped on the Manly Ferry (haha, makes me laugh every time) to go to Manly Beach. I took about a hundred more photos on my way, and then went to the beach and watched all these surfers. Looking out over the ocean is unreal - it sounds so stupid, but you never feel as small as you do when you're staring at a giant body of water, and all you see is horizon - it's crazy!

I got back on the Ferry, and then went back to the Opera House for a ballet - it was amazing. I don't know much about ballet, but I've seen Centerstage just like the rest of us - the dancers make it looks so easy! And I never noticed this before, but in ballet, a dancer is never NOT moving - even if it's something subtle, like a head movement, but they are constantly in this fluid motion. It's really amazing how much control they have over their bodies - I can barely stand on my own two feet without crashing into something... The tickets I had were in the very last row of the top level, haha, but they moved us all forward b/c the seats in front of us were all empty, so I sat in better seats, woohoo!

After the ballet was over, I took a gizzilion more photos of the opera house in the dark... unfortunately, most of them came out blurry b/c I didn't have my tripod :(. Oh well... maybe we can claim that they are "art" - ha. After one last look at the Opera House, I jumped on the bus and headed back to the hostel. What a day!

Survived the volcano... (Auckland)

I walked to the top of Rangitoto, and it didn'w blow up - woohoo! Actually, it's not really one that even explodes anymore - they think it only exploded once for a long period of time. It was a good thing to do for a half day for sure - I've never seen anything like it, and I even took a piece of the lava with me - is that allowed? Hmm... I hope a customs doggie doesn't rat me out!

Plus, I cheated - I took a tour which is basically a little pully car up to near the top - then you climb the steps to the top top. It was a pretty big climb, though, took about 20 minutes? Sorry Phil - didn't see the cave?

No pics this time, it was similar to the pics from Mt. Victoria. The middle of the volcano was all covered in vegetation - I did see a Kiwi Christmas tree though (Pohutukawa) - that was kinda cool to see it growing out of the lava. Looks like this - thanks Google:


The views from the summit were really pretty - then it was back down to the buggy to get back on the boat. From there, I ate my last Hokey Pokey ice cream cone (sad), and then headed to the airport. I'm now in Sydney, yeah! Tomorrow will be a day full of touristy goodness, though. From what I've seen so far, it reminds me of NYC - big city, lots of people, lots of life - should be a good couple of days.

Anyway, tomorrow is Thanksgiving for me (day after tomorrow for you guys) - so Happy Turkey Day if I miss it!

Miss you all!