Puerto Rico!

We decided to take a little getaway before our second daughter arrives and before Kim gets too big to enjoy it, so we took a little trip down south to the island of Puerto Rico! Our hotel was on the beach in downtown San Juan, and while we had a great ocean view from our room, the city itself was a good bit different than what we were expecting. The roads are in need of some serious work, with no lane markings found on many streets. This may be the leading reason why I felt like there were so many horrible drivers. And I'm saying this coming from Atlanta....

We didn't have too much trouble finding English speakers when staying around the touristy areas, but once you got out into other parts of the country it became a little more difficult to communicate with people since neither Kim nor I speak Spanish with any fluency. I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, but that's been a while.

Our first day, Thursday, we stayed close to the hotel and enjoyed our time on the beach. On Friday we took a trip into the Carribean National Rain Forest (El Yunque) and did some hiking. There were some beautiful waterfalls! Joey even got into one of the local swimming holes at the base of one of the larger falls. On our way back to town we stopped at a Wendy's for a late lunch. The lady at the register freaked out when she saw the big tall pale face walk up. She turned around and started asking for help. Someone else in line came up and offered to help us order. ("Yo quiero numero dos por favor con aqua!")

On Saturday we headed out west towards Arecibo. Kim wanted to take a tour through the Camuy Caves, which is supposed to be one of the three largest underground cave systems in the world, only this isthe only one with a tropical underground river thundering through it! Unfortunately, after arriving only an hour after they opened, they were already full to capacity for the day. So we went to our second stop which was the Arecibo observatory. The largest radio telescope in the world is found here. It's been seen in a good number of movies (Goldeneye, The Survivor, Contact) and is the center for research for SETI (Serach for Extreterrestrial Intelligence).

We spent Sunday getting the runaround about where and when the only English speaking ward on the island met. We arrived just as sacrament meeting ended and only made it to Sunday School and the third hour. No AC, fans on and windows open, and we were sweating like crazy. We ran into a native Atlantan who was there with her husband.

Monday morning we took a look around old town San Juan and explored some of the old forts on the coast before heading back to the airport. It was a wonderful trip and we both had a great time, but next time we'll be heading somewhere that's just a tad bit cooler! Thanks Mom and Dad for taking care of Anna! She had a great time with you! :)