Trip to Puerto Rico

My Valentine's Day present from Duane was a trip to Puerto Rico. He called my parents and asked them if they would watch the kids while we went over Memorial Day weekend, purchased the plane tickets and planned our trip. After driving down to FL, taking a four hour nap, then driving to Orlando and catching a plane, we arrived in San Juan about 8:30am. We were then picked up by some friends that we know and drove around San Juan until our first excursion. Our first adventure was to Ecoquest, an adventure park, with kayaking and ziplines. It was a blast!!! I thought I would be a little apprehensive with the ziplines, but no! It was so much fun!


Duane hoisting himself up the side of the hill

View from the top

Zipline #2
Me ready for the last zipline!

A big reason to head down to Puerto Rico was to go diving. As some of you might know, right before I moved stateside I got scuba certified. I was a little apprehensive about diving because it had been so long, but I was ready to do it. Unfortunately, I suffer from motion sickness and we couldn't find any vials of ginger, which saved me in Japan, at the pharmacy. We settled on ginger pills. I wasn't on the boat 10 minutes, when I knew I was in trouble. The seas were a little rough, the boat was a little small and slow, which meant for a bumpy ride. It wasn't long after I knew I was in trouble that I had to lean over the edge and lose my breakfast. So much for the ginger pills!! Once we were at the dive site, I tried to get the gear on before I had to lean over the boat again and was almost successful. I actually made it into the water, but got stuck on the rope and couldn't get down, ended up swallowing a lot of sea water because the top of my snorkel kept getting into the water and when I did finally get under the water my mask kept slipping down. Needless to say by this time I was done. I climbed back into the boat and for the next few hours leaned over the boat another 20 times, curled up in the fetal position praying that the torture would end. At least I wasn't the only one who got sick... I felt bad about not being able to dive with Duane, but I guess I didn't miss anything because he was disappointed that there was nothing to see.

This was taken before I got sick on the boat on our way out of the marina.After I recovered from our boat ride from you know where, we took a taxi over to Old San Juan. The Castillos we saw were beautiful and the ocean view was stunning, even though it rained off and on. We were amazed at how much Puerto Rico reminded us of Okinawa, similar climate and scenery. We had a fabulous time with friends who were kind enough to show us around and grateful to my parents for watching the kids!

View from Castillo San Cristóbal in Old San Juan


Old San Juan...Castillo de San Felipe del Morro

I loved some of the color combinations, not that I would paint my house this way, but it fit the area.