Wednesday, September 23, 2009 Isle de Vieques

I am sitting in a hammock on the deck of Finca de Caribe, with the sun in my face and a breeze in my hair wondering how the rest of you poor peasants are doing.
This is truly one of the wonderful places set in such a tranquil setting it is hard to worry about anything. It is certainly not a luxury hotel but, in my opinion, much better than that. I look out over the jungle and watch small lizards chasing up and down the wall. There is a coconut tree overhanging the verandah and a bright orange bird watching me from a tree just beside me. If I wanted to use the energy to stretch my neck a bit, I could see the small village of Esperanza and beyond it, the Caribbean Sea. But why would I want to waste that energy, it will still be there later and a nap appears to be in order for now. More later.

The trip from San Juan was very frustrating. We were told that in order to get here we had to take the bus from Isla Verde(where we were staying) to the main San Juan Terminal and then take a bus to Rio Pedras which is actually pretty close to Isla Verde, where we were staying) and catch another bus from Rio Peidras to Fajardo then the ferry to Vieques. Not knowing any difference, we started out at 6am with the bus to San Juan arriving around 6:40- the bus to Rio Piedras did not leave until 7:15 and wandered around the city, picking up fares and arriving in Rio Piedras around 8:15. We caught the Publico to Fajardo ($25 for both of us, contrasted with the $75 or $80 taxi fare) and made it to the ferry just barely in time for the 9:30 departure. We later figured out that if we had taken a $10 taxi from our hotel to Rio Piedras, it would have taken us about 10 minutes!! One bonus: because Dick is over 75 years of age he rode the ferry free (instead of the $6 it cost Nancy).

We arrived in Isabell II at about 10:30 am. First stop was the post office where we mailed our cold weather clothes home. Then we found the restaurant, “El Patio” for a good wrap sandwich. We bought the basics of yogurt and soup, etc, and headed out for Finca de Caribe via Publico.

The finca is set in the hills above Esperanza, a small village on the southern coast. Everything here is surrounded by jungle. The guest house is a huge open structure with multiple rooms, with queen beds, and lofts . There is a salt water swimming pool and outdoor showers with solar heated water. It is a little pricey, $75 a night, but that is cheap for Puerto Rico.

After our experience with the bus/taxi etc, rather than risk problems with getting back in time for our flight on Friday, we booked airline tickets from Vieques to SJ International- little less than $100 each and we both got senior discounts this time.

The evening was filled with a kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay led by Verito (sp?) who works here at the finca. Mosquito Bay is filled with dinoflagellates( one-celled organisms) which light-up when disturbed. Seems like a natural for a kayak trip.