The telephono and stands pictures were taken on Isle Verde. And the other one was taken in Old San Juan.

While we had the car we reluctantly stopped by the Arecibo light house. Which ended up being 8x cooler than expected. I am pretty sure some private persons came into the ownership of the amazing building, and in order to charge that ten dollars a person- they brought in more touristy things around it. If you know the history behind Knott’s Berry Farm in southern California, it was started the same way. Now it is a full fledged theme park. Only Knott’s attraction was their amazing pies.

In the brochure they boast a mini zoo, aquarium,  boat replica’s , a fake pirate cave, and of course the actual light house.

The mini zoo was pretty awesome, complete with a donkey, chickens and about 5 shetland pony’s in cages that were much too small for them. They had a replica of Blackbeards boat Queen Anne’s Revenge. Which you get to climb up onto like a little kid. Brought me back to the day of when I was 12 and wanted to be a pirate when I grew up.

The pirate cave ended up being a cheap rip off of pirates of the caribbean from Disney land. But turned into a bit of a aquarium. They even had some sting ray.  Finally the light house over looking the Atlantic Ocean. A little Puerto Rican maritime museum at the bottom.

After leaving the light house we found a small muddy lagoon complete with some huge pelicans and pack of feral dogs. The feral dogs ended up being really friendly and were probably only looking for some food.  The pelicans however, were out for blood. While petting one of the cute little feral dogs I noticed one of the pelicans coming straight at me. As it got closer it dawned on me that it was coming for me and dove out of the way. The dog did not move, and was then snatched up by the giant pelicans gnarled beak. I watched in horror as the pelican flew from the muddy little lagoon carrying the little dog into the sunset, all while spilling the insides of the wounded animal into the ocean.  I did not know pelicans ate dogs. It all happened so quickly I did not get a chance to get my camera out.

I woke up too early this morning and getting a little bored, decided to walk over to this surf spot (which I later found out was called Pine Grove). After walking about 5 miles I found that it was further than previously expected and turned back. Took these pictures while walking.

Usually I take pictures in color then change them to black and white later on. This time I shot in all black and white. Shooting B&W only gave me a sort of vintage feeling. The Beach Chairs shot especially.

• Boulevard park.

• Calle Laurel

• Isla Verdi Water Club

I ended up taking the bus back home.

Dear Tourists and people visiting Puerto Rico. Take notes.

Condado and Isle Verde beaches are good for family’s looking for a nice beach to take the kids if you are staying in the San Juan area. Soft sand, small surf, and both are in a bit of a cove which protect from the constant western wind.

If you are staying in Isle Verde, Ocean Park, or Condado. You are going to want to go to Old San Juan, assuming you don’t have a car you will need to hop on the A-5 which will take you directly to Old San Juan (last stop). If you are staying in Old San Juan you will want to take the A-5 going the opposite way to the beaches. By the way, the busses cost 75 cents and do not take dollars. We found early on that bus maps are hard to come by here.

The sound of a coqui frog is common after a rainfall and you will notice them on all things of Puerto RIcan tourism. I had never seen one until today. Hannah affectionately refers to him as Colonel Coqui. We found him in a little pot on our back porch.

We drove up to Fajardo, Puerto Rico and were checking out the scene. This was on a Sunday and it seems Sundays here are the time to go out. Every bar around is packed with patrons and the general public is out and about. We walked down to the beach and I saw this sign located about 5 feet from the beach.

At first I didn’t think anything of it, walking, swimming, boating, but when I looked closer, I noticed something odd about one of the pictures explaining what is welcome to do around here

I double checked on Google to make sure that was a snowmobile emblem and sure enough it is. So why would anyone snowmobile in Fajardo, Puerto Rico?

Some theories:

• They import snow for some special snowmobiling festival.
• Snowmobiles are converted to a type of watercraft
• Whoever made the sign mistook the snowmobile emblem for the personal watercraft emblem (the most plausible cause)

Anyone else have any ideas why?

In our latest rental adventure driving the newer Suzuki sx4, we headed west this time instead of east to El Yunque National Forest.

It was a welcome change from the city life here in San Juan. It was sort of raining on and off the whole time. It was muddy everywhere due to the constant rainfall. But what would you expect, it is a rain forest. There were streams and waterfalls every where and all kinds of tropical plants. It seemed everyone there were tourists and we fit right in.

Many of the buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.

We took a hike up some random trail that took us deep into the rain forest. Some bamboo..

The actual rain forest ended up being much smaller than expected. But it was really cool and worth the hour drive to get there.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I have been missing out on the rest of the island, we decided to drop some dough on a rental car and see it all.  First on the agenda was to see the Camuy caves, but due to all of the rain and flooding we have been getting lately, that was not going to happen.

(When we got there the lady at the front desk said “I am sorry the caves are closed due to the rain, but the sinkhole is open!” Ooo a sink hole, like I am going to pay the full admission price to see a hole in the ground. we will come back when its not flooding)

We had to drive through many of these giant puddles and apparently there was a severe weather warning issued by weather.com  for flooding. Last time we rented a car it rained the whole time we had it. I think the rental car gods are against us.

We drive 50 or so miles to peep these caves and they are closed? On our way back we had a glimmer of hope when noticing a small sign that said Arecibo Observatory this way. I don’t think I have ever been to a observatory, but I wasn’t expecting much. Probably just a big telescope, and they weren’t kidding. Big is a understatement, this thing is massive, the largest radio single aperture telescope in the world.

While taking the 500 steps needed to get to the top of the thing, there were many signs saying things like “almost there” and “bathrooms this way” all with 7up advertisements underneath them. When finally reaching the actual telescope I asked one of the lovely curators if 7up was a major contributor “apparently” she says to me. Not to proud of it eh?

The 1,000 ton dish is made of 38,778 aluminum panels that is held up by these 39 cables (1 foot of 1 cable weighs 66 pounds). With a combined cable length of about 4 miles. Each cable strung between the tower and the dish weigh about 10 tons.

I was a little disappointed not to see actual pictures from this giant telescope, or some of the actual finds from this beast.  Thats alright the telescope it self was amazing to look at, and must have been a feat in and of itself lugging all of the metal up a mountain in the middle of bfe.

I have found myself getting more and more irritated at the exceptionally loudness of  the people here. Our neighborhood is actually really quiet. And having lived in downtown Denver I feel that I know just how loud a city can be.

However, we live at the end of a culdesac (of sorts) and the people who live near us can park basically right next to the window of our living room. Maybe its the fact that we don’t have an actual window on our window (Most building around here are like this, screen then metal blinds, then bars. It may have something to do with the hurricanes). But when people park next to our window and “engage” or “disengage” their alarms, with of course a horn honking twice, it will usually scare the crap out of me. Then it seems they will forget they just pressed the engage button and hit it again. Which in turn leads to a 4 to 6 honk and light flash process. I think people just don’t understand how annoying it is, or they are really used to it. Last night we walked by this guy washing his car with the car alarm engaged. Every few seconds the alarm would go off. Washing the car too hard I guess.

Our neighbor Eduardo, this older guy who is really nice. I usually run into him when I am coming home. And he is always happy to see me and shakes my hand. But it seems every morning I hear his blood curdling screams. Even if I could understand Spanish I don’t think he is audible, with the exception of the word “mama”. Its funny because I will see him again in the day and say ” Hey Eduardo, how are you?” Expecting him to tell me some crazy thing about his mom and how much he loathes her. But he always tells me the same thing “Oh, great! Last night I drank way too much”! At about 7 o’clock pm yesterday, we heard this lady tapping on a window asking for “Indio”.  The tapping then turned into knocking and the knocking then turned into banging. The asking turned into yelling and the yelling turned into screaming. She wasn’t banging on our window. It was the neighbors. And after about 30 minutes of this, she finally decided that “Indio” probably wasn’t there and stopped banging and screaming.  Any normal person would have waited about 3 minutes before giving up.

While walking through the city all of the sounds don’t bother me and I could care less if some kid is blasting his regatone on his cell phone on the quiet bus. I couldn’t care any less if the alarm at some building is going off.

Its just the fact that when I come home I really want some peace and quiet and to enjoy those Medella Lights, without people screaming and car alarms going off. Is that too much too ask?