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Feb 15 – Old San Juan, PR

By Trawlers on February 16, 2023 in The Pearl

“Travel…the best way to be lost and found at the same time.” ~Brenna Smith

Today we left the mountains and returned to the coast. We’ll spend the next three days in Old San Juan. It was one of our favorite places we visited in 2020. We just loved this old walled city. So many beautiful buildings and so much history. OSJ is actually an island connected to the main island by bridges on the eastern side and is the oldest city in the US and its territories. The Spanish built two huge forts and walled-in the city to protect it from the French, Dutch, and English. San Juan became Spain’s fortified door to the Americas. Today Old San Juan is a busy hub for tourism. We love to walk the city taking in the beauty of the century old buildings that are now used for museums, restaurants, stores and interesting places to stay.

Our last look at the mountains of central Puerto Rico.

Our apartment in OSJ is across the street from the Minor Basilica Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist and just a block inside the wall from the Puerta de San Juan (San Juan Gate). This gate was where dignitaries entered San Juan for centuries. It’s located on the Paseo de la Princesa which is a promenade that skirts the curved old city walls on the southern side of Old San Juan.

Fuente Raíces Fountain at the beginning of the Paseo de la Princesa.

Paseo de la Princesa. You can take this path all the way to San Felipe del Morro Castle.

Puerta de San Juan

The building we are staying in was built in the first half of the 16th century and used as a colonial Mansion. The first floor was for the servants, the owners lived on the second floor and the third floor was used as an observatory tower to watch for invaders and pirates. We’re on the third floor, which you can’t see in this picture.

Our home for the next three days.

Looking down from our apartment at the stairs we had to use to get to our apartment.

The little plaza next to where we are staying.

The view from our patio.

We had dinner at Bari, which is on the first floor of the building we are staying in.

This little kitty came to visit.

Feb 15 – Old San Juan, PR

By Trawlers on February 16, 2023 in The Pearl

“Travel…the best way to be lost and found at the same time.” ~Brenna Smith

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

Feb. 14 – Jayuya, PR

By Trawlers on February 15, 2023 in The Pearl

“Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.” —Rick Watson

We traveled east out of Jayuya today to explore some popular tourist places and to find some pretty waterfalls. Our first stop was at La Piedra Escrita (the written stone). This beautiful park offers wonderful views of the mountains and a great place to swim in the tranquil water. But it’s best known for the large granite boulder that is covered in pictographs. The site was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places in 2003 due to its importance as a prime example of prehistoric rock art in Puerto Rico.

La Piedra Escrita

Taino Symbols and means.

Some of the symbols on the rock at La Piedra Escrita.

We have found that the first of the week isn’t a good time to travel in this area. Most of the restaurants are closed and so are a lot of the popular places to visit. We knew that the Hacienda San Pedro coffee plantation wouldn’t be giving tours but we thought we’d be able to visit the café and gift shop, but no, they were closed. So our next stop was the El Cemi Museum.

The museum is small, but nice. It has pieces of pottery, some tools and other artifacts from daily Taino life. The museum’s cemi shape was chosen to represent the Tres Picachos Mountain range. A cemi is a deity, ancestor or spirit.

After our bit of education in the history of the Taino people we went in search of waterfalls. The first one we found was the Doña Juana Waterfall. It’s located right by the road, so we didn’t have to do any hiking to find it. The falls consist of three falls and were very impressive for a roadside falls. Our next stop was the highlight of the day. Cascada Las Delicias (Delights Waterfall). We could see it from the road and it was a series of three falls also. Climbing up the trail to the top fall treated us to a tropical paradise. The water was beautiful and the lush vegetation made us feel like we had left the busy world behind and were lost in the jungle. Our third waterfall was Charco El Morón. The surrounding area was pretty, but the waterfall was a bust…at least for us, because we couldn’t even get to it. We enjoyed a morning of exploring and returned to Patria Mia for a late lunch. We got back to the house just as the rain began to fall. We spent the afternoon relaxing, napping, reading and working on the blog.

Doña Juana Waterfall

Walking up to Cascada Las Delicias from the road.

This is the middle falls.

The upper falls.

Looking down from the middle falls.

The scenery here was a bit different. It was in a nice valley, the water was pretty but we couldn’t get much further than this towards the falls.

Since nothing was open for dinner we decided to cook in again this evening at the house. The kitchen was very basic, only two burners, so the first night we had seasoned rice and meatballs and the second night we had spaghetti. We’ll have a nice Valentine’s dinner once we get to Old San Juan.

Feb. 14 – Jayuya, PR

By Trawlers on February 15, 2023 in The Pearl

“Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.” —Rick Watson

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

Feb. 13 – Cañon Blanco

By Trawlers on February 14, 2023 in The Pearl

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.” -Babs Hoffman

There’s a saying that the journey is better than the destination or something like that. Our true adventure today was getting to the destination. If you travel to Puerto Rico I suggest not counting on Google to get you where you want to go. Yesterday and today it took us on some pretty out of the way roads that ended up at a dead end or turned into a river bottom. We could see we were so close but we just couldn’t get there. If Stan hadn’t been so determined to find our intended destination I would have given up and gone home. Some of the roads were a little scary. We were right on the edge of a mountain on roads that were no wider than our car, but the views were amazing.

Some of the views while we were looking for Cañon Blanco.

We finally used Waze and arrived at Cañon Blanco on the Caonillas River. It was so impressive and worth the effort it took for us to find it. The glowing, white rock canyon, stands out against the lush greenery of the forest and the beautiful blue sky. It was completely different than anything we’ve seen.

Looking up river from the canyon.

Looking down river towards the canyon.

The beginning of the first canyon. The canyon was deeper and more impressive here.

This is the beginning of the second canyon we thought it was very pretty also.

We even found a waterfall called Cascada la Danzante (the dancing waterfall) at the end of the canyon where the river starts to flatten out.

This is as far as we explored…we loved this area of Puerto Rico.

In numerous places along the river we found pre-Columbian petroglyphs carved into the rocks by the Taino Indians.

Feb. 13 – Cañon Blanco

By Trawlers on February 14, 2023 in The Pearl

“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.” -Babs Hoffman

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

Feb. 12 – Jayuya, PR

By Trawlers on February 13, 2023 in The Pearl

“Travel doesn’t become adventure until you leave yourself behind.” –Anonymous

Today we left the beach and headed inland to Jayuya (hah-YOO-yah). The town is known as the “Town of The Three Peaks” and is located high in the central mountain region of the island, north of Ponce. It’s the site of the highest mountains in Puerto Rico, surrounded by the Cerro La Punta and Los Tres Picachos mountains. We plan to do a little hiking and explore the mountains and waterfalls in the area.

We spent the morning enjoying our last view of the Atlantic Ocean. We’ve truly loved being here, but we are ready for something a little different. The road through the mountains was an adventure in itself…beautiful but narrow and very windy. It’s a good thing Stan doesn’t mind this type of road. Google tried to send us on a few shortcuts, but the friendly locals set us straight.

Believe it or not this is one of the wider mountain roads we were on today.

This Caonillas Lake we passed it on our way to Jayuaya.

The house we’re staying in isn’t fancy, but very adequate. It’s a historic house built in the 1920’s and it sits across the street from the town plaza. We wandered around this afternoon and it’s a pretty little town on the Rio Grande del Jayuya. The people are super friendly. We were invited to join a local family to watch the Super Bowl, but we passed. We were just too tired.

Our home for the next three nights.

The house is basic but we have three bedrooms and two baths. Each bedroom has AC, but the evenings are in the low 60’s so they are only needed to keep out the sounds of the town and the roosters.

Our Lady of Monserrate Parish in the plaza across the street from our house. The bells ring each morning at 6:30…no need for an alarm clock here.

One of the pedestrian bridges that cross the river in town.

The Rio Grande del Jayuya that runs through town.

These stairs lead to the monument that pays homage to the Taíno culture of Puerto Rico. The Taínos were the indigenous inhabitants of Puerto Rico. It is located just off the plaza where our house is.

The sculpture at the top of the stairs is a bust of the Taíno leader Hayuya. The stairs lead to the tomb. The words made with mosaic tiles in the steps greet visitors and are the Taíno names of Puerto Rican towns.

The view from the top of the stairs.

We ended up going to Patria Mia for lunch and dinner since it was close to the house and so good. We were the only turistas in the whole place.

Way over there in the west is where we came from today.

Feb. 12 – Jayuya, PR

By Trawlers on February 13, 2023 in The Pearl

“Travel doesn’t become adventure until you leave yourself behind.” –Anonymous

CONTINUE READING HERE…»

Feb. 11 – Aguadilla, PR

By Trawlers on February 12, 2023 in The Pearl

“To find a seashell is to discover a world of imagination.” –Michelle Held

Today was our last day at the beach. The weather was wonderful and the surf was down, so we were able to truly enjoy the beach in front of our house. It’s been a fun week…mostly relaxing and taking in the view of the ocean and watching the power of the water. When the tide, wind and waves allowed I did a lot of beach combing for amazing sea glass. I found an unbelievable amount of great glass and some beautiful shells.

This is the path from the street and our garage down to the beach and our house.

The local fishermen returning to the beach. They roll the boat down to the surf and roll it up when they return.

Some of our treasures. We found so many more shells that I didn’t get a picture of…this was a great beach.

The town of Aguadilla is clean and beautiful and the water here is so pretty. We enjoyed walking along the shoreline and wandering through town. Here are a few photos from our week in paradise.