Thursday 2/6 – 6am

First alarm sounds and we’re ready to go bright n early. As we peer outside, we see the snow flurries from last night have carried over to the morning. Being our optimist selves, we have no worry about a delay in our scheduled 8:40am take off. After a ~30 minute uber and less than 20 minute security line at O’Hare, we make our way for a quick breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts. We approach our gate just in time as group 6 is boarding – success in what almost seemed too perfect. Indeed, it was just that. Not a weather delay but a “mechanical issue” delaying take off 2+ hours, not a pleasant setback as we lose 2 hours in travel to San Juan.

After a 4.5 hour flight, we made it to the sunshine, greenery surrounded by endless deep blue water. We found our shuttle to “Dollar” car rental, which was the exact opposite of its name. 45 minutes later we had our white Hyundai SUV.

Dinner was at this not so crowded (empty) restaurant called Parrot Club in old San Juan. We walked around and found La Factoria which is near the top of every list for its cocktails 🍹 had a few there and called it a night.

Friday 2/7

Started the day going to a local cafe, the Super Max grocery store and had decided this was going to be our first beach day. Quickly found out that things here aren’t rushed, whether it’s getting a coffee in the AM or checking out at the grocery store. We got all set up on the beach – cooler, chairs, towels, umbrella. The 3 minutes on and 9 minutes off of rain started and didn’t stop for several hours. We went to an outdoor food truck park called Lote 23 and had una cerveza with our tacos lunch.

We had to improvise a game plan and found ourselves back in old San Juan for about 4 hours to explore and enjoy our out of office Friday. We went to the Castle and walked around for about an hour then popped into a local pub, of course Allison got the beer brewed in St. Croix! Post afternoon beer we were en route to find some artwork. After some rather quick and decisive discussion, we purchased our first San Juan souvenir. Our first official piece of artwork – an oil painting of the streets of old San Juan that will hang in our new home 🏠

Dinner was at Oceano, a beachfront seafood restaurant to celebrate our one week of engagement! Food, service and ambiance were excellent – highly recommended.

Saturday 2/8

After reading numerous reviews (of course) about the ferry to Culebra, we knew we were in for it. We had to be up at 6:30am to drive to the ferry port in Ceiba which was about an hour and 10 minutes. Many reviews acknowledged “getting there an hour early” and “disorganization of the ferries” and both were accurate. We got there at 8am for our 9am ferry. All said and done, we made our ferry where about 50% of the lower deck got seasick due to the 10-16’ swells, but not Allison or I. We finally arrived to Culebra but transit wasn’t done yet, we had a 10 minute shuttle to Flamenco beach which is continuously on the list of top 10 beaches in the world. The early alarm, disorganized ferry and hour journey to the island were worth the several obstacles. Once to the beach, we were able to enjoy pure white sand, light blue waters and 4 hours of 85 degree full sun weather – no complaints were had.

The ferry back at 3pm was with the wind and the current so it was a breeze resulting in zero seasick passengers. Arriving back at our Airbnb around 5:30 it was a quick turnaround before heading out to dinner at the highly rated “José Enrique” in the Condado neighborhood, not too far from our bnb. An hour and a half wait led us an open food hall, bar area with ocean views where we were able to relax and enjoy a mojito or two.

Dinner at Jose Enrique was more than fabulous, once again we delved into seafood entrees recommended by our server. Post dinner we made the quick uber (10 minutes, just about every uber ride length) to the tiki bar Junglebird which was recommended from the local bartender from Lote 23.

Sunday 2/9

This is the long awaited day — a full day well spent on the beach, soaking up the sunshine and breathing in the 85 degree air.

Monday 2/10

The 8am alarm rang earlier than expected for us but we were up and at it, whipping up our final breakfast in the bnb before heading out for another journey. Today was the El Yunque Rainforest hike which left our legs sore for a few days after.

We started at the Portalito HUB which is where you get direction for each stop/hike in the Rainforest — from what’s open or closed for repair from the hurricane to what areas we can swim. Our first stop was La Coca Falls which is one of the larger waterfalls you drive right by.

Our next step: Yakohoma Tower, then made our way allll the way up to where the road ends. This consisted of the 45 minute, 1 mile hike to Mt Britton Tower but we were in it for more than that. Beyond the Tower trail is a less traveled 1.8 mile trail to El Yunque peak, which is the highest point in Puerto Rico.

After Yakohoma Tower, we decided to get to the area where we could get out and hike up towards the peak. A bit more “unchartered” than other areas, this was a 2 mile hike up to the peak for splendid views and the same trek back. This left us quite exhausted.

We were 1) extremely tired after the hikes and 2) starting to prepare to head home where the sign off for a new condo would begin only a day after we return.

Tuesday 2/11

We both happened to wake up at 3am oddly enough and couldn’t fall back asleep. Our flight was scheduled for a 3pm take off and we felt like we were ready to be home – so what’d we do?

Leo called American Airlines and requested the 6am flight to PHI then PHI to CHI so we could be home by noon. After a few calls and conversations in our heads, we decided this was best given what we had coming up on our plates then next few weeks.

Overall, Puerto Rico was a memorable trip that tested our patience, exposed us to a new culture, food and lifestyle and made us really work to get around to areas on our list.