Puerto Rico Notes

Published under Mango Canvas, Jan 21, 2017

Last year's December holiday, me and my wife went to Puerto Rico. It was quite a wonderful break.

Before getting into the details, we have to thank Inbox first. We booked three Air Flamenco flights for three consecutive days: SIG✈️VQS, VQS✈️CPX, CPX✈️FAJ. But we mistakenly booked the second flight on a November day instead of December. We didn't notice it at all. Just before that day in November, I was looking at my Inbox's Trip bundle:

WAIT! The start date is clearly wrong. Luckily that time, there were still two seats available on the correct date. If Inbox didn't have this feature, we would probably have to take a very expensive cargo boat instead.

The real notes, now.

Dec 24, Christmas Eve

The original plan was to arrive at San Juan 1:35AM via SFO✈️MIA✈️SJU. But maybe because of the weather far far aways from Miami, the caption of the MIA✈️SJU flight couldn't make it:

This Christmas Eve couldn’t be beteer pic.twitter.com/YDSuEhWwGi

— Dolee Yang (@DoleeYang) December 25, 2016

Christmas Eve in a hotel it is.

Now I'm thinking though, this actually sounds better than Christmas Eve on a plane 🤔

Dec 25, Old San Juan

We took a taxi from SJU to Old San Juan, the historical colonial town in the San Juan city. It's very walkable, and is worth spending a day. The most unique thing is its narrow streets:

Unfortunately the castles and museums were closed on Christmas.

We stayed at the lovely Villa Herencia Hotel that night ★★★★☆

Dec 26, Vieques

We ✈️ to Vieques in the morning. It was the first time I sit in the copilot seat:

First time sitting on the copilot seat. The view is amazing, didn’t take any photo/videos though 😞 pic.twitter.com/Qt2hFSGryI

— Dolee Yang (@DoleeYang) December 26, 2016

Because we didn't rent a car, we booked two tours instead.

The day at Playa Caracas (instead of Playa La Chiva thanks to the wind) we snorkeled.

The night at Bahía Bioluminiscente we saw the amazing luminescence in the sea, and the more amazingly clear stars in the sky.

We stayed at Acacia Guesthouse ★★★☆☆

Dec 27, Vieques/Culebra

Wandered at Sun Bay, ✈️ to Vieques, and stayed at Culebra Island Villas ★★☆☆☆

Dec 28, Culebra

We snorkeled again at Playa Sardinas. This place is perfect:

Then ✈️ to Ceiba, took a taxi to SJU, picked up our rental car. That's the only place open 24 hours.

Stayed at Four Points in Caguas ★★★☆☆

Dec 29, Ponce

Ponce is the second largest city in Puerto Rico. In the center of Ponce is its landmark Parque de Bombas (firehouse):

We also went to the great Museo de Arte and boring Castillo Serralles.

Ignoring the restaurants, we had the awesome Puerto Rican Pinchos for lunch.

Stayed at the same place last night.

Dec 30, El Yunque National Forest

Finally, a little bit nature and hiking in the only tropical rain forest of United States:

And ✈️ MIA ✈️ SFO.

Bonous

I bought a GoPro Hero5 for this trip:

This is the first time I tried to record some footage. After 20 hours of post processing, voila:

By the way, video post processing is quite fun and time consuming at the same time. I hope I can shoot and produce more in the future.