Puerto Rico

Our cruise was out of Puerto Rico so after we got off the ship we decided to stay a few days. First we explored Old San Juan. We had a delicious lunch of the traditional Puerto Rican dish, mofongo. It's a mashed mound of garlicy plantains with meat, seafood or vegetables on top. I have GOT to learn how to make it. It's so yummy! After lunch we went to the Fort San Cristobal, the biggest fortification built by the Spanish in the new world - 27 acres at its largest in 1783.

The Spanish successfully used it as a stronghold to protect San Juan from 1634 to 1898. When Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States the fort became a U.S. army post. The fort was used strategically during both the World Wars. During World War II an additional bunker was built on the fort to direct coastal artillery and watch for German submarines. In 1961 it officially became part of the National Park Service. It is now a World Heritage Site and sees thousands of visitors every year. We were certainly impressed by this awesome fort. It is one of the best preserved and the biggest we have ever seen. Not to mention it has some incredible views!

After seeing the fort we headed to Fajardo, a town about an hour outside San Juan. Brad found us an awesome deal on a condo there and it ended up being perfect. It was a beautiful home and had everything we could possibly need. After resting a while we headed to dinner at the Luquillo kiosks. It's this cool little strip of about 50 kiosks selling everything from traditional Puerto Rican food to Italian, Peruvian and even hamburgers. We all loved tasting the deep fried, fat filled goodness - especially the  alcapurrias, which is basically a plantain or yuka dough stuffed with seasoned meat and deep fried.

Mmmm... so good. We ended up eating our dinner at the Peruvian kiosk and it was excellent. Mike and I love Peruvian food after trying it several times while we were in Chile - plus Ben served his mission in Peru so it was a win win. We were even more excited when we found out they served Inka Kola, a delicious Peruvian soda. After dinner we were still ready to party so we rented a movie, picked up some snacks (couldn't go back to the pre-cruise eating habits yet) and headed home. What a great day!

The next morning was Valentines Day. It was a perfect day. We woke up late, had pancakes and headed out to see the Puerto Rican rain forest. The El Yunque rain forest was only about a 20 minute drive from our condo. The forest is breathtaking. You grow up hearing so much about the Rain Forest and how important it is to the world, so seeing it in person was awesome.

The best part was when we hiked to one of the waterfalls.

Being the rain forest, it was raining pretty hard. We were completely soaked halfway there so by the time we made it to the waterfall, we figured we might as well jump in! Okay, it did take a little coaxing by the guys but we did all make it in. Only the guys got pictures though.

When we got out it started raining even harder so we went with it. Bathing suits were the perfect attire! The hike was beautiful and Mike and Brad even played Tarzan, swinging on a vine over the forest floor.

We saw some spectacular views and had a great time taking in the beauty. We had to get a kissing picture on Valentines Day :)

 After the rain forest we were all exhausted so we took a nap until dinner time. Then we went out for another yummy Puerto Rican dinner followed by desert. Then we headed out for one of the best experiences of our trip, the Bioluminescent Bay in Fajardo. Las Croabas Lagoon in Fajardo has 500,000 to 700,000 of bioluminescent dinoflagellates per gallon. Dinoflagellates are tiny, microscopic plants that gain energy from the sun during the day. At night they produce bright blue light when they are agitated, so when you wave your hand through the water it lights up like a mini florescent light show. It is unbelievable! Check out this website to see a video showing how they light up. Fajardo is one of only a few biobays in the whole world. We kayaked in couples for about 20 minutes through a narrow channel lined with Mangrove trees to get to the bay. It was totally dark, except for the light of the moon through the leaves. We didn't really know what to expect when we got to the bay, but it was truly unbelievable. The water seriously lit up right in our hands. Mike discovered that by throwing water onto ourselves in the kayaks we could actually see the tiny droplets of water light up on our skin. The biobay is truly one of God's most amazing creations. I have never seen anything like it! Unfortunately our experience couldn't be documented because it's impossible to capture the Dinoflagellates on camera. Even National Geographic has tried and failed. Any glowing biobay pictures you see have been photoshopped. Click here to read more about the amazing Dinoflagellates. It was an amazing way to spend Valentines day. I'll never forget it!

St Martin

Our last cruise stop was St Martin. It couldn't have been a better day. Ben, Lindsey, Brad, Nicole, Mike and I got off the ship and went in search of scooters. After haggling over prices with some shady St. Martineres we found a rental company willing to give us an awesome price. Each couple jumped on a scooter and we were off.

We went around the whole island (both Dutch and French sides) stopping whenever we felt like it. We had an awesome lunch of homemade BBQ ribs and sides. It was delicious!

We stopped at a local market and saw some beautiful tropical fruit and island trinkets. Mike even found the same sword his parents brought him home from their trip to St. Martin when he was little!

We also stopped at the famous Maho Beach. You can almost touch the planes as they land at Princess Juliana Airport. We weren't crazy enough to hang onto the fence right underneath the planes as they land though.

We had such a fun day touring the island. We stopped at the beach, got rained out for about 10 minutes, ate great food, saw the sites and no one got hurt. A perfect way to end the cruise.

St Kitts

 
We had a blast in St Kitts. Brad, Nicole, Mike and I decided to go scuba diving here and it was a great experience. We did two dives. The first was The River Taw Wreck, where we saw a cargo ship that sunk in 1981. The site is now one of the most popular places to dive in the Caribbean. I really enjoyed swimming through a passageway in the ship and seeing the amazing choral and other sea life that has grown on the ship.

This isn't us, just a picture I found of the dive online.

Another picture of the dive site.

The second site we dove was Sandy Point Reef. The reef was gorgeous. There was an abundance of brightly colored fish, coral, lobsters and more.

 Again, picture from the dive site, but ones I didn't take.

I did have a small issue on the second dive. I was the last of the group to jump into the water and as I was going down the line, my mask started leaking like crazy. I kept thinking that maybe my hair was stuck in the mask, or it just wasn't positioned correctly on my face but by the time I reached the bottom I realized that something was wrong. Water was seeping into my mask. I kept clearing it, but nothing helped. I panicked just a little because I was totally deprived of all my senses... smell, touch, taste, sound and now sight! I could see a little but it was through salt water, which wasn't pleasant. I just had to tell myself to keep breathing. Everything would be fine. Finally the dive instructor came over and he immediately recognized that I had grabbed the wrong mask. We quickly shot back up to the surface and he had the dive instructor on the boat throw me the right mask. I put it on and within minutes we were heading back to the bottom. It was quite an ordeal, especially because up top the wind was blowing like crazy and I was so worried about my mask that I forgot to inflate my buoyancy jacket (basically an inflatable life vest). I struggled to keep myself above water while attempting to put my mask on and trying not be blown away by the wind. Luckily I still had my mouth piece in to breath with so it wasn't a big deal if I was above the water or not. Needless to say, I was a little shaken up the rest of the dive but I was proud of myself for getting back down there. The rest of the dive went smoothly and the sea life was beautiful. After my struggle I figure I'll be even more prepared for next time. Diving truly is an amazing experience!

 Here's a picture of me and Nicole before our second dive. Take a look at that mask. Seriously, how did I not realize it wasn't my size??

After diving we had enough time to take a tour of the island, so we found a taxi driver (Andre - taxiandre_17@hotmail.com, he's great!) and saw St. Kitts.

It's a beautiful island with a complicated history, like all of the Caribbean islands. Andre explained to us that St. Kitts has been inhabited by several groups of people including Archaics and Igneris since 3000 BC. The warlike Caribs wiped out the original inhabitants taking over the island in 1300 AD. They were living on the island when Christopher Columbus discovered and claimed it for Spain in 1493. Following the discovery, the island was fought over mainly by the French and English. They only united briefly to massacre the Caribs, a and act of defense - they had secretly found out the Caribs were planning their own massacre of the Europeans. We drove by "bloody point" as they now call it, where the massacre happened.

What a sad history. Control went back and forth between France, Spain and England until 1967 when it became an Associated State of Britain. The three European nations used St. Kitts mostly to produce sugar cane. Thousands of African slaves were brought to the island to work the fields. They lived in extremely harsh conditions and many died in their labor. They were finally liberated in 1834 when slavery was abolished in Britain. There are no Caribs left on the island. The majority of the current population is of African decent. Most of the Caribbean islands have a similar history. There is no doubt the Caribbean is one of the most beautiful places in the world, but I think it is important to remember it wasn't always a tourist destination.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour. Andre did a wonderful job explaining the history and showing us some of the most unique places. He took us to a converted plantation home now used to create batik (a multi-step process using wax and dye to create colorful pictures and patterns on fabric).

One of the last spots Andre took us to was a high point on the island where you can see the Pacific and the Caribbean seas meet.

So beautiful! It was a wonderful day. We were pretty warn out by the end, but we enjoyed every minute of it.

St Lucia - oh how I love thee

 
St Lucia was in a word, perfect. I am in love with that island, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Jake and Vienna (and Jake and Tenley... and Jake and Gia) hung out there during one of the last episodes of last season's The Bachelor. Although it did look pretty incredible from my couch too. St Lucia is lush and beautiful. It has everything you could want from beaches to mountains, mud baths and hot springs. And we did it all. We walked off the boat and found a local company selling a land/sea tour for what we considered to be a reasonable price and they promised to take us to all the places we were interested in seeing, so we went for it. It definitely didn't disappoint. We took a speed boat tour around part of the island along with about 10 other people and the views were incredible.

Here's where Jake stayed.

I could definitely spend more time in this Caribbean paradise! We eventually made our way to the town of Soufriere where we transferred to a van which took us on a beautiful drive to the mud baths.

The baths are naturally heated by the island's active volcano, La Soufrire. They say the mud is rich in natural minerals, also due to the volcano, so it's supposed to be very therapeutic. Our slightly sun burnt bodies had a hard time getting in the water because it was so warm, but it was great once we were in.

Hee hee hee! I love when Mike tries to look serious in pictures - he can't help laughing. His tiger face isn't too intimidating :) I wouldn't mind having a mud bath every day - even if it was stinky. After the mud bath we were able to "rinse off" in a nearby waterfall, which was also sulfur heated. I'm not sure how much cleaner the water was. It was a gorgeous setting though - the little walk through the rain forest was awesome.

Our van then took us back to the boat which ferried us over to a small beach near the Pitons. The views of the Pitons were so pretty from the boat. 

St Lucia is full of natural wonders. The beach time was perfect. We even snorkeled and saw some barracuda! Overall, a perfect day. I can't wait to go back!