Alonda and Jim Droege: Puerto Rico

We visited Puerto Rico the first week in November. It was our chance to get some warm sunshine. We stayed at a resort in the town of Humacao (eastern edge of the island). A friend of Alonda invited us to share the cost of their time-share. It worked out as a very cheap hotel! The resort was very quiet and the time-share had a full kitchen. Saved us from having to go hunt restaurants all the time. Very relaxing. The colors of the resort reminded us of just about every tropical area we have ever visited. Pastel colors on stucco seems to be the decor of choice around the world.

We went hiking in the Humacao Nature Reserve. It used to be a sugar cane plantation. Jim was constantly reminded of his years in Hawaii. This is the palm-tree shaded trail.

We saw many lizards (geckos) on our hike. This black one seemed unusual. He was living on a bridge next to some old machinery from the water pumping station. There was a lot of rusted black iron in the area.

This is what a baby coconut palm tree looks like.

This is what we hope the future of Puerto Rico looks like. We saw a lot of wind chargers. Since the tropics generally are well equipped with sunlight and breezes, solar cells and wind chargers should be their choices for energy.

This is a museum in Humacao. It was actually the personal home of Nocodomo, a famous Puerto Rican architect. He was strongly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. You can definitely see it in the house from the outside.

We got a very personal tour from an architect student at the university. The home was given to the university and they spent 30 years renovating it. This is one of the stained glass windows. They really made the light inside beautiful.

This is the stove in the kitchen. They still have the original plans from 1918-20 when the house was built. The architect (in the plans) called for an electric stove/oven. When they built the house, the cooking staff refused to consider it (too modern!) and they changed the house to have a wood-fired stove instead.

This is an architectural model of the house. The roof comes off so you can see what the rooms looked like originally. Since it is now a museum, some of the rooms have been opened up and some of the bathrooms are gone.

This is the view from the 18th floor balcony of a condo which belongs to a DAR friend of Alonda. She (the DAR friend) and her husband bought it about 40 years ago and have slowly moved to being retired in Puerto Rico. Jim and Alonda went snorkeling off the beach. It was pretty sandy and much shallower than it looks. Even going out a long way, the water was only waist deep. We should have some underwater pictures when we finish the camera and get them developed.

We visited the El Yunque National Forest. It is the only tropical rain forest in the US. This is an example of the air plants that grow wild here.

This is one of the common lizards (gecko) that inhabit the rain forest.

This wasn't the peak season for flowers, but you still ran into them. February is supposed to be the best time to come and see the foliage and blossoms.

Our first hike was a short one up this stream to a waterfall.

This is the lowest of a series of cascades. We didn't go any higher than the pool at this one.

Here is Jim with the emergency umbrella. The day was beautiful with no rain, but you have to be ready.

This is a common date palm in the rain forest. We also saw a lot of date palms in Saudi Arabia, Sri Lankha and Pakistan.

This waterfall may look like the other one, but it is completely different. It is famous for all the people that come here to let a waterfall beat on their heads. You get here on the La Mina trail. It is 3 or 4 miles one way. We were lucky that our friends dropped us at the top and we hiked downhill and they met us.

There is a lot of water along this trail. It mostly follows a stream.

Even the trees would pose to have their picture taken.

This is one of the many colonial era churches in San Juan. We only visited San Juan for one short day of touring.

This is a street view of San Juan. There are a lot of gift and souvenir shops. There are a lot of tourists, too. There were two cruise boats docked while we were there. Each boat will bring two to three thousand tourists into town for four to twelve hours.

This is in a town called Ponce on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. It is second to San Juan in size and is the only competing port. San Juan is pretty tropical, but the southern side of the island is almost like a desert. Very different. They grow coffee in this area.
The town square had lions on each corner and a few more scattered around. "Lion" as in Ponce de "Leon".

Jim thought the lion needed a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes.

We visited the Ponce Art Museum. It was actually a very nice museum and had a lot of things done by Puerto Rican artists. This is "Horse Drawn Carriages of Ponce" by Miguel Pou y Becerra.

This is the fire station in Ponce. Hard to miss, isn't it?

On our way back to Humacao from Ponce, we took the scenic drive along the southern and eastern coast.

More of the countryside. As you can see, it rains a lot in the tropics. It was normal to get rained on at least once a day, but it would then blow away and the sun would come out.

We were on the east coast and didn't get to get some nice sunset-over-the-ocean shots. Here is the sunset from the east coast.

Wherever we travel, we always enjoy photographing the local birds. We saw this one hanging around the harbor when we were trying to arrange a snorkeling trip.