Friday was our day all to ourselves and we milked it for all it was worth. I'm pretty sure we went snorkeling in the
morning, but being as if we did, we would have been covered in salt water, so would any cameras, so there are no pictures of it.
So we'll start with when we headed out to Ponce (PAWN-say).
The main thing that I wanted to do was see a white sand beach, and most of the good white sand beaches were on the Caribbean side of the island. Also, we promised to go to Ponce anyways, which is on the south side of the island, because we had a memorial card from AJ's funeral that Richard and Helen wanted dropped off in a church there, since AJ's family was from Ponce.
On the trip over the middle of the island, we stopped at an overlook. So, you know, look over.
We were told if we went to Ponce we would know which church to leave the card in. This, to me, meant the most obvious church in the middle of the town square. Apparently, when we were told that, it was expected that it would be more of a spiritual feel-it-in-your-gut thing. As it turned out, both were right. The huge church in the middle of the town square WAS the most appropriate because of who it was dedicated to or something. Hey, I'm not Catholic, I'm fuzzy on the terminology.
Ain't she gorgeous?
There's a park right next to the church where there's a statue that has head pigeons.
After much awkwardness of finding out that no one in the church spoke English AND the church closed
for the day, I dredged up the minuscule amount of Spanish I knew and was able to communicate that
we only wanted in for a moment to drop off the card from our dead friend from Los Angeles who
came from Ponce. Bless their heart, they let us in (and they work in a church, their hearts
are probably already blessed.)
During this time of the trip, I was still pathologically afraid of using flash photography (it's UGLY)
but we were also let in just for a short time, so I tried to take fast pics without a flash, which
equals Great Blurriness. Sorry about that.
Martin, leaving the card at the altar.
The huge altar and the little card at the bottom. It was actually a very solemn moment and coming from
Los Angeles and completing this was a really deep sorta closure. It's hard to find words for it.
Directly behind the church was an awesome little tourist trap, what used to be the old firehouse
for the city, I believe, the Parque de Bombas. Check out how awesome the side of the building looks.
Martin, in front of the building.
They put the city tourism information center in the building, which was genius, because
let's face it, if you have a building that looks this cool in the center of town, all the
turistas are going to be flocking there anyways.
Here's a shot of the interior.
Martin, getting free tourist information (such as "the city has been without water for 2 days now") and a better
shot of the ironwork balcony. The whole island is filled with incredible examples of iron work like this. If
you want to make a good living making curly little iron bars, this is the country to live in.
A cool little model.
More iron work and some detail of the interior painting. Check out the ceiling corner there.
Despite the town being out of water, when we arrived the fountain in the center of town was on. It was on until about
2 seconds before I snapped this picture. Imagine the fountain in the foreground burbling in a cool fashion, and it's
a far more awesome shot. 0_o
Here's a movie of the church and park, if you like that sort of thing... This is before they shut off the fountain!
Casa Alcaldia! I have no idea what it is, but it looks neat, right?? Ponce is a highly photogenic area.
You have to expect SOME of the traditional "this is us in front of the blahdeblah" pics, right? Us in front of the
church.
Next we headed off to a great tiny little beach we read about! It's got white sand! It's got a coral reef! It's hidden away and only the locals know about it! It sounded perfect for some snorkeling, so we headed out. It was a bit overcast and the sand wasn't as white as I was hoping, but it was our one day off and I wasn't going to get persnickety. A white sand beach in the Caribbean is a white sand beach in the Caribbean.
Eventually we got into our stuff and grabbed the snorkeling stuff and headed out. The swimming area was marked off so we couldn't get to the coral reef. That didn't stop us from snorkeling though! We put on our stuff, put our heads down and...
...the visibility was about 3 inches. Seriously. We couldn't even see each other. Ah, well. Snorkeling in a protected cove with a coral reef off a white sand beach SEEMED a good idea. I learned the important lesson that tourist areas are tourist areas because perfect beaches are a pretty rare thing so when there is one, it's glomped by the travel industry pretty quickly.
One other thing I was determined to do, I really wanted to have a fruity little drink on a white sand beach. There was a quaint little
bar/cafe thingy, so we each got a drink. Martin had a beer...
...and that's me with a strawberry daiquiri. I think I look pretty damn geeky, but it's a picture of me on a white sand beach drinking a daiquiri. 'Nuff said.
We decided to see if we could get to Rincon in time for the sunset over the ocean. On our way there, we came across this shot.
We did actually make it to Rincon in time for the sunset. We were hoping for a green flash, but apparently most of the sunsets, at least while we were on vacation, tended to have haze on the horizon.
More of the beach at Rincon.
Me. On the beach at Rincon.
Here's a panoramic movie whatsy of the Rincon coast, to get a better feel of what it looked like.
Two pelicans soaring over the coast.
All in all, most tranquil.
...and we were quite unwilling to head back yet. More tranquility! YAY! We found from the local signage that Rincon has a lighthouse! So we went and checked that out, too! It had just turned on, even. On the other hand, we couldn't get too close since they were doing some reconstruction stuff, but we still got to see it pretty well.
Or, if you'd like to see another slow-paced video, here's the lighthouse actually blinking...
We tried to find somewhere new and cool on the beach to have dinner. You would think travelling the main coast highway you'd see a lot of beachfront restaurants. Not so much! We ended up deciding that we knew a perfectly good restaurant on the beach already. So, of course, we headed right back to Salitre.
One of the things I enjoyed last time about the restaurant was the company. The owner is cool, the waitresses are cool, but even more than that, they have little four-legged beggars!
This is my second favorite dog. They were all really sweet dogs, though.
This is about as typical a shot of me as you can get. Five star restaurant on our night out, with my special guy, expensive food on the table, beach at night just feet away and I'm feeding the stray dogs.
See the little spotted girl? If I didn't have an apartment, I would have tried to find a way to get her back to Cali. I loved her a lot.
The spotted girly is a lap doggie.
**wibble**
Elizabeth, who rocks hard, and Martin.
Remember how I mentioned I bought dog treats for the dog next to the house we were renting? (I did mention that, right?) Elizabeth let me drop the rest of the box off at the kitchen on our way to San Juan so they wouldn't go to waste and she could distribute them to the strays later.
Us. At Salitre. My favorite restaurant on the planet. Try the Caribbean mash.
On our way out, in the parking lot, we saw "Salte" (at least that's about how his name is pronounced.) You'll see more of him. Oh, yes.
Right now he's pretending to be all demure and hesitant of people. That will change.
Our day out? I think we got home at 11:30 PM? Michelle was way nicer and came back halfway through hers, but we sucked every last drop out of it.
