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Virgin Islands – Wednesday, May 8

We were out the door by 7am so that I could drop Taryn and Jared at the airport. It’s been fun having them around, and now they must head back to Michigan. We’ll miss them! I was disappointed my camera wasn’t working last night – we got a good picture of the 4 of us at a restaurant, but they turned out too dark on the cell phone cameras. When I got back to the resort, Christy and I got ready for some walking – we had 5 extra miles to make up before we leave in a few days since we fell a little short on Saturday (our first day here), and Monday (due to being all sandy and wet from rainy day in St. John). And we also had a couple donations to take care of.

Yesterday when we were out walking, Chris noticed a street called Ny Gade. Our maiden name is Nygaard, and I wanted to make a donation somewhere on Ny Gade for that reason. (Perhaps not the most logical reason to make a donation, but that seemed to fit this morning!). Gade is the Dutch word for street. As luck would have it, there was a cathedral right across the building that had the Ny Gade sign on it. A couple of guys were painting the doors, but we were still able to go inside, where Chris saw a donation box for me right away. This church was St. Thomas Reformed Church, which was founded in 1660 by the first organized group of Dutch settlers in the area. It’s one of the olde3st churches in the Caribbean, and the Reformed Church of America is the oldest denomination in America (according to the church pamphlet), and it’s a close cousin of the Presbyterian Church. Since this church building belongs to the oldest denomination in America, and is one of the oldest churches in the Caribbean, it was a good place for my donation on Ny Gade, especially when one of the painters told us how everyone pulled together and worked hard on repairs after a really bad storm damaged the church. I was happy to find it!

We had seen a cruise ship in the harbor first thing this morning, and by the time we were done in the church, there were 3 of them lined up – and lots of people in town again. We continued our walk – heading along the bay back to the Frenchtown area where we ate last night – we wanted to walk around there and get some pictures of some of the boats in the marina. Actually my sister wanted to re-read the hand-lettered “Crew Wanted” sign in the restaurant – advertising the need for crew members to sail to Grenada from June to November! I think if the boat was at the dock leaving right then, she would have wanted to hop on and join them on the spot – haha! If she vanishes in June, I know where to find her! We left the docks and continued walking as far as we could – getting kind of close to the airport. Then we walked back into Charlotte Amalie, where I did another donation. We had been walking down one of the back streets in town looking for a women’s shelter that a local lady had told us about, and we couldn’t find that, but then we noticed the local Salvation Army. It was housed in a historic old building built in 1860, and Chris remembered our mom mentioning how good the Salvation Army had been to my late brother when he was in need of assistance and no family was around. We could smell the lunch they had just served to the homeless people, and many of them were sitting around in the courtyard. We decided it was a wonderfully appropriate place for a donation, and we went into the thrift store part of the building to talk with a couple people, who were very kind and thankful for a donation. Sales from the thrift store help support the program, and there were several people in there shopping and buying things. It was a cool old building, and the upstairs used to be where the original shelter was, although it’s now used for storage. It was probably the most interesting Salvation Army place I’ve seen, and I was happy to find them too.

By then we had walked over 6 miles in the heat, and were ready for a break. We stopped at the grocery store and headed back to the resort where we fixed a light lunch and headed to the pool for a little while. We had also been trying to check into a sailing/snorkeling trip for tomorrow, but there had been no response from one of the contact people and I was getting conflicting information from another person. It sounded like nothing was running tomorrow, so we put our names on a list for Friday’s trip to St. John and will have to take care of details in the morning.

Then we headed back into town – we couldn’t afford to get any farther behind with miles, and even though rain clouds were moving in again, we went back into town for more walking along the bay. We wanted to walk a total of 11 miles today, so we parked in our usual spot, and headed out along the boardwalk by the cruise ship marina and along the sidewalk by the sea. We watched as 2 of the cruise ships sailed out of the harbor – floating cities that quickly became little specks on the horizon. It started to sprinkle a bit and then Chris caught her flip-flop on some wood on the boardwalk, and broke them. She was able to put it back together, but every now and then they still came apart. Most people wouldn’t wear flip-flops for all the walking we were doing, but she did, and she ultimately walked all 56 miles with me in the Virgin Islands – most of it in flip-flops and the rest of it barefoot on the beach! I don’t think anyone will match that record on my journey! When we were at the farthest point of our evening walk, the sprinkles turned into rain, and there wasn’t much we could do about it – we got soaked! It was coming down pretty hard. We sloshed our way back to the car, and surprisingly didn’t make too much of a wet mess in there, and headed back to Magens Bay, where we just stayed in for a late dinner.

Virgin Islands – Tuesday, May 7

Taryn and Jared decided to enjoy a pool day in the sun since this was their last day in the islands. So Christy and I left them there, and we headed into town to get some walking in. But first we stopped by the front desk and found out they were able to upgrade us to a bigger unit for no extra charge. And we also found a little map that we were able to use as a guide on a walk through town that took us past a bunch of historic places. We walked by an old fort, old churches, government buildings and the governor’s mansion, and climbed the famous 99 steps up to Blackbeard’s castle, and saw the statues of notorious pirates, including Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It was really hot out, and we had to occasionally duck into one of the air-conditioned shops to cool off a bit. After we made our way back into town, we walked down the main street where all the warehouse shops were open. The center of town was crowded because a cruise ship was in, and the passengers were all out and about shopping. To our surprise, the vast majority of the warehouse shops were jewelry stores – literally dozens of them. And there were people in a lot of them, but it’s just hard to imagine how so many jewelry stores can sell enough merchandise to stay in business. There were only a couple souvenir type stores in the midst of all the jewelry stores. We browsed around a bit in the souvenir stores, but had no interest in the jewelry shops. My camera had some temperamental moments and quit working for a while, and even though it’s an underwater camera, I began to wonder if the water had somehow affected it.

Then we kept walking down the street to find the Catholic Charities office where I was going to make 2 donations today – their slogan is “…Lean on us when you need a friend…” It was hard to find at first – we had to go through a closed gate into a courtyard, and there didn’t seem to be anything there, but we finally went up a flight of stairs, and found the office. The Catholic Charities is made up of a number of social service programs, including the Bethlehem House Shelter and a soup kitchen, and those were the 2 programs I was going to donate to. One of the ladies went and got the Mick, the director, and we were able to talk with him for a while. The Bethlehem House shelter has 40 beds on St Thomas and 40 beds on St Croix, and the residents also get 2 hot meals a day and counseling. The soup kitchen is open Monday through Friday, and they serve about 100 people a day. In addition to food, the people are also able to get clothes if they need them, toiletries, and they can also take advantage of showers and outreach services. On our way out, we stopped for a couple pictures.

By this time, we had a lot of our walking done, so we headed back to the car and drove back to the resort. We got our stuff moved to the new unit, then headed down to the pool to read for a while. And later on all 4 of us headed over to the Frenchtown district, where we found a restaurant called Hook, Line and Sinker right on the water. the shutters were open to the night air, and we had a wonderful dinner for Taryn and Jared’s last night on the island.

Virgin Islands – Monday, May 6

Today we had decided to take the car barge over to St. Thomas where we would go swimming and snorkeling at one of the beaches in the National Park, which covers about 2/3 of the island. The people at the front desk recommended waiting til at least 9am ferry to go – earlier ferries are filled with trucks hauling a lot of supplies over, plus students would all be in school by then.

So we drove across the northeast side of St. Thomas to the little town of Red Hook where the ferry docks were. It didn’t cost us any more to take the car since there were 4 of us who would have been paying the round-trip passenger fee anyway. And this way we didn’t have to pay for a taxi on the other end.

I had to back onto the ferry up a steep ramp which scraped something on the underside of the car, but no lights came on or anything. It was only about a 20 minute crossing, then we rolled off and tried to figure out where Trunk Bay was. Our maps guided us along a short drive toward the interior of the island, and then we spotted a sign for the national park, so we turned down the dirt road. There was a good reason no one else came this way – the gravel road was very difficult to drive on, with lots of ruts, rocks, and sharp turns and I don’t know what I would have done if another vehicle had to pass us. I was relieved to finally get to the parking lot without getting a flat tire or something.

It was pretty cloudy out, which was probably just as well. We’d all gotten a pretty good dose of sun the last couple days. We rented our snorkeling equipment, and found a nice place in the beach for towels, and headed into the water. There were some big rocks on one side if the bay, and that’s where a lot of fish were hanging out. Plus there was a short underwater trail, which consisted of heavy cement blocks dropped down onto the ocean floor with information about some of the coral and fish that were in the area. There was a big variety of fish and coral and we all enjoyed floating around to see everything. Taryn and Jared even saw sea turtles. After quite a long time in the water, we were ready for a bite to eat, and there was a little building with a few things to choose from for lunch. The sea birds are very aggressive, and have been known to take food away – and the kitchen had to post a sign saying they weren’t responsible for replacing any food that the birds might swipe! And we had to watch our food carefully and scare off the birds now and then.

Chris and I also did some more walking on the beach. This beach was only about 3/10s of a mile long each way, so we knew we’d have to walk back and forth 10 times to get 3 miles done. So we did that and then also did another mile around some of the sidewalks on the grounds. By this time it was raining, but we decided to go snorkeling again since we were wet anyway. The water wasn’t quite as clear – I think the rain churned things up a bit. We didn’t stay in quite as long this time, and when we got out, our towels and clothes were all wet and covered in sand. After a little more walking, we decided it was time to head out, and we were quite a sandy mess when we left.

We headed back toward the ferry docks, but we had some time to kill, so even though we were kind of wet, we spent a little time in Cruz Bay, looking around the shops. And that led to a couple donations. Chris was buying a few things in one of the shops when she noticed a donation box for the Animal Care Center in St John, so she called me over. I asked the cashier about the place, and she told me it was a really nice animal shelter, which is able to adopt out quite a few animals, and American Airlines even offers to transport newly adopted pets to the mainland at no charge. Plus they let people take a dog out for the day to the beach or something, and it sounded like the staff is really caring, and were able to provide a lot of extras as they worked to get pets adopted out. So I ended up making a donation to them.

And then Chris wanted to go into a Caribbean Consignment shop, and the door had a sign on it saying they were open, but then the lady inside said they were closed since they were getting ready for a fashion show. But she invited us in anyway, and while Chris was looking around, I asked the lady if the fashion show was to benefit an organization, and we got to talking, and it turned out she had close connections to the Women’s Coalition of St Croix. She told me a bit about the organization, and they’re able to provide crisis intervention services and counseling to victims of violence and oppression. They also provide temporary housing, food and clothing to those who need it. Since we weren’t going to be able to make it to St. Croix, which is the 3rd of the US Virgin Islands, I was really happy to have an opportunity to make a donation to an organization on St. Croix. So I made a donation to them, which the lady at the shop was going to deliver the next day.

Then it was time to catch the latest ferry back to St. Thomas, and we didn’t make any further stops since we were all still kind of wet and sandy. Once we landed back in Red Hook, we drove back to the resort, and Taryn and Jared headed out for a dinner on their own, and Chris and I just stayed in for a late dinner. In the end, we figured it was probably best it had been kind of cloudy and rainy since we’d all already had so much sun.

Virgin Islands – Sunday, May 5

Magens Bay is located on the north side of St. Thomas, and was said to be one of the prettiest natural beaches in the whole Caribbean. As such, it is often overly crowded with tourists. But since it was close to where we were staying, we loaded up towels and sunscreen and all, and walked a steep 3/4 mile down to the beach. And it was gorgeous. The sandy beach itself is nearly 3/4 mile long – a big beach for a small island. The bay was deep, the water was crystal clear, and the bottom was sandy everywhere. And the water was so many beautiful shades of blue – shades that just can’t be re-created in photos, paints or crayons. We found a table in the shade and settled in. And best of all, it wasn’t crowded at all – we’re here in an “in-between” season” and apparently no cruise ships were in. St. Thomas is one of the busiest cruise ship ports, and so far we haven’t seen any.

The water felt chilly when we first stepped in, but once we were all the way in, it was so comfortable and refreshing, which felt good because the sun was hot. Christy and I figured we would do some of our walking on the beach, and each round trip – from one end of the beach to the other and back – covered 1.3 miles. So we’d walk, and then usually get back into the ocean to cool off. Because of its sandy bottom, snorkeling wasn’t good here, so most people were just swimming and floating. Taryn and Jared explored the beach too, and we got a bite to eat. Chris did an extra lap of the beach to make up for the mile and a quarter of walking that I did before getting her from the airport yesterday. By mid-afternoon, the sun was blazing hot and we spent a little time reading at our table in the shade. Everyone wanted heat and sun, and that’s what they got! Having had a bout of skin cancer 6-7 years ago, I kept the sunscreen on, and ended up with a hat and t-shirt on, even in the water. The kids eventually headed back up, and Chris and I read a bit more in the shade, then did another lap of walking on the beach and got in the water again. At the far end of the beach, there was a cute little lifesaving rowboat that looked really old, along with another little boat named No Mo Troubles. I wanted a picture of that boat but the glare of the sun made it hard to see exactly what I was taking pictures of, so sometimes I just had to point and shoot and hope what I wanted was in the picture. I was not successful with No Mo Troubles! Finally Christy and I made the steep walk back uphill – waterlogged and sun-satiated.

A little later, we still wanted to walk a couple miles to finish off our 8 miles for the day, so we headed into town, which was pretty quiet on a Sunday evening. Darkness comes pretty early and falls fast, and we didn’t have that much to do, so we got it finished off and called the kids – we had made plans to meet them at a little open-air restaurant by the resort that had a hand-printed sign out front advertising “local food”. But then we got lost again while driving back! There’s one main road that crosses the island north to south in the middle, but there is construction on the town end of it, so it’s blocked off, and there’s so many one-way streets that it can be confusing to find the way to the correct road (in all reality it was very easy – we just hadn’t found the right connecting street yet). So we had a very colorful side-trip through the little neighborhoods of tiny old homes and people lingering about, and steep streets and I even found myself going the wrong way on a one-way street (they are not marked at all corners!). I still think some of the streets I was on are some of the steepest I’ve ever driven – I was happy to be in a newer vehicle with good brakes!

We finally found our way out of the tangle of houses and streets and met Taryn and Jared at the restaurant, which was mostly a roof with tables and chairs – bugs don’t seem to be a big problem here. It was surprisingly noisy for a Sunday night. They didn’t have menus so we weren’t sure what we were in for – the lady just told us what they had, which was mostly assorted vegetables served with a meat of your choice. They all ordered shrimp, and I ordered conch. I had tried conch in Florida a long time ago and found it kind of rubbery, but it seems to be served a lot here, and I figured it was time to try it again. And we were all surprised by how good everything was – definitely a little hole in the wall worth remembering! The conch was served mixed in with vegetables, kind of like a Chinese dish. I’m not sure what all the vegetables were, but we all enjoyed the food, and were entertained by a cute little toddler and young girl dancing to the jukebox music.

No donations today on a Sunday, but at least I have some good leads for the upcoming week, and who knows what else we might run into. On the beach we had got to talking with a local lady who’s lived here a long time, and she said my donation possibilities were good places, and she also suggested another possibility.

Virgin Islands – Saturday, May 4

The flight between Puerto Rico and St. Thomas was only about 20 minutes long. There used to be ferries running between the 2 islands, but if they run at all any more, it’s not on a reliable schedule, so we had to fly. We then picked up the rental car, and although I was happy to once again see signs in English, I had a new challenge this week – people drive on the “wrong” side of the road on these islands! So I was hyper-alert to pay attention to where I was in the road, and make sure I stayed on the correct side. Right turns were a bit different at first, as was pulling out of parking lots.

Charlotte Amalie is the main city on the island, and it’s right in the middle of the island on the south side. We were going to be staying at Magens Bay Villas, thanks to a timeshare trade I did a long time ago, and that was on the north side up and over the mountains. This island and many of the neighboring ones used to make up the rim of a very large volcano, so they all rise pretty steeply from the sea. We hadn’t had breakfast before we left, so we thought we better stop while we were in town for a quick bite, and to do a little grocery shopping. We saw what we thought was a farmer’s market sort of place – a lot of stalls set up with blue tarps for “roofs”. So we found a place to park on some neighborhood street, and went to check out the “farm market” which turned out to be mostly souvenir stalls. But there was some food, and people were also selling unusual looking fish right out of the backs of their trucks. Lots of the food seemed like it would be more for dinner than breakfast – Taryn and I noticed a sign for rice pudding in one stall and that sounded kind of good, but when we asked about it, their version of rice pudding had big sausages floating in some broth, and I’m not sure where the rice was. It definitely wasn’t the rice pudding we were expecting to see, and I think they had a bit of a laugh at our confusion! We found a little 2nd story cafe nearby instead and had breakfast.

And then we wanted to head to the grocery store to do a little shopping. Prices were very high – most of them seemed to be more than the 20% we had been told to expect. But we got a few things, and were then ready to head to Magens Bay. But that was easier said than done. There was some construction going on, and a couple of the streets we needed were closed off. So we tried to go around it, and ended up on a street so narrow, I worried if I had enough room to get through. And when I turned a corner, I confronted one of the steepest roads I’ve driven down. We drove through some neighborhood backroads before finally getting on the curvy 2-lane street that would take us to the resort. It still wasn’t time to check in, but Taryn and Jared understandably wanted to stay by the pool while I went back to the airport to pick up my sister Christy – they didn’t get any sun/swimming time on Puerto Rico.

So I went back to the airport, feeling a little more comfortable driving on the left side. On the way back, we got lost in the same neighborhood again – so many steep one-way streets running at odd angles! I was thrilled my sister was going to be able to spend the whole week here – she loves visiting islands, and had hoped to join me on Samoa, but that one didn’t work out, so she came to St. Thomas which was a new one for her too. We found our way back to the resort, where Taryn and Jared were already showing the evidence of a hot, sunny day. So Chris and I changed and got in the pool, which was wonderfully refreshing. We relaxed for a few hours, and when our unit was ready, we carried our stuff in. We were a bit crowded, but we won’t be spending much time inside anyway.

A few hours passed quickly by the pool. There was another pool down the hill a bit, and Taryn and Jared checked that one out and got some pictures of a big iguana climbing a palm tree. There are a lot of iguanas and little lizards around here. Later we all decided to go back to Charlotte Amalie to explore a bit and get some walking in. Christy told me she was planning on walking the entire 56 miles with me, so that’ll be a first! We parked on Main Street, where all the shops were locked up on a Sunday evening. All the shops have the same outside appearance – old warehouse buildings with big wooden doors to swing out when they were open – at one point these warehouses even held pirate loot. There was a great deal of piracy back then, and once again, I wished those walls could talk! But this wasn’t the place to walk in the evening – we all stayed on the well-lit sidewalk next to the bay. Chris and I headed off in one direction, and Taryn and Jared set off in the other direction, and we were going to meet up for dinner. So we walked as far as we could in our direction, then turned around and walked back, and continued on to the other side of the bay, all the way down to where the cruise ships dock. There weren’t any cruise ships in today. There was a nice boardwalk/dock along the marina and the high-end stores where the tourists shop. We also ran into Taryn and Jared in that neck of the woods, so we decided to eat at The Fat Turtle. Mostly we got salads which really hit the spot.

Darkness falls fast here, but it was still a pretty walk back to where we had left the car, and there were enough streetlights and traffic to feel comfortable. Lights were scattered along the steep mountainsides and it was also pretty to look down on the lights of the harbor as we climbed up the mountain. Speed limits are never more than 35 mph on the island – the roads are just too narrow, steep and curvy to go much faster than that, and these sorts of roads would not be drivable in a snowy climate!

Back at the resort, I did some research into donation possibilities, and I shouldn’t have as much trouble finding places here as I did on Puerto Rico, although it will probably be Monday before I can do anything.

I didn’t seem to get many pictures today, but we’ll be in the same areas again.

Puerto Rico – Friday, May 3

We were out in the car before 6:30am to get Taryn and Jared to their pick-up place for a caving adventure that Taryn had read about in a National Geographic adventure book quite a while ago. It was a little too extreme for me! And I wanted some more time in Old San Juan anyway, since it’s the oldest city on US territory. Even though Christopher Columbus landed in Puerto Rico first, it was Ponce do Leon who founded San Juan in 1521. Puerto Rico means “rich port.”

But first I wanted to take care of my last 2 Puerto Rico donations. A couple days ago, I had missed a turn I needed to take, and it led me quite a bit out of my way, but I ended up going through a congested part of San Juan I hadn’t seen before. Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed a Salvation Army building, but it was after 5pm and there was no place to park anyway. But, it made me aware that it exists, so I decided to mail them a donation. And then I also wanted to donate to the food bank in San Juan, which was called the Banco de Alimentos de Puerto Rico. According to their website, they help about 450 different non-profit organizations; giving assistance to needy children, homeless people, elderly and disabled people, and those who have HIV/AIDS. They used to be known as the Caribbean Food Bank, but became associated with America’s Second Harvest program in 1996. So I mailed off a donation to them too.

Then I headed back to Old San Juan, and walked the path along the ocean outside of the city walls again. After getting a couple miles in there I walked uphill and came to a wonderful little museum near El Morro – the Museo de Las Americas. There were half a dozen galleries, and I really liked the one that had dioramas of some of the native South American tribes. They even had a shrunken head inside a glass case, along with the “how to” information. There was also a good folk art gallery, and a gallery of artwork made from local garbage which was surprisingly creative, and several other small galleries with religious and dance displays. They’re working on a new gallery with rum, coffee, and tobacco history and displays – I wish that one had been ready! They sell a lot of cigars here too, and some of the shops let people roll their own.

From there I headed back to El Morro for another short visit, and on my way back down the hill, I made a point of walking by the old San Jose Church, which is indeed the oldest US church in the New World (built in early 1500s), but it was under renovation and no one could go in. By the time I got back to the car, I had walked more than my 56 miles for the week.

Then it was time to head back to Casa del Caribe since Taryn and Jared were on their way back. We were all hungry, so we headed out for dinner at a Puerto Rican restaurant, and we all got a different kind of mofongo, which was a plantain dish made with either pork, chicken or shrimp. They really enjoyed their caving adventure, which involved zip-lining down to the cave area, rapeling into the cave, some underwater swims, and even jumping into some water in total darkness in the cave. They had to inch their way across a rock wall using carabiners, and I think I was happy to not know details until they were safely back! They said it was very professionally run – 3 certified guides for the 15 people, and it sounded like a pretty amazing trip. After dinner, it was time to head back to pack up for an early morning flight to the US Virgin Islands.

So, despite a slow start in Puerto Rico, and some language barriers, ultimately I was able to find 7 different donation places (El Morro National Park, American Legion, Cruz Roya, Habitat for Humanity, El Yunque Rainforest, Salvation Army and Banco de Alimentos) and even though I wasn’t able to actually visit all of them, I was happy to at least find different places for donations – I wasn’t sure if that was all going to work out, but it did!

Puerto Rico – Thursday, May 2

This morning we decided to go visit El Yunque – the big rainforest east of Puerto Rico. So we had some breakfast and then drove about an hour to the rainforest through lots of little towns. We made a stop at the visitor center to get some information on walks and what to see, and then we started driving into the forest. We stopped to look at La Coca Falls and then drove higher up the mountain, where we got out for a hike back to La Mina Waterfalls. We walked on the trail through the forest, seeing unfamiliar trees that were hundreds of years old, and plants, ferns, vines and flowers. We heard a lot of birds, but didn’t see very many, and there were lots of lizards too. Everything was green and thick and lush, and it made us wonder how many undiscovered bugs or plants there might be in the depths of the forest. The trail went up and down, and up and down, and we eventually came to a big waterfall which fell into a natural pool. Some people scrambled over wet rocks to get into the pool by the falls, and Taryn and Jared also did that. Not me – I’d have probably twisted an ankle! There were only a few rocks for people to stand on in the water, otherwise they said the pool looked really deep. We hiked back (the kids sloshed back – it was too humid for them to dry off much!) and it began to rain a bit. We started to head down the mountain, and stopped at a little shack on the mountainside for lunch. We weren’t sure what everything was, but we ended up with chicken on skewers, a fried hamburger/banana thing (sounds weird but we all liked it), coconut bread and coconuts to drink. We listened to the rain on the tin roof of the shack as we enjoyed our lunch watching the fog through the open windows as it rolled into the mountains. As we continued our way back down the mountain, we stopped at an old lookout tower and climbed to the top where there were some pretty views of the rainforest, and farther off to a city and the ocean. Some of the clouds were lower than the nearby mountain peaks, and we wondered of the fog was going to roll right over us too!

Then we stopped once more at the visitor center to look at the exhibits. El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest system, and they’re very proactive in conservation and preservation. They had donation boxes out, and I decided to give them my donation-of-the-day. The US doesn’t have many places like this to preserve!

Then we headed back to Casa Caribe. After drying off and cleaning up a bit, we drove over to Old San Juan, where we were able to wander around a bit through some narrow streets, and we stopped at a couple different places to sample some Puerto Rico beer and eat plantain chips, sausage and calamari. A lot of food down here is made with bananas and plantains, and and the plantain chips were a tasty substitute for tortilla chips. After all the fresh air and walking we were ready for an early night.

Puerto Rico – Wednesday, May 1

(Blog posts have been slow to come – I’m on an island with limited wi-fi availability!)

Today I set out to make a couple more donations and to walk around the part of San Juan where I’m staying. I need a break from driving around here! I had read that the address for the local Habitat for Humanity office was just down a road that was right by where I’m staying. So I headed out to visit them. I passed the address that had been listed, and saw a copy and print shop there instead. I walked a little farther to see if the street perhaps and both east and west addresses, but after a while that didn’t seem likely, so I went to the print shop, and asked if Habitat for Humanity had moved. They told me it was indeed an active organization, and they received their mail there, but didn’t have an actual office. So I ended up just having to mail it in.

And then I got another idea. Over the past few days I have noticed quite a few homeless people “begging” for money from passers-by. They are often sitting on the sidewalk with their meager belongings and use either a tin can or an empty McDonald’s cup to collect their coins. In the evening, I also see very thin young women begging for money in the streets between lanes of traffic while cars are stopped for red lights (more people to watch out for on the roads!). I thought maybe I would get 56 $1 bills and give 2 of them to 28 different homeless people for one of my donations. So I went to the bank and got a bunch of singles, but then I only saw 2 homeless people the whole rest of the day. But I gave them each a couple bucks and will see what I see in the next couple of days.

I’m staying near one of the tourist areas on the west side if San Juan, and it seemed like a nice safe place to walk. Plus, there seem to be a lot of police officers and security guards all over the place. The Ocean was just a couple blocks away, and there were several big hotels on the beach. All the beaches on Puerto Rico are public, so anyone can swim anywhere, but the waves are rough on the north side of the island, and I looked at a couple of the beaches and not very many people were swimming. There were signs about dangerous undertows and currents. I walked for several miles along the sidewalks toward Old San Juan and crossed a long bridge and saw another old abandoned fort. It was a really hot day and it felt good to stop in an air-conditioned place for a quick lunch, then I returned to the B-ans-B for a break from the heat.

While I was there, I looked into more donation opportunities since time in Puerto Rico was slipping away, and the Red Cross – Cruz Roya – kept popping up. I figure I can never go wrong with a donation to the Red Cross! But it looked like their office was located in a congested suburb of San Juan quite a ways away, and I simply didn’t have it in me to make a long drive through confusing, often-unmarked streets battling heavy afternoon traffic and questionable parking. So I wrote a letter – hoping someone can read English – and mailed my donation to the Cruz Roya at its Spanish address.

I had to call the car rental agency because there was a yellow warning light on the dash and I couldn’t tell what it was for. They thought one of the tires might be low, and told me to either check it at a gas station, or bring it in for them to look at. They were actually pretty close, so I drove over there, and the mechanics checked it out, and said everything was fine, and that the tire sensors go off all the time because of all the bouncing in potholes, which is true enough. But at least I won’t worry about the light now!

When I returned, I went outside and walked some more in “my” neighborhood, hoping to be able to give a few more dollars to some homeless people. And when I want to see them, I don’t! It began to occur to me that perhaps part of what the police and security guards are doing is trying to keep the homeless people from bothering tourists, because there were a lot of tourists out and about. So maybe my idea wasn’t a good one, but I thought it was at least a way to make a human connection when I’m having some difficulty making other donations. I’ll see what happens with that in the next couple of days.

Taryn and Jared had been en route to Puerto Rico from Michigan all day, and were due in at the airport a little after 10, so I made my way over there and waited in the cell phone lot. They were happy to arrive after a long day of travel, and I was delighted to see them, and happy to have some family around for a while! I showed them around the B-and-B and its courtyards when I got back – the place is bigger than it appears from the front gate – and then we called it a day.

Puerto Rico – Tuesday, April 30

The bed-and-breakfast provided a light continental breakfast – enough to get the day started! It’s only about 6-7 miles away from Old San Juan, so that was my destination for the day. And I loved it!

Before parking, I drove through the old town to get an idea of what was where – steep hills, narrow streets and lots of old historic buildings with countless shops, eateries, bars and little neighborhoods. Lots of the streets are lined with blue/purple bricks that came over as ballast in Spanish galleons. And there were a couple really old cathedrals – both with some renovation work going on. Castillo San Felipe del Morro (the fort known as El Morro) was built on the tip of the peninsula in the 1500s and remains an engineering masterpiece even today. Over time it became a 6-level fort (1st level cannon shot at enemy boat’s hulls; 2nd level shot at decks; 3rd level tried to rip and shred sails, etc.) to protect Spain’s access to New World wealth. Pretty much whoever controlled the waters around San Juan would also control nearly everything in the New World. And Spain hung onto its domination for over 300 years, although there were many skirmishes with the native Indians, English, French, Dutch and America.

The forts are part of the US National Park system, and I spent quite a bit of time in both of them – I liked El Morro the best. There was a really long sidewalk leading to it and people are usually out flying kites on the grassy park-like area leading to the actual fort. With blue waters and blue sky and green grass all around a monstrous tan/gray fort, it was very colorful and airy and a pretty place to be walking. I walked all around fort – taking ramps or old spiral staircases or other stairs to get up and down on all the levels. The lowest level held the original tower built in the 1500s – to be standing in something that old and historic is really something. The views across the bay and ocean were beautiful, and one can just imagine the hustle-bustle if a very busy harbor. There are lots of picturesque old sentry towers strategically placed around the walls of the fort, and old cannons and cannon balls, and it was all fascinating. I ended up making a donation to El Morro in honor of some of the oldest history of the Americas.

Then, with afternoon clouds threatening rain, I started walking to the other fort, which was about 1/2 hour away. It started raining a bit, but it felt good since it was so hot out. I walked all around that fort too, which wasn’t quite that big, and also watched the history video, and went on a short walk with a ranger who pointed out things like their innovative ways to collect water – in big underground cisterns lined with limestone and kept clean since no animals were allowed in the fort. They still use cistern water today for toilets and non-drinking needs. As I was leaving that fort, a free tram came by, so I took a ride back up to El Morro, and then started walking down the big hill on lots of the narrow streets. I stopped at a place where I was able to recognize enough words to get a sandwich, and then walked some more.

When I got back to the parking lot, I discovered it was right by the entrance of the long walkway that runs along outside of the city walls right by the sea, so I had to walk on that too. That led me right past the original city gate – the only way for visiting dignitaries and religious people to enter the city. They would be rowed in from their schooners and ships and enter a huge ornate city door. The walkway wound along the base of the old city wall, which must have been a good 30 feet tall, with the fort looming overhead. It’s a very impressive sight, especially with waves crashing on the rocks nearby. It became my favorite walk in Puerto Rico.

Today I also sent in a donation to one of the American Legion posts in San Juan for my military-based donation this week. The post I sent it to had more information on their website than most of the others, and they had a meeting coming up. They make sure that US troops and veterans are recognized during Memorial Day and Veterans Day observances, and also participate in Flag Day, and anything else they can do to help veterans. This is the first time I’ve donated to the American Legion, and I became aware of them after talking with a WWII veteran back at Myrtle Beach State Park when we were both walking our dogs on the same stretch of boardwalk. He spoke pretty highly of the organization. So it looks like a good military option for a donation when I can’t find a USO or a veterans home, which I didn’t see in Puerto Rico.

Once again, I walked nearly 10 miles today and was happy to head back to Casa Caribe.

Puerto Rico – Monday, April 29

Today I decided to drive around the west end of Puerto Rico, so I headed out and made my first stop in the town of San German, which is known as the city of hills. This is an old town with very narrow streets, many of which seem to be one-way. And sometimes people park their cars on the sidewalks, which are also narrow, and then the cars hang out into the streets. Add that to the hills and some blind corners, and it makes for some challenging driving! But I’m getting used to it. I found a place to park at the bottom of the hills, and walked uphill through the narrow little streets. There was such an old feel to the town with its squares and old churches that it sometimes seems as though life in town hasn’t changed in centuries! And as I was walking around, I ran across the Henry W. Longfellow Elementary School – I’ve run into tributes to him in Louisiana, Massachusetts and now Puerto Rico! There are also electrical wires all over the place – it seems like a lot of them, but none are buried or camoflaged, so they’re all hanging across the streets like some kind of decoration. One of my guidebooks had said the Iglesias Porta Coeli (Gate of Heaven Church)in town was the oldest church in the New World (under US jurisdiction) so I wanted to see it. The guidebook also said it was closed on Mondays – the rest of the week it was open for tours for a $3 donation. But I love the way these old churches are built, and I wanted to go look at it anyway. And to my surprise it was open, and although they didn’t do tours anymore, I was still able to walk around and look at old religious artifacts and statues. All the descriptions were in Spanish, so I didn’t learn much but it was fun to look around. The security guard didn’t speak English, but another guy did, and he showed me the courtyard where an original wall from 1606 was still standing, and described they layout of the former monks’ quarters. He also told me there was a church in Old San Juan that was a few years older than this one, but since I had come to town sort of thinking to drop off a donation here since I thought it was the oldest church in the New World, I told him I would have made a donation if they were still collecting them, but he said he can’t accept them anymore. So another donation idea failed! But I decided I’d check out the other church in Old San Juan when I got there.

When I was finished walking around San German, I headed for Mayaguez, one of the bigger towns on Puerto Rico’s west coast. I had to drive around a bit to find a place that looked suitable for walking, and then I found a big park with walking trails and it was also across the street from University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez, so I walked on that campus a little too. The gray clouds were threatening rain, so I started to make my way back to the park, when I realized the university was next to the Tropical Agriculture Research Station – also known as the USDA Federal Experiment Station. And I had read that there were walking paths through the grounds for visitors, so I made my way inside a big imposing government building and got a visitors pass and guide, and the rain held off while I wandered through the grounds. I saw lots of different kinds of bamboo, lots of palms (including a peach palm that looked like it had peaches instead of coconuts in it), coffee bushes and lots and lots of other trees. No one else was out walking, and the rain held off so it was a really nice place to walk – I really enjoyed it. Then I crossed back into the park, and walked on those trails a little more, and ended up nearly finishing my walking for the day.

From Mayaguez I headed to Aguadilla on the northwest shores of Puerto Rico. This town is apparently known for its surfing beaches, and although I parked right by the water and did some more walking, it certainly wasn’t a surfing beach! Those beaches must have been somewhere else. It sprinkled a little while I was out walking, but I ventured out along the main street for quite a distance, still absorbing all the Spanish sights and sounds around me. After walking through 3 towns today, it looks like nearly everyone wears uniforms to school – the girls frequently in skirts, white blouses and vests, and the guys in pants of the same color and white polo shirts. It was easy to see kids from different schools because there was a variety of color combinations for different schools. I ended up walking an extra mile and a half today.

Then, since it was evening, it was time to drive across the top of the island, and make my way to San Juan. I used the 2-lane highway for over half the distance but there was a lot of stop-and-go traffic through many small little towns and villages, and eventually I had to get on the tollway so I didn’t arrive in San Juan in the middle of the night.

Back when Taryn made reservations to visit Puerto Rico, she had found a very reasonably priced bed-and-breakfast in the outskirts of San Juan, and I had added another couple nights there before they arrive, so that I would kind of have a home base. Even though I found the street the B-and-B was in, I had trouble finding the actual place in the dark. Most everything is behind gates on this street, and there didn’t seem to be any street addresses, and there’s not a lot of light, so I had to call them and the proprietor stood out in the street to flag me in. I ended up parking behind the gate, so, like countless other people, when I came and went, I had to open the gate and back out onto a narrow street and then close and lock it. Lots if people have electronic gates, which would certainly be the way to go on a daily basis! The B-and-B was old, but in a comfortable way, and it would be a nice little haven to come back to as I explore San Juan and the areas around it. I was happy to settle in.