Leaving Paradise

Sadly, I am writing this post as we pack up and get ready to head for the airport this morning. For the next few days we get to be tourists in our own city while Paige and Tim are still in Chicago.

We definitely went out with a bang during our last full day in Puerto Rico. After the long drive from Wednesday, we decided to stay near the condos. We filled the day with beach time, tennis and cards. I finally beat Andrew in tennis 6-5. (We did not play win-by-two by the 11th game because the heat had taken its toll on us.)

Also, yesterday was our biggest run-ins (yes, plural) with nature. I had expected to see a lot of exotic animals on this trip (I have been to St. Kitts - a few islands over - where monkeys basically run the island) but besides the stray dogs, chickens, horses and cows, the only exotic animals we had seen were little lizards ... until today. Walking back from the tennis courts, I had a run-in with a two and a half foot long iguana. Thankfully we both startled each other and went running in opposite directions. Upon arriving at our condo, we saw a few more, smaller iguanas basking in the sun.

Later that evening, nature decided to scare me again. As I walked into the bathroom to take a shower, I nearly stepped on a little, orange frog. Unfortunately, this little guy could not run away as easily as the iguana. Andrew and Tim captured him in a cup and I brought him outside where he could hop away.

We went all out for our final dinner in PR - visiting a restaurant at the St. Regis Resort! The place was beautiful. There was a nice golf course overlooking the ocean, villas, houses, a lake and a big hotel. The resort was so big, people get golf carts to ride around in just to get from place to place. The restaurant we ate at was in the golf clubhouse, overlooking a pool and then the ocean. Our meal was delicious too. If anyone ever wins the lottery, I definitely recommend a trip to St. Regis.


This week has-been very relaxing and so much fun. The island is beautiful and I am so glad I was to see it (esp. the caves - that was unlike anything I've ever experienced). While I know this is technically a travel blog, I also have a few words about the turmoil that we are unfortunately returning to in the in the states. It is heart-breaking to know that numerous lives could have been saved this past week if ignorance, hatred and racism did not exist. To know that instead of fighting foreign enemies, our own country is pitted against one another. While I know there will not be a resolution before we touch down in Chicago tonight (as much as I wish), I hope this past week has led to a turning point and we can all come together to combat the negativity and hatred that has led the country to this point.

- Kenzie 

Camuy River Cave Park

These last few days have been hectic, so I apologize for being behind on the posts! The biggest highlight was when we went to the Camuy River Cave Park. It is located between the municipalities of Camuy, Hatillo and Lares in northwestern Puerto Rico, but the main entrance to the park is located in Quebrada, Camuy. The caverns are part of a large network of natural limestone caves and underground waterways carved out by the third-largest underground river in the world, the Río Camuy (Camuy River). The cave system was discovered in 1958 and was first documented in the 1973 book Discovery At The Río Camuy by Russell and Jeanne Gurnee, but there is archaeological evidence that these caves were explored hundreds of years ago by the Taino Indians, Puerto Rico's first inhabitants.  Over 10 miles of caverns, 220 caves and 17 entrances to the Camuy cave system have been mapped so far. This, however, is only a fraction of the entire system which many experts believe still holds another 800 caves. 

While the drive was not fun at all, the caves were well worth it! Being able to explore such an incredible natural land feature was incredible. The entire your took about an hour and we had a tour guide who walked us through, but all of our information was presented via an audio recording. The trip was well worth it and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. When we weren't exploring a massive cave system we were either playing tennis or laying out at the beach (tough life, I know). Even though our trip is coming to an end (we leave tomorrow), we still have fun things planned and will continue to take in all this great weather! 

We hear the weather is about to take a turn for the worse back home, so thankfully we leave tomorrow and should hopefully miss it! If you're in Chicago, stay safe tonight!

- Andrew

Independence Day in Puerto Rico

Yesterday we spent the 4th of July the best way possible - laying out on the beach, soaking up the sun. The beach was equally as crowded as Sunday, with lots of families grilling out, blasting music and playing in the water. We also saw quite a few jet skis in the water, so we will have to figure out where people were renting them from!

After we headed in from the beach, Andrew and I went to play some tennis. Shortly after we got to the court, it down-poured for about 45 seconds. I guess thats part of being in the rain forest! Though the rain was quick, the courts were drenched, but we still played one set (Andrew won 6-1).

On our way back, we ran into a stray dog that seems to live at/be taken care of by the community. He has a hurt back leg and hops around, but is very friendly and cute. I tried to get him to follow me back to our unit to get him some food and water, but he saw some other homeowners he recognized and hobbled off towards them. I really want to take this cute, little dog home with me and adopt him.

For dinner, we went down the road to a local pizza place, where, thankfully, the waitress spoke english. We noticed on our drive that the police here always have their lights on, even if they are stopped or just driving around. At one point traffic was backed up for about a mile and we saw tons of flashing lights ahead. Once we got up closer to the action, it was just a bunch of police hanging out on a corner talking, who had all left their cars on the side of the road with their lights on.

The plan for today is TBD, but the thunderstorms we were expecting are no longer in the forecast, so we have plenty of options now. Tomorrow we are going to Camuy Caves to explore, which I am really excited for.


-Kenzie

Sunburnt & Out of Luck

Well, today was pretty wild to say the least. The day started off pretty well when we decided to hit up the beach right outside the condo where we are staying. The weather has been pretty spotty so far, but today was clear and sunny. It wasn't too crowded at first, but at around 1:30PM it started to get super crowded and the already limited beach space, became even less. Apparently here in Puerto Rico, if you're sitting back a ways from the beach that means you're giving up all the space in front of you. Basically, this big family decided to plop down right in front of us since we were laying out a ways back because of the high tide. So much for a direct view of the beach, instead we got a nice view of some beach chairs and coolers for awhile. As it turns out, this family taking up our prime beach space would be the least of our worries today.

Upon arriving back to the condo, we decided to take a look at our bodies in the mirror to see if we got any good color, boy did we! Our good buddy Tim must have used some poor quality sunscreen because he was red as a tomato and had some solid stripes lined on his back. Bear in mind, Tim came into this trip being pretty pale, so the sun got the best of him for sure. Paige (Tim's gf) didn't fair much better and must have used the same sunscreen as Tim because she was bright red all over as well. Kenzie & I faired pretty well because we rubbed our sunscreen on for the most part and didn't use the spray type. I'm guessing this is the route we will take from here on out! However, even with all the sunburns, Tim & Paige wanted to go back outside before dinner to play some beach volleyball. We were game and went to get ready. They headed down before us and we followed suit right behind. Before we left the condo, I asked Kenzie a few times if anyone had the keys and she said, "yes, Tim does". Okay, fair enough, I took her word for it and proceed to lock the door as we left. Upon arriving downstairs, we saw Paige standing outside and asked us if we had the keys to which we responded, "no, I thought Tim had them?!". Oops, now nobody has the keys and the door is locked with all our phones inside the room. Paige went to sort this whole thing out with security, but the process was taking quite awhile, so Tim & I decided to take matters into our own hands. You see, we remembered that the balcony sliding door was unlocked, so if we could just get up to the balcony, we would be golden. There was only one problem, we are on the 3rd floor of the building. Tim said he could just stand on the railing of the 1st floor and pull himself up to the 2nd and 3rd floors respectively. At this point, it has probably been over 30 minutes from the time we got locked out, so we are up for anything. Just as Tim begins his ascent to the 2nd floor, a worker for the place we are staying starts yelling at Tim to get done (he thinks Tim is trying to break in), so he gets down and we scrap that idea. That same guy ended up staying outside our place for the rest of day, always occasionally looking at us. Luckily, Janet (our local support person) finally came to our rescue and let us into the room.

After beach volleyball was abandoned, we decided to get ready and go out for dinner. The lady we are renting this condo from provide dos with some local restaurants to try out, so we picked "El Parilla". This little place on the side of the road specialized in seafood primarily, but also had some meats. Nothing jumped out at me, so I decided to just get the steak with a house sauce on top (steak is steak to me). Paige ended up ordering the same thing as me and off went the waitress to place our order. She quickly returned though and had some bad news for Paige & I, they ran out of the steak so we needed to pick something else. She recommended a different steak dinner and we went along with it and decided we would try it. However, a few moment slater, she returned and had more bad news for us, they were out of that steak as well. Dejected, we asked her if they had nay meats left, but she said that they were out of it all. With nothing else sounding too great, we asked her if we could order off the kids menu and have the chicken fingers. Thankfully, she said that would be just fine and went away to place our order. We thought dinner would be the last of our wild day and bad luck, but more was in store.

Upon arriving back to our condo complex, we saw that the security guard was out of the office and thus we couldn't get past the gate. We were told that the guards do walk throughs at different times of the day to make sure the complex is safe and secure. The papers indicated that the walks usually only take 5 minutes to complete and begin at the top of every odd hour. Fair enough, we got to the gate right at 9PM, so the guard must have just been on his walk. Time continued to pass and cars continued to file in behind me creating a line down the road. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, still no guard and we are getting a little antsy. This whole time, cars are freely leaving the complex an staring us down in the meantime as we wait helplessly at this gate. Good thing we had a solid Spotify playlist to keep us jamming until our guard finally arrived a little past 9:30. We were free to enter and proceeded to our condo. All the parking spots are marked for each room and as we approached ours, we saw a police cruiser parked in what appeared to be G 305, our room. Oh boy, why are the cops in our spot? Did that dude call the cops because Tim was trying to scale the building to let us in? To our avail, they weren't in our spot, just the one next to us and they quickly left as we unloaded the car and walked inside. The day is finally over and wow, that a day it was. Tomorrow will depend on the weather primarily, but we hope to be back outside (wearing non-spray sunscreen) and evening out our wicked tans!

BTW, check out the sick sandcastle above that Tim & I created today before our real estate was overrun by a large family.

-Andrew

Surprise! We're in Puerto Rico!

So.... Andrew and I dropped the ball and are already into our second 

evening in Puerto Rico as I write this blog. Our friends, Paige and Tim, got to Chicago on Thursday night and we were too distracted to post. We left Chicago bright and early yesterday morning and touched down in Puerto Rico at 2:30 local time. After a couple of accidental detours on the way, we made it to the beach house by late afternoon. We are staying on a condo right on the beach, in the city of Loiza. 

Once we arrived and unpacked, food was our first mission. We went to get groceries and stopped at Firehouse subs because it was close and we were still in culture shock to attempt a more local eatery. Back at the condo, we unpacked, checked out the beach and hung out for the rest of the night. 

Today we went to Old San Juan to explore. The city had beautiful architecture and lots of little shops and restaurants. We did a lot of walking and nearly covered the whole city. We visited two forts, Castillo San elipe del Morro and Castillo de San Cristobal. The forts were built on either side of the city to protect from attacks by land or sea. We were even able to see prisoners' drawings on the walls of the dungeon that were preserved. 

So far it has been very hot and humid, but also cloudy and occasionally rainy. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and dry, so we are planning on a beach day, and will hopefully get to explore a little bit more of the island!

 - Kenzie