The holidays are in full swing here in Puerto Rico this year. The festivities are on fire and it seems that every other day we have one party or another to attend. It has been so much fun! Thanksgiving with our neighbors, birthday parties, cookie exchanges, encendidos, parrandas, school parties and more. It has been non-stop. It is so true that Puerto Rico knows how to party and the winter Christmas season is the best for that!
When we haven’t been out having fun, we’ve been trying to take advantage of the extra time we have with Aeden in daycare and the fact that it has been so much cooler in order to expand the gardens. We recently planted over 35 new cultivars of heliconias and are so excited to see them grow! The cabana has been steadily booked with guests and so that keeps us busy with maintenance, tours and turnover. It’s been a very fufiling time in our lives. I’ve been trying to make more videos in order to capture the essence of life these days, sort of “vlog” style if you’d like to watch some other things that we’ve been up to. Here’s our channel: LIFETRANSPLANET YOUTUBE
Christmas Fun
Primer Cumpleanos for friend Nico’s Birthday Party
Holiday fun. At the beach, with a Norfolk pine (a tropical Christmas tree!) and surfer statue has been Santa-fied
Winter is the best time for a swim!
Or just visit the beach
There was a fun party at the lighthouse
We went out to the encendido in the Rincon Plaza – the best orchestra in Puerto Rico (Orquesta Sinfónica)!
Cows and geckos- normal sights
Had a fun stop at Tres Sirenas Inn
And an awesome farm called “Finca Brutal”
Thanksgiving with our neighbors was a lot of fun!
The beauty of this place still astounds me
More fun out and about
Some new additions to the garden and harvests
Preparing for a flower delivery and working outside in December!
Check out this GIANT heliconia called “Beefsteak” or Mariae. With our new friend Carlos
It’s been an active period of growth, literally, while we enjoy the holidays as well. We hope yours are going well also! Felicidades.
We continue working on our flower business. We have more demand than supply so that’s always a great recipe for expanding and planting more and more. Something we love to do anyway!
Our flowers at a wedding!
Our flowers on display!
More and more flowers on their way!
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Animals are doing well
We’ve taken some time for beach days
Freshest coconut water from the crew down the road!
We continue to host our cabana for rent and have had some really fun guests such as ethnobotanist and author Maria Benedetti and competitive surfer Dominque Miller stay with us!
Dominique and her mother at the Rincon Farmer’s Market
We’ve been out hunting more waterfalls and found a nice close one in Anasco that is also an abandoned park!
At Salto La Encantada
Aeden keeps getting bigger and bigger and has even started walking a little! We also have put him in daycare a few days a week which has opened up our time quite a bit in order to manage our businesses (and just get a breather). He seems to enjoy the socialization time that he doesn’t get being with us 24/7.
Approximately one year apart! My how he has changed!
Aeden enjoying some play time at school
Dress code at home: No shirt, no shoes, no problem!
Sugarcane in bloom
Well, that about covers everything new in our world. Hope all’s well in yours!
A bit ago, I took a wonderful trip sans baby nor hubby with some girl friends to Old San Juan! I actually hadn’t been to Old San Juan since our honeymoon trip over a decade ago, so it was about time! I have a tendency to avoid large cities and San Juan in general sort of freaks this country girl out with all the traffic, crowds, toll roads, parking fees, tall buildings and easy-to-miss exits. But thankfully my friend Missy took the lead and coordinated the whole thing! We got a nice Airbnb right in the heart of OSJ and drove together in her large comfy van. We only stayed one night but it was nice to get a feel for the place again.
Under the umbrellas in Old San Juan
Old San Juan has such a cool vibe to it, that it is hard to explain. Old and modern, hip and vintage at the same time. I was a little sad that our Airbnb had completely renovated and removed the classic black and white tile floors from the apartment because that and some of the hidden little courtyards make that area so famous. There were still some remnants of the political “Ricky Renuncia” campaign, but otherwise it was in beautiful shape. I finally saw the umbrella display at La Fortaleza and enjoyed walking the old blue cobblestone roads again. Here are some pictures of our time there. Thanks to friends Ricia and Paz also for some of these great shots!
Pigeon on a statue, broken shoe from so much walking, winky girls at Chocobar Cortes
Piraguas, cool arquitecture, and the house of the original Pina Colada
Columbus Oblisque, Catholic Church, Cat Chairs at the garitas
Fun with friends, cobblestones, cool scenes and full moon over el Morro!
Art display and out on the town with the ladies!
View from the Airbnb apt and coffee in the morning
Good food and friends at Chocobar Cortes (chocolate infused mofongo tacos!?)
Street scenes
More Viejo San Juan
La Fortaleza Umbrellas
The old and the new side by side. History is built in layers
It was a wonderful trip and we’re hoping to make it happen more regularly!
This past week we took a mini vacation to the small island of Culebra. If there was ever a place that has the quintessential tropical Caribbean island look, this is it!
Incredible Culebra!
The long stretches of powdered sugar white beaches and the warm turquoise waters of Flamenco beach were straight out of a travel magazine. We only stayed one night at the first place we saw, Kokomo, right off the ferry dock, but we got a good feel for the place.
I think we could have gotten a better deal because it was about the size of a closet and we had to crawl over the bed to get anywhere, and the floors needed a good mopping but it had hot water to shower and a clean bed so it wasn’t too horrible for $65. We asked around at a couple of places just to see what the going nightly rate was. One guy quoted me at Mamacitas Guesthouse $119 plus tax and I just said thanks and turned around. Then he said, “Well, how about $80?” So there is definitely room to negotiate if you go there!
The ferry terminal has moved from Fajardo to Ceiba after Hurricane Maria
It was still off-season on a Tuesday in early November. There was hardly anyone on the roads as we drove around in our golf cart (that we rented for about $50) going about 10 mph hiding Aeden in a beach bag. It was so fun. It’s like being in a tropical island adventure video game where you drive in a go-cart especially up some crazy hills and little side dirt roads haha.
Golf cart and off roads
Probably the hardest part about the trip was just how far it was from Rincon. Rincon is the furthest west you can go on the island of Puerto Rico and Ceiba is nearly the farthest east! So we gave ourselves 4 hours to get there going the southern route and giving time to stop for breakfast at El Meson, but we were still late and had to take the 11am ferry instead of the 9am. The boat ride was fun if a little choppy and we caught air a couple of times that made me just a little queasy. It took about an hour ride there. It was much quicker coming back the next day not fighting the current and we learned to go inside into the air conditioned area.
From the Ceiba Ferry to white sand beaches in about 1 hour!
The island is super tiny. Only about 1500 people live there and there are no other towns than the island itself. The disparity between rich and poor is very obvious. The poor and tourists take the ferry and the rich (and splurging tourists) fly in or boat in with sailboats and other vessels. The poor live in run down shacks and the rich have huge mansions on the hills.
Boats in the harbor
Family fun!
Cool drawbridge and moon!
My overall impression was that it was an incredible place to visit, but I would definitely get island fever living there because there is really not much to do other than spend time at the beaches and drink and that would get old quick. At least on the “main island” of Puerto Rico we can drive for 4 plus hours and get lost!
At the bridge to Flamenco Beach
One of the tanks by the sea
The most shocking thing to me was learning about the history of the bombing and military drills that were practiced on Culebra and Vieques. I can only imagine what it would have been like to live on an island that is so pristine only to hear, feel and see live munitions going off. And occasionally people (as well as flora and fauna) were hurt! Rates of cancer have been found to be higher on these islands as a result of dropping bombs on them as well. Thankfully these practices ended in the early 2000s but there are still some remnants such as these leftover tanks rusting in the sun and sea salt.
Another tank on Playa Flamenco that has been consumed by the sea
Great place for a photo shoot!
The Dinghy Dock is a popular restaurant in Culebra
We dressed up for dinner out. And with Hector the Protector in the background
Melones Beach is much different than Flamenco and is mostly full of washed up coral
Overall, it was a wonderful, short trip. I would have liked to have maybe seen a couple of other beaches, but I think we got a good feel for the place in our brief time there. There’s not a whole lot on an island that’s only about 7 miles wide! We climbed a hill, visited the police dock, went out to dinner at the night Dinghy Dock restaurant that had just opened for the season and walked around the ferry/downtown area where they are doing construction on a new pier/dock.
Aeden playing on the beach
Worth a visit for sure! When we arrived back on the main island we caught up with our friends Fran and Steve and then hung out at a pizzeria at the Luquillo Kiosks and then we were on our (long) way back home to Rincon. A fun outing and Aeden did so good in the car!
