March 10 - 14, 2003

Arecibo Observatory 03-13\index.html

Condado 03-09\index.html

Del Rio Camuy 03-13\index.html

Old San Juan 03-10\index.html

It's not just a vacation, it is an adventure!  Our trip down consisted of flying Continental Express from Cleveland to Chicago, transferring to United to fly to Philadelphia, then a US Airways flight into San Juan.  In just 11 short hours we were in San Juan, arriving a bit after 11 PM; of course our luggage was still in Philadelphia!  Of course somehow it became our fault that our luggage didn't get on the flight, and the woman working in baggage services was extremely annoyed with the fact that she had 6 people with lost luggage and her shift was over at 11!  After a half dozen phone calls we were informed that our luggage had been delivered to the hotel by a courier, but still no luggage.  Seems the courier told a little fib, but the lugguage luggagedid finally materialize in our room while we were out enjoying the night life.

If you find yourself in San Juan, I highly recommend Robert Garcia as a tour guide (787-279-5632 or 787-438-4294)*.  We had a great time on our trip to Del Rio Camuy and the Areibo Observatory.  A company that you may want to stay away from is Sunshine Tours.  We used them for a Kayak tour of the Phosphorescent Bay and the guides were a bit cranky.  After all of 2 minutes of instruction we were expected to be experts in kayaking and 40 minutes of being yelled at for going too fast, too slow, too far to the right, too far to the left, let me pass, you pass me...well, you get the idea.  The other kayaking companyies seemed to be a bit annoyed with our guides lack of river edequitite so I'm guessing it was more them than us.

We stayed on the Miramar side of the lagoon, which was nice but if you want to stay in the heart of the action, you should probably stay in Condado.  We stumbled upon  The Coral Princess Inn , which was very reasonable and only a block from the beach.

Finding food, even for a picky eater like me, was not a problem. If you like Puerto Rican food, you will be in heaven as it is everywhere (obviously), and is very inexpensive. However, you will find food from all nationalities - at a price. Dining was a bit expensive, but since airfare and hotel was about $700/person it was still a bargain vacation. One of the better restaurants can be found on the 2nd floor of the Ramada San Juan. It was one of the more expensive places, but since they didn't charge us for our bar tab it turned out to be a cheap dinner!

*I'm sorry to say that Mr. Garcia no longer conducts tours (updated Jan. 27, 2004)