After touring the caves, we kept driving west and our destination was the beach town of Rincon.  Supposedly there is excellent diving and surfing on this part of the island, but we were there to do neither of those things.

First order of business was to get lunch+drinks, so we stopped at the first place we found that had waterside dining.  The surf must have been unusually calm that day as the waves were tiny & the dark clouds overhead threatened to chase us under cover during lunch.

After lunch, we donned our swimsuits & walked around the corner to a public beach.  The sand here was lovely & I always enjoy when there are trees adjacent to the shoreline to provide some shade.

We tossed down our towels & this was the last view I had before taking a quick nap.  I

Honestly, Rincon wasn’t exactly what I expected.  I know most of this was failure to plan & research on our part, and maybe we just missed the worthwhile things to see.  The beach was beautiful, but not really worth driving across the island in my opinion.

This was a very quiet area, lots of families, ideal (at least on this day) for snorkeling.  The water was a bit cold when you first took the plunge, but we quickly warmed up and I was having a blast chasing little fish all around.

The last two photos are just some of the randomness that we encountered on the many miles of roads we covered in Puerto Rico.  This was a full boy scout troop hiking down a main highway, loaded up with all their gear, accompanied by a chase vehicle.  Now, I think it’s great they are doing this, but middle of the road seems a bit dangerous for this activity.

There must be some type of community service day where everybody -repaints the roadways & curbs.  For at least 5 miles, we saw hundreds of people out painting curbs & concrete median barriers yellow and green.   The strange thing is that almost every single one of them was using a baby stroller to push around huge buckets of paint.  So totally random…

It’s not too late to sign up for the photography workshop next Tuesday!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: The ability to occasionally work from home is awesome.

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So using my favorite little reference book, the Eyewitness Top 10 Puerto Rico Guide, we decided we wanted to check out the Rio Camuy Caves on day since it is the largest in the western hemisphere.  It was generally on our way to the west coast, so it was the first stop on Wednesday morning.   We took a little tram car down, down, down for about 5 minutes to get to the entrance to the caves.

The caves are massive- there’s no way to do justice with my camera, even the wide angle, to the size and awesomeness of the caves.  Photographing in the dark also proved quite challenging.   The walkways are easily to navigate, but wearing sneakers is recommended.

We were given a headset at the start of the tour (English or Spanish options) that explained various facts about the cave at selected points on the tour.

We arrived  about an hour after they opened & still had to wait about an hour to go down, but the line got crazy long after we’d been waiting for a while.  It was a neat experience, but I certainly wouldn’t wait 2+ hours to do a 1 hour tour as there was traffic backed up at the ticket office, the parking lot, and off the main road.

Only a small portion of the cave is open to the public, but we walked from one (east?) entrance to the other end.  The Camuy River still runs below the caves & they can get flooded during heavy rains.

We spent most of our time in Clara Cave, checking out the incredible stalactite and stalagmite formations that have been created by the limestone over tens of thousands of years.

A very cool tour & we are glad we went- never been to anything like it before, but we were so happy we’d arrived early.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: There’s a really big storm headed towards Houston today & I love a great thunder and lightening show.

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On our 2nd full day in Puerto Rico, we set out to explore the island.  H read some great things about Ponce- both the town & the beach, so we set out on a mini-adventure to go to the South side of the island.

So  the island is only about 30 miles north-south, so we didn’t think it would be a big deal to drive to the South coast.  There’s a lovely toll road that cuts through the center, but it still ended up being about 60 total miles & took us about 2 hours each way since the roads cut through some very large & winding mountains. It was a beautiful drive, but more time than I really wanted to spend in the car.

The little town of Ponce is very quaint- the typical older town square, with fountains and a church, surrounded by trees and gorgeous old buildings.

We enjoyed getting out to stretch our legs after the car ride & loved seeing all the variety of colors & architecture.

The main attraction in Ponce, according to the guidebook, was this beautiful old Catholic church.  Noon services were going on while we were there, so we didn’t get to check out the inside. Yes, I realize how awful dirty my camera was on this trip- I don’t know how I am getting so much dust on the sensor or  lenses.

Literally backed up to the church was this red & black building.  I was confused about what could be so close to the church, but it turns out it was a fire museum- dedicated to a large fire in the town many years ago.  We walked up and down a large pedestrian mall area, checking out shops & looking for a place to grab lunch, but we couldn’t find any restaurants that looked good.

So we quickly headed out of town and went in search of the beach.  We were armed with maps, an iPhone & followed the signs to Ponce beach.  Unfortunately, we could never find it.  We ended up in the port & unless the beach was on the other side of the port, I have no idea….

Luckily, there was a resort Hilton right around the corner, so we decided to duck in there to hit up their bar for lunch & afternoon drinks before crashing on their beach.  I took very few photos of Ponce beach- mostly because I was ready for a nap after lunch & generally unimpressed after we’d driven all morning to get there.  It was very windy & soon our drinks were full of sand after our nap.  We walked up & down the beach just checking things out, but I feel like we must have been at the wrong “nice beach in Ponce”.

Don’t forget- the camera & photography workshop is 1 week from today!  Come join us!

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I’m making all sorts of little changes around the blog & very excited about them!

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