Ferry to San Juan & Bacardi tour: Monday 11/28

Today Tom and I took the 6:30am (uuggg Zzzzzz) ferry from Vieques to Fajardo on the big island of Puerto Rico.  There were lots of people on the trip over to Fajardo.

The ferry took about 50 minutes.  It was a little bit rough, but thank goodness no one tossed cookies.  We arrived in Fajardo around 7:30am.

We get into our rental car and head over to the Bacardi Rum Factory tour.  It was a 45 minute tour on beautiful grounds that are just across the bay from old San Juan.  The tour started in a replica building that had beautiful mosaics.  The bat was chosen as the logo when Bacardi started a distillery in Cuba. In the roof of the building lived a family of fruit bats, which are considered to be symbols of good health, family unity and fortune in Cuban mythology.

At the end of the tour we got to record a video email...this was before we got to sample the rum.

Ok, this was after the rum tasting, and Tom only had a couple of sips!

We headed back to Fajardo by way of Old San Juan, but we did not stop since we had to shop for groceries that we couldn't get on Vieques and get back in time for the 4:30pm ferry.

Finally, thought I'd share some pictures of my sea glass and shell finds, and some really cute pictures of Toro and Nemo.

Here's Toro snuggling the other day while I sat outside getting some sun.  Isn't he cute?!  Although, he been doing a Houdini at night.  We close the porch gate so the dogs don't go off barking at night, but somehow Toro seems to end up on the outside of the gate!

And here is Nemo's closeup!  I'll have to get a better picture of him because he is just as cute as Toro.

Signing off for now.  Got to get some beauty sleep for our trip to Public beach with Dave and Jody tomorrow!  Tom and I have a tanning competition going.  He thinks he's going to win, but his "pan blanco" (white bread) skin is no match for my Mexican olive skin.

Sunday, Nov. 27 Our Activities on Saturday.

On Saturday, Nov. 26th, we went to the sea glass beach & Playa Prieta.  Dave & Jody who are renting the small apartment below our home drove us to the beaches today since our homeowner's car had some issues.  Yesterday, they also let us tag along for their trip to the supermarket.

Here's a picture of Dave & Jody on sea glass beach.

Dave and Jody are friends of the homeowners, Doug and Christa.  They also live in Indiana.  They are fun and very gracious to us.

Dave and Jody took us to the sea glass beach Saturday early morning.  There are pieces of glass that are sanded down to a satin finish and people make jewelry or mosaics with them.

As I was looking for glass, I also found some interesting shells... I picked one up and found it already had an owner!  Here's Mr. Crab:

It was a beautiful sand beach where you can see the large island of Puerto Rico.

Dave and Jody invited us to go to "Secret" beach, now know as Pata Prieta ( Dark Foot) beach.  Wow.

 

We promptly got down to business....relaxing & suntanning.

Above is Al's leg and overlooking the bay.  The pic on the right is the sight at the end of our stay.

And finally at night, there is a cacophony of coqui frogs.  Here is a short video (about 1.5 minutes) of what we hear at night, an at the end of the video you see who is making all the noise in the bush!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Our First Day of Exploring Vieques Island, Puerto Rico: Tuesday 11/22/11

Welcome to our first blog!  We hope to share our experiences, pictures, and video with you while we house & dog sit for Nemo & Toro who are delightful little dogs.  Doug and Christa are the homeowners.

Their home is lovely with beautiful gardens.

Beautiful gardens & coconuts too.

Doug & Christa gave us a great introduction to the island on Monday, 11/21.  Here's some of what we saw that day.  Love that you see horse roaming free, and often there are egrets atop the horses feeding off the bugs on their coats.

Here's the view of the big island of Puerto Rico as seen from the northwest side of Vieques.

We dropped them off at the local airport this morning, and went off to explore.  We had breakfast at Belly Buttons restaurant.  It's in Esperanza on the "Malecon" (main street) which is located on the south shore of the island.  It overlooks Sun Bay beach.

We headed west to the Playa Grande.  Beautiful sights!

Well that's about all for today.  One last picture of a gecko, one of many who thankfully eat the mosquitos.