I don’t know what the rest of our time in Puerto Rico has in store for us, but the tour we had this morning made the whole trip worth it!
We met Alex from Paradise Tours at 8:00 am. We piled out of our Thrifty Car Rental Van (which had “Thrifty Car Rental Van” detailed all over the van) dressed in clothes we could get wet and shoes that would stay on our feet (I was grateful for my Keens!) There were two additional adventures we met on the tour. Kara and Christian were a mother and son duo from the outer banks North Carolina. We quickly became fast friends. As a group, we cheerfully followed Alex who was a fantastic guide. He took us on the trail to El Yunque National Forest. We climbed through mud, slippery rock and river beds. Alex led us to beautiful pools for swimming, rope swings for jumping and cliffs for falling. There was even a natural water slide! We absolutely LOVED it! Sadly, because there is so much water involved they ask you to leave your cell phones behind. We did bring our GoPro- with a dead battery (UGGGGG!) Danny remembered to plug it in the night before, it hadn’t even crossed my mind. But unfortunately, it never charged. They do take photos of you as part of the tour. I will include some of their photos here. The rest can be found on their Facebook page.
The girls and Danny jumped, slid and swung with every opportunity! They are AMAZING! I am happy to report that I slid down the slide and took the plunge after one swing on the rope. All of the LOWE/DAVIS kids took full advantage of every adventurous opportunity. We all left the experience thrilled to have been part of it. Dan (Lowe) had a mismatched pair of flip flops to remember the adventure by.
Thank you Alex!
We piled back in the van for some traditional sandwiches! They were delicious! And we were HUNGRY. Then straight to the ferry for the next leg of our adventure- Vieques Island!
Danny dropped us all off at the ferry and raced to the closest Thrifty Car Rental to return the van. We bought the ferry tickets and lugged all of our bags to the waiting area near the dock. We watched the clock as the boarding time got closer and Danny wasn’t back. We were hoping for inefficiency so he would have a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately they boarded the ferry quickly and it pulled away from the dock at 2:29 instead of the scheduled 2:30. Danny pulled up at 2:33. We had to board without him, because it is no fun sitting for hours with 7 restless children AND our car rentals for the island were expecting us. So we went on and Danny got a two hour nap while he waited for the next ferry over.
Vieques! Here we come!