Puerto Rico to California

Our time in Puerto Rico has been very special, but we are looking forward to being home again. Hotel breakfast, uber shuttle to the airport and easy check in process. Now it’s waiting time … time to reminisce our 2 weeks on this small, proud island. 

Stats:

10 days of riding

345 miles

7850 feet of climbing

Grades up to 20% !!!

Tim kept track of the mileage each day using Gaia GPS app. The photo connects each day using a different color. (The middle golden colored roads are highways we did NOT travel)

In our travel experience - things that we noticed that are generally unique to Puerto Rico include:

• Puerto Rico is home to the Pina Colada and other great rum drinks. 

•The very, very colorfully painted homes and businesses especially in older neighborhoods/towns. 

•The coffee is locally grown,  sun roasted and is smooth and delicious. 

•The only Bioluminescent lagoon on the planet is here. It is a tourist attraction that they monopolize on. 

•Drivers that we shared the road with were thoughtful, but the rules of the road are much more relaxed, almost leaning on suggestions not rules. 

•The abundance of stray cats, especially in Old San Juan has been a problem for decades. 

•Stray dogs can be seen in tiny town and larger cities and all of them that we encountered were very mellow and sweet looking. (We did not try to pet any)

• There are hens, roosters and chicks pretty much everywhere. It doesn’t appear that they have a home. 

• Puerto Ricans take great pride in their vehicles. There are not many  old beat up looking vehicles. 

• Very loud sound systems are a status symbol… maybe they believe the bigger, the louder… the better. 

• Any older infrastructure, (which there is a lot of, including most of our stays) have compromised plumbing. There are  signs above most toilets that says do not flush ANY paper products. The wastebasket near the toilet is a yucky indicator. 

•Baseball is hugely important and most towns have multiple baseball diamonds that are well maintained. 

•Wrought iron decoration is very commonly seen covering windows and on porches, especially on older homes/businesses. At one point it was painted, but much of it now is chipped and not looking  decorative. 

• Trash is not confined to specific areas. It is sad to see the lack of tidiness throughout the country. Random bottles, papers, cans and plastic as well as full trash bags can be seen on the side of the roads. 

Like many other countries we’ve traveled in, we experienced the kindness of the people. I had over 200 days of Duolingo racked up… but that is not enough for me to communicate with any confidence. The people of Puerto Rico were helpful and interested in our crazy adventure. At one point, when we were approaching a busier section of a city, there was a guy following us in his car and wouldn’t pass us in the second lane. We were beginning to be annoyed until we saw his flashers and after we turned off the road he gave us a beep and friendly wave, turned off his flashers and resumed normal driving. He was just trying to protesct us. Super cool! 

Tim’s final Puerto Rican sunrise grounding location. 

11:11 at the San Juan airport. 

Our flights were long and the overall journey to California was not fun, but we were so happy to get to mom’s house in Los Altos before 11PM.   The next morning after breakfast, we were heading home to Angels Camp happy to reunite with Lucy and see Abby our new house sitter friend. 

We had a warm welcome home from Lucy and Abby. 

Everything is looking great. Lucy is happy, hens are happy, bees are buzzing and with all that rain the yard is exploding with color. It’s wonderful to be home. 

❤️🏠🐶🐝🐓🪴❤️

Day 10 cycling from Manati to San Juan

Today was our final day of cycling in Puerto Rico! We are thrilled to have safely accomplished our goal … circumnavigating this island.  Tim saw that the wind would be picking up in the early afternoon so we thought we better get an early start on the day. We were the first ones for the provided breakfast that opened up at 7:00 and on the road by 8.  We chose to take the most direct route which was hwy 2 … but somehow we got on interstate 22! We were only on it for maybe a half mile before we were stopped by a highway patrol letting us know that we were not allowed to be on the highway!  OOPS!

Once on the correct roadway, for quite a while we had a smooth strip to ride on from where they previously had added underground conduit. 

Sunday morning is time to congregate… we saw many church goers, groups of cyclist as well large gangs of motorcyclists. At one point the motorcyclists seemed to want a head start after waiting at the red signal. Many of them went around us and the cars that were still waiting for the green light. There was no cross traffic in the intersection, but having so many of them passing so close on both sides of us  with their loud motors and even louder sound systems was quite alarming… even scary. The photo is different  motorcycle group at a point  when I could snap a photo. 

We stopped at a coffee shop and were there for our 11:11 shot of the day. 

We did it… safely navigated San Juan to our hotel, arriving around 12:30. The lobby was packed with people that had been on a cruise the week before and overnighted at the hotel before their flight. It was pretty chaotic. But we found a corner where we could  remove our belongings from the bike (panniers, pedals, lights, seat, rack) so we could return the rented bikes to Robert in exchange for our  suitcases. By 3:00 the exchange took place and we were in our beautiful top floor room overlooking the ocean. 

A walk to the crowded beach was lovely, but we were interested in finding some rum tasting. 

We tried 3 three different rums and thought Don Q 7 was best for straight style drinks and Don Q  crystal flavored rums were awesome for mixing.  I had an old fashioned with Don Q 7 and Tim had Don Q Coco and pineapple juice. 

Our final dinner in Puerto Rico.. 😋 The shrimp are layed out on one huge avocado! 

Just before we started heading back to our hotel, we saw a bunch of happy pooches playing in the park.  We are so excited to see Lucy again. 

Day 9 cycling from Hatillo to Manati

It was great knowing today our mileage and the amount of climbing would be easy compared to the last few days. YAY!   Discovered I had a flat rear tire before we ever started this morning, but even that was not a so bad because we had the spacious front patio to replace the tube. 

Smooth sailing for first half hour to our breakfast stop in Arecibo. The town was filled with beautiful murals throughout and had a wonderful beach promenade to the popular breakfast spot. The mochas with whipped cream and cinnamon were awesome! 

It really felt special riding along the ocean. There was some sandy beaches, but most of this coastline had a lot of volcanic rock jetting out. 

11:11 shot of the day. At the entrance to the Cueva del Indio, an important site within indigenous Taíno culture. 

We walked the volcanic grounds to get a view of the arches, but chose to not to venture into the risky caves that were home to about 80 petroglyphs done by the Taíno people between 1200 and 1500. 

This 360’ tall statue of Christopher Columbus called the Birth of a New World  has not been completed because of disputes between the sculpture and the landowner. It is visible from afar, but cannot be viewed up close. 

An awesome stop today.  In  his very broken English (way better than our Spanish), this guy told us how he climbs the coconut trees on his father’s property  to harvest and bring fresh coconuts to his roadside stand.  It was fun watching him use the machete to open the perfect hole for a straw. Once the liquid was consumed he whacked it in half and we devoured the coconut meat.  So good! 

We’ve been noticing throughout Puerto Rico the vast number of abandoned homes and businesses. It really is shocking and sad .  It seems most of the newer construction that we’ve seen are American brand fast food, restaurants and businesses. Places where there is a lot of tourism have more authentic Puerto Rican restaurants available, but most towns we rode through have many local food trucks or roadside stands with some plastic chairs set up for their patrons to grab a bite. 

Beautiful countryside. 

We are in a modern hotel today.  We didn’t get our Pina colada yesterday after our challenging ride,  so we had one today with our  Don Q rum to celebrate finishing yesterdays ride, enjoying today’s ride and having one more cycling day left in Puerto Rico.  🇵🇷 

Day 8 cycling from Rincon to Hatillo

Ready to check out (depart) of the Coconut Palms Inn, the beautiful grounds and beach front access. 

After sharing breakfast burrito at a local popular bakery place,  we got on the Ride GPS route to Hatillo,  only to have to road workers indicate we had to  take a different route. Of course the route we found was steeper than we expected. Beautiful views as we neared the first peak  about than 3 miles into our journey! 

This was at the top  of the first peak and Tim took the opportunity to rest before lots more climbing. 

Many of our beginning roads today were quiet and rural. 

One of the first larger cities we went through was Aguada. This beautiful mural was being completed today.  It honors the Taíno people, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico. 

Our route took us on some pretty rough and abandoned roads, thankfully they didn’t last long. 

This is shortly after we started the big climb of the day. It was nice when the climb was out of neighborhoods and more in where the large trees canopied the narrow road. 

11:11 shot of the day… we were taking a break!  You can see on my app that we are  about halfway up the climb. 

Tim is rejoicing because he thinks he done with the climbing for the day…. NOT!

We had sweated so much that we were desperate for electrolytes and cold water… and Tim was excited about the Hawaiian Punch (a childhood favorite).   We found a little table in the shore near the motor oil and cleaning supplies.😆

The hills kept coming and the head wind started picking up. 

It was great to be at ocean level and see and hear the waves crashing against the shore. 

 

As we neared our destination we were surprised by the green bike lane. 

We saw this Hatillo signage and were thrilled we were almost done for the day. It had been a challenging one!

As we got closer, we plugged in our VRBO  address into Google Maps and kept peddling, just wanting to be done. Unfortunately, we followed the directions and stood on the street in front of a house that clearly was not the correct location.  A minutes later, a man came out of the house with two cold bottled waters and asked us in English if we needed help. He gave us a suggestion and we followed it to a different location 1/3 mile away. Still confused and standing in front of an another place, we see that same helpful man drive up to check on us and see if we found our destination. Fortunate for us, he translated our intent with neighbors of the possible VRBO residence and discovered it is indeed the one we were looking for. The very helpful neighbors are the cousins of the owner, Nydia.  Upon talking to NYC based Nydia, we were so grateful to be upgraded from the tiny studio on the back patio to the  3 bedroom house.  Many thanks Nadia!❤️

It felt so, so great to clean up. We were ready for a well deserved dinner and a nice drink, but due to the challenges of the day, we were not up for a 3 mile walk…. So we reluctantly settled on American fast food!