The drive up to Orocovis!
So the next morning Nathan and I woke up bright and early to drive over to Orocovis; we were going to be doing our very first zip line! The drive there was seriously the most incredible drive EVER! The sun was barely up and cast an amazing golden glow all over the lush green earth. To add to the amazingness, mist had settled in the valley and gave the mountains this insane majestic feeling! The road to the zip line tour went up up up, making the view even more stunning! I could die in Orocovis!
We made it to the zip line at about 7:30am. In the email confirmation for the tour, they stated very boldy, several times, to make sure we were there by 8:00am! If we arrived late, our position could be forfeited and we would be SOL! I should have known though, after traveling to several other countries (I know Puerto Rico is technically the United States, but it's a completely different culture) that punctuality only applies in the US. Seriously. 8:00am rolls around and the employees are still not even there. Go figure. We could have gotten at least an extra 45 minutes of sleep that morning. People finally started rolling in around 8:30am and the tour didn't finally begin until about 9:30.
We got all harnessed up, jumped into the back of a little Ford Ranger with 6 other adults, and headed down the road to the first zip line! I know this is getting old, but seriously, it was sooooo beautiful. The first zip line blew my mind. It was FAST and fun! We went on 4 zip lines throughout the tour, did a 170ft rappel, a short little rock climb (and it was REALLY SHORT), and took a nice hike through the rain forest! One of the zip lines took us through a canopy of trees. So amazing! At the end of the tour, the rest of our tour mates were talking about how they were going on one more zip line after. This particular one is called La Bestia and is the longest and highest zip line in the world. If you are heavy enough, you can reach speeds of over 60 MPH! We knew we had to do this!
So La Bestia was pretty amazing! You lay on your stomach (Iron Man style) rather than sitting back like you would with a normal zip line! The guy then pulls you back and lets you fly. At first my I was freaking out a little, but a couple of
seconds into, I realized that this was as close to flying as a human could get! I embraced it and just tried to take in the amazing scenery. The entire ride lasted only around a minute, but it was one of the most exciting minutes of my life!
On a side note, I totally loved our other tour companions! They were all native Puerto Ricans. We chit chatted with them throughout the tour and found out that 3 of the 4 served in the military, the one girl and her boyfriend had just gotten home from Afghanistan and the boyfriend had also served in Iraq. We never ask and found out there names.
Okay, so enough about the zip line tour, which I have no pictures of because I wasn't about to haul my camera through 5 zip lines, a rock climb, etc.
After the tour we headed back to Fajardo to get the chillens! They were less than thrilled to see us because they knew that grandma time was up! Fortunately for them, they survived! We headed back to San Juan and I think we pretty much just took it easy the rest of the evening! Down the street from our hotel was a little restaurant called Bebos, maybe I already mentioned this! We went twice. I was kind of addicted to their Cuban sandwiches!
The next day was Sunday and we just wanted to take it easy and observe the sabbath as best we could. We walked down the street to the beach and let the boys play in the sand and stick there feet in the water. We didn't stay too long though because it was insanely windy and the waves were too crazy for our liking! Then we figured we would go take a walk around Old San Juan again and explore a little bit more of the area. We stopped to get some food at a restaurant called Mojitos; my parents had raved about it. Carter had to use the restroom while we were though. So, I walk him over to the ladies room, walk in and BAM! Someone had upchucked ALL OVER the bathroom and had just left it. Worst smell EVER!!! Ugh! Anyway, the food was pretty good, the server tried to charge us double on almost everything, but we got it all worked out.
Old San Juan was super crazy that evening because a couple of cruise ships were at port, so there were people EVERYWHERE. It was fun though because there were tons of vendors and things out and about. While we were at Mojitos, we even got serenaded by a little old man who sang Feliz Navidad to us!
I loved walking around Old San Juan at this time. It was so alive and beautiful! At one point, we heard some seriously loud music and singing. We walked up the hill to find the source and came upon a bunch of locals having a grand old party. A little girl was in the middle dancing while the band sang at the top of their lungs! We only watched for about 5 minutes, but it was so much fun!
We also walked over to the cemetary, but it was so dark we could barely see anything. Nathan waited at the top of the road while I walked through this totally creepy dark tunnel, which also happens to be one of the entrances to La Pearla (which I did NOT know until after the fact). If you don't know anything about La Pearla, google it! Not a good place to go gallivanting through! After that, we were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel. We had to get everything packed and ready to go because we were leaving San Juan and heading to Fajardo!
We made it to the zip line at about 7:30am. In the email confirmation for the tour, they stated very boldy, several times, to make sure we were there by 8:00am! If we arrived late, our position could be forfeited and we would be SOL! I should have known though, after traveling to several other countries (I know Puerto Rico is technically the United States, but it's a completely different culture) that punctuality only applies in the US. Seriously. 8:00am rolls around and the employees are still not even there. Go figure. We could have gotten at least an extra 45 minutes of sleep that morning. People finally started rolling in around 8:30am and the tour didn't finally begin until about 9:30.
We got all harnessed up, jumped into the back of a little Ford Ranger with 6 other adults, and headed down the road to the first zip line! I know this is getting old, but seriously, it was sooooo beautiful. The first zip line blew my mind. It was FAST and fun! We went on 4 zip lines throughout the tour, did a 170ft rappel, a short little rock climb (and it was REALLY SHORT), and took a nice hike through the rain forest! One of the zip lines took us through a canopy of trees. So amazing! At the end of the tour, the rest of our tour mates were talking about how they were going on one more zip line after. This particular one is called La Bestia and is the longest and highest zip line in the world. If you are heavy enough, you can reach speeds of over 60 MPH! We knew we had to do this!
So La Bestia was pretty amazing! You lay on your stomach (Iron Man style) rather than sitting back like you would with a normal zip line! The guy then pulls you back and lets you fly. At first my I was freaking out a little, but a couple of
On a side note, I totally loved our other tour companions! They were all native Puerto Ricans. We chit chatted with them throughout the tour and found out that 3 of the 4 served in the military, the one girl and her boyfriend had just gotten home from Afghanistan and the boyfriend had also served in Iraq. We never ask and found out there names.
Okay, so enough about the zip line tour, which I have no pictures of because I wasn't about to haul my camera through 5 zip lines, a rock climb, etc.
After the tour we headed back to Fajardo to get the chillens! They were less than thrilled to see us because they knew that grandma time was up! Fortunately for them, they survived! We headed back to San Juan and I think we pretty much just took it easy the rest of the evening! Down the street from our hotel was a little restaurant called Bebos, maybe I already mentioned this! We went twice. I was kind of addicted to their Cuban sandwiches!
The next day was Sunday and we just wanted to take it easy and observe the sabbath as best we could. We walked down the street to the beach and let the boys play in the sand and stick there feet in the water. We didn't stay too long though because it was insanely windy and the waves were too crazy for our liking! Then we figured we would go take a walk around Old San Juan again and explore a little bit more of the area. We stopped to get some food at a restaurant called Mojitos; my parents had raved about it. Carter had to use the restroom while we were though. So, I walk him over to the ladies room, walk in and BAM! Someone had upchucked ALL OVER the bathroom and had just left it. Worst smell EVER!!! Ugh! Anyway, the food was pretty good, the server tried to charge us double on almost everything, but we got it all worked out.
Old San Juan was super crazy that evening because a couple of cruise ships were at port, so there were people EVERYWHERE. It was fun though because there were tons of vendors and things out and about. While we were at Mojitos, we even got serenaded by a little old man who sang Feliz Navidad to us!
I loved walking around Old San Juan at this time. It was so alive and beautiful! At one point, we heard some seriously loud music and singing. We walked up the hill to find the source and came upon a bunch of locals having a grand old party. A little girl was in the middle dancing while the band sang at the top of their lungs! We only watched for about 5 minutes, but it was so much fun!
We also walked over to the cemetary, but it was so dark we could barely see anything. Nathan waited at the top of the road while I walked through this totally creepy dark tunnel, which also happens to be one of the entrances to La Pearla (which I did NOT know until after the fact). If you don't know anything about La Pearla, google it! Not a good place to go gallivanting through! After that, we were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel. We had to get everything packed and ready to go because we were leaving San Juan and heading to Fajardo!
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