We have been enjoying ourselves this winter season in Puerto Rico even with the scary earthquakes we’ve been having. Whenever there is extreme weather, catastrophes or other issues about Puerto Rico in the news, we have people question our reasons for living in Puerto Rico. So I thought I would make a list of the top 10 reasons we moved to Puerto Rico and continue to LOVE living here.
So I made a video about the ten reasons, and you can check it out here.
The Top Ten Reasons We LOVE Puerto Rico
1) Food and Tropical Produce
2) Gardening Year Round
3) Tropical Climate
4) Explorations and Adventures
5) Beaches and Sea Life
6) The People
7) Culture and Traditions
8) Mixed Language and Customs
9) Simple, Less Costly Lifetstyle
10) Self-Propelled, Free Life
Recently, we have been enjoying a lot these reasons. We have gone on a variety of adventures including to a new waterfall in San Sebastian which was absolutely breathtaking. We finally found Survival Beach and we even went out on a boat (Taino Divers) and saw whales breaching for us! Life is truly magical here. Remember to subscribe and ring the bell on our YouTube Channel for daily life updates and adventures and like the videos if you do! It helps us stay motivated to keep creating if we know people are into it! Also, let us know if there is a topic you’d like us to cover!
Survival Beach hike
At Survival Beach
The Hunt for El Saltillo! We found it!
Whale Watching Boat Trip with friend Berkley
Fun with the kiddo!
So amazing to see these animals up close in their natural habitat!
Our flower business is doing well! Lots of collaborations for weddings and individual sales too!
The holidays are in full swing here in Puerto Rico this year. The festivities are on fire and it seems that every other day we have one party or another to attend. It has been so much fun! Thanksgiving with our neighbors, birthday parties, cookie exchanges, encendidos, parrandas, school parties and more. It has been non-stop. It is so true that Puerto Rico knows how to party and the winter Christmas season is the best for that!
When we haven’t been out having fun, we’ve been trying to take advantage of the extra time we have with Aeden in daycare and the fact that it has been so much cooler in order to expand the gardens. We recently planted over 35 new cultivars of heliconias and are so excited to see them grow! The cabana has been steadily booked with guests and so that keeps us busy with maintenance, tours and turnover. It’s been a very fufiling time in our lives. I’ve been trying to make more videos in order to capture the essence of life these days, sort of “vlog” style if you’d like to watch some other things that we’ve been up to. Here’s our channel: LIFETRANSPLANET YOUTUBE
Christmas Fun
Primer Cumpleanos for friend Nico’s Birthday Party
Holiday fun. At the beach, with a Norfolk pine (a tropical Christmas tree!) and surfer statue has been Santa-fied
Winter is the best time for a swim!
Or just visit the beach
There was a fun party at the lighthouse
We went out to the encendido in the Rincon Plaza – the best orchestra in Puerto Rico (Orquesta Sinfónica)!
Cows and geckos- normal sights
Had a fun stop at Tres Sirenas Inn
And an awesome farm called “Finca Brutal”
Thanksgiving with our neighbors was a lot of fun!
The beauty of this place still astounds me
More fun out and about
Some new additions to the garden and harvests
Preparing for a flower delivery and working outside in December!
Check out this GIANT heliconia called “Beefsteak” or Mariae. With our new friend Carlos
It’s been an active period of growth, literally, while we enjoy the holidays as well. We hope yours are going well also! Felicidades.
This past week we took a mini vacation to the small island of Culebra. If there was ever a place that has the quintessential tropical Caribbean island look, this is it!
Incredible Culebra!
The long stretches of powdered sugar white beaches and the warm turquoise waters of Flamenco beach were straight out of a travel magazine. We only stayed one night at the first place we saw, Kokomo, right off the ferry dock, but we got a good feel for the place.
I think we could have gotten a better deal because it was about the size of a closet and we had to crawl over the bed to get anywhere, and the floors needed a good mopping but it had hot water to shower and a clean bed so it wasn’t too horrible for $65. We asked around at a couple of places just to see what the going nightly rate was. One guy quoted me at Mamacitas Guesthouse $119 plus tax and I just said thanks and turned around. Then he said, “Well, how about $80?” So there is definitely room to negotiate if you go there!
The ferry terminal has moved from Fajardo to Ceiba after Hurricane Maria
It was still off-season on a Tuesday in early November. There was hardly anyone on the roads as we drove around in our golf cart (that we rented for about $50) going about 10 mph hiding Aeden in a beach bag. It was so fun. It’s like being in a tropical island adventure video game where you drive in a go-cart especially up some crazy hills and little side dirt roads haha.
Golf cart and off roads
Probably the hardest part about the trip was just how far it was from Rincon. Rincon is the furthest west you can go on the island of Puerto Rico and Ceiba is nearly the farthest east! So we gave ourselves 4 hours to get there going the southern route and giving time to stop for breakfast at El Meson, but we were still late and had to take the 11am ferry instead of the 9am. The boat ride was fun if a little choppy and we caught air a couple of times that made me just a little queasy. It took about an hour ride there. It was much quicker coming back the next day not fighting the current and we learned to go inside into the air conditioned area.
From the Ceiba Ferry to white sand beaches in about 1 hour!
The island is super tiny. Only about 1500 people live there and there are no other towns than the island itself. The disparity between rich and poor is very obvious. The poor and tourists take the ferry and the rich (and splurging tourists) fly in or boat in with sailboats and other vessels. The poor live in run down shacks and the rich have huge mansions on the hills.
Boats in the harbor
Family fun!
Cool drawbridge and moon!
My overall impression was that it was an incredible place to visit, but I would definitely get island fever living there because there is really not much to do other than spend time at the beaches and drink and that would get old quick. At least on the “main island” of Puerto Rico we can drive for 4 plus hours and get lost!
At the bridge to Flamenco Beach
One of the tanks by the sea
The most shocking thing to me was learning about the history of the bombing and military drills that were practiced on Culebra and Vieques. I can only imagine what it would have been like to live on an island that is so pristine only to hear, feel and see live munitions going off. And occasionally people (as well as flora and fauna) were hurt! Rates of cancer have been found to be higher on these islands as a result of dropping bombs on them as well. Thankfully these practices ended in the early 2000s but there are still some remnants such as these leftover tanks rusting in the sun and sea salt.
Another tank on Playa Flamenco that has been consumed by the sea
Great place for a photo shoot!
The Dinghy Dock is a popular restaurant in Culebra
We dressed up for dinner out. And with Hector the Protector in the background
Melones Beach is much different than Flamenco and is mostly full of washed up coral
Overall, it was a wonderful, short trip. I would have liked to have maybe seen a couple of other beaches, but I think we got a good feel for the place in our brief time there. There’s not a whole lot on an island that’s only about 7 miles wide! We climbed a hill, visited the police dock, went out to dinner at the night Dinghy Dock restaurant that had just opened for the season and walked around the ferry/downtown area where they are doing construction on a new pier/dock.
Aeden playing on the beach
Worth a visit for sure! When we arrived back on the main island we caught up with our friends Fran and Steve and then hung out at a pizzeria at the Luquillo Kiosks and then we were on our (long) way back home to Rincon. A fun outing and Aeden did so good in the car!
I have been wanting to check out Survival Beach for some time. It is supposed to have some pretty picturesque sea rocks and caves and a really fun hike. One day we were out driving around and we thought we would run some errands in Aguadilla. I remembered that Survival Beach is accessed by foot with a 30-40 minute hike that starts at Surfer’s Beach. “Hey, let’s check it out!” I’m sure if we were surfers we would already know about it, but it was another first for us.
This sign cracked me up!
To get to Surfer’s Beach you must go through a gated area that looks to be owned by the Electric or Water Company. I assume it is always open, but it was strange that it was gated. Once in, the road is very beautiful lined with palm trees and flamboyans with a rock curb. Upon arrival there is a small skate park and a little coconut drink place that was closed when we arrived. It looked like maybe someone had parked their van to stay/live there with a grill, tarp, clothes hanging out, etc.
Little Coconut Kiosk
Pile of Coconuts (used for said kiosk I presume)
Small skate park and picnic tables
Nice (very tall) bench to watch the waves
Fun at Surfer’s Beach
De Camino a Survival Beach
We found the sign that pointed the way to the start of the hike, but weren’t prepared with the right shoes, food, water, etc. So we walked a few yards down the path that was strewn with fallen trees to one of the beach outcroppings, and said we would save that hike for another day. I am not sure what the story is about why it’s called Survival (or sometimes Survivor Beach), but it did look rough and that you would need to use your survival skills if you washed ashore out there with no road, but a hike of a trail to it.
Going under some fallen trees on the early part of Survival Beach trail
Looks like another adventure is in the queue! But until then we enjoyed our short time at Surfer’s Beach.
