A hike in the nature reserve around the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse (Los Morrillos) served us up spectacular vistas, with stomach-dropping white and red cliffs, fascinating rock formations, crystal-clear Caribbean Sea, and even cacti!
We found the loop trail, part of the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, on the All Trails app. It took us around the rocky coastline of this peninsula, then past the salt flats, before dumping us out on Playa Sucia, or La Playela, a gorgeous beach.
It’s located on the southeastern point of Cabo Rojo, on the Morrillos Peninsula, in the southwest corner of Puerto Rico. Learn all about this destination at the Discover Puerto Rico website.
Make sure you come between 9 AM and 5 PM, because the park rangers lock the gate!
Our tour guide and mixology master Joisa made learning to mix mojitos and piña coladas at the Bacardí rum factory a party! Did you know that piña coladas originated in Puerto Rico? Pour yourself a glass of rum and join us for the class!
After a month in cold Washington, DC, we are back in Puerto Rico, where Covid is relatively low and everyone wears masks, even outside. Where the weather is warm so we can eat out safely. Where the beaches are lovely and the people are so friendly.
Road Trip!
Our first stop is the village of Cabo Rojo, in the southwest corner of PR. The drive from San Juan was 2 hours and 15 minutes. We’re staying in an apartment in the historic center, right next the the Alcaldía (City Hall) and two blocks from the Plaza in the center.
Our house, for a month
A number of beaches can be reached in 15 minutes or less by car, and we plan to explore as many as we can over the next month. We also plan to do a lot of hiking, find some new boutique distilleries, visit new cities, and experience life off the beaten path.
Buye Beach
Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Playa Buye, a small local beach ten minutes away. It was adorable, and remarkably crowded with Puerto Rican families for a weekday. There were a couple of bars, a waterside concession, and a number of cinderblock cabins. It was lovely until the rain came.
Buye Beach
Balneario Boquerón
Today we’re visiting Balneario (Public Beach) Boquerón, and it’s perfection. Three miles of pristine sand and turquoise bay. Hardly any people.
Glorious Balneario Boquerón
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Check back to find out!
We spent three days exploring Culebra, 12 miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. It’s hard to believe that this tiny island – world-renowned for its pristine beaches, incredible snorkeling in turquoise water, and vibrant underwater landscapes – used to be used by the US Navy for bombing practice.
Culebra totals just over 10 square miles, and served as a U.S. Naval base until 1975. That’s why you can still find a couple of rusting World War II tanks there, detritus that has been reimagined as art by Culebrans. You can read all about the tanks in this article from Atlas Obscura.
Naval Tanks on Culebra
The flight alone was spectacular.
Views from Vieques Airlink
More than 20% of Culebra is preserved as a National Wildlife Refuge, which serves as a habitat for endangered sea turtles and seabirds, among other creatures. The flight in and out literally takes your breath away as you behold soaring mountains, dappled clear waters, and lush forest.
Flamenco Beach
If you’re looking for natural beauty, come visit. If you’re for nightlife, go elsewhere.
It’s a new year — thank God — and despite the inconvenient evolution of Covid-19, Messy Suitcase plans to forge ahead with our traveling life this year, as safely as possible. We hope you will come along for the ride! We plan to continue helping our friends and followers stay abreast of what we’re doing with our creative retirement.
Whether you love to travel or just want to live vicariously through our adventures, we hope our journey will inspire you to think differently, to look at life through the prism of possibility, to get out there and explore!
Where are Bob and Lisa now?
We’re in Washington, DC, till mid-January, enjoying holidays with family and college break with our son Gavin and his cat, Ellie, and exploring the Nation’s Capital.
When Gavin goes back to Champlain College in Vermont, we will return to Puerto Rico. Why? Because international travel is just too difficult with Covid spiking, and Puerto Rico is a warm, lovely space to spend the winter. We lived here in the mid-1990s, and being back this past fall has felt like returning home.
1st Stop: Cabo Rojo We will spend our first month living in the beach town of Cabo Rojo, on the SW coast of Puerto Rico. Cabo Rojo puts us within a short drive of a number of stunning beaches with excellent snorkeling, La Parguera with its bioluminescent bay, towering limestone cliffs, idyllic nature reserves, creative restaurants, and so much more! It will also give us a sense of really town living, Puertan Style. the town square is just around the corner.
2nd Stop: Isabella After a month, we will travel to Isabela, on the northeast coast. We will stay in a resort condo community right on the ocean, with a cycling trail nearby, and access to a number of surfing and snorkeling beaches.
3rd Stop: San Juan We are just not done with San Juan. We barely scraped the surface of our to-do list of activities and places to visit in Puerto Rico’s capital city, with its diverse combination of awesome beaches, historic sites, and urban culture. So we will be back in Punta Las Marias in mid-March for another month of city and urban beach exploration.
We took a Thames River Tour to Greenwich, England, which then surprised us with a bounty of attractions: The Cutty Sark, the Greenwich Market, the Royal Maritime Museum, and, of course, the Prime Meridien, where East meets West!
The Spaniards built Castillo San Cristobal in the 1500s to increase the fortification of the strategic island of Puerto Rico. Let’s walk through history together!
