We have often heard about the beauty of the Caribbean and its tropical islands, but Hawaii is closer to California. To paraphrase a line from the movie Sabrina, Hawaii is always a good idea. However, having heard so much about the Caribbean, this year we took a Viking cruise, the West Indies Explorer, to visit nine different Caribbean islands. This post and eight following posts will share some of what we saw, island by island.
Our cruise started and ended in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It takes about five hours to fly from San Francisco to Hawaii, but we spent more than twice that amount of time to get to San Juan. No direct flights that we could find, so we took a redeye flight to the East Coast and connected from there to San Juan. Here we are shortly after embarking our ship, the Viking Sea, enjoying the coffee as we tried to overcome jetlag.On our first full day in Puerto Rico we visited the El Yunque National Rain Forest. This is one of the national forests administered by the USDA, and the only rain forest in the system. El Yunque had a fine visitor center, trails, and an observation tower for looking out over the area. The air was warm and moist with an occasional rainshower, but this is sort of what we expected. Here are some lobster claw, a variety of heliconia (I think), confirming that we had indeed arrived in the tropics.We hoped to see Puerto Rican parrots in the wild, but they are too scarce and hard to find among the greenery. The visitor center had a large cage with some of the parrots, though, and I was able to get a photo through the wire mesh. Beautiful birds, but I would hate to find out how hard they might be able to bite!Here is the watchtower I mentioned. This was perched on a hill about 1700 feet above sea level, located on a very crooked road that tested your resolve to reach the site. A spiral staircase inside the tower goes up to an observation deck where a cooling breeze provides relief from the humidity.View from atop the tower, with lush, dense vegetation in all directions. You can see the Caribbean in the distance, a few miles away.Tourists clustered around a waterfall in the rain forest. The island gets a lot of rain during hurricane season, but this was March so we were probably in what the locals would call the dry season. Nevertheless, passing rain showers keep everything moist. Old fortress guarding San Juan’s harbor. We had set sail and were on our way out to sea. It was late in the afternoon so the sun was at a low angle, adding some dramatic shading to the view.Caribbean sunset as we sail away from Puerto Rico. God makes the best colors and the best scenery! Our next port of call will be Philipsburg, St. Martin.
