This is the fifth day of Puerto Rico; it was time for an excursion off the resort. I will spare the wake up/breakfast routine as it has become quite a regular pattern. But today was to be something different than lying on the beach or the pool. Sandra procured a rental of bicycles so that we could venture to the local spots. Memories of the honeymoon were dancing in my head, and not in a good way. The last time we rented bikes in Puerta Viarte I would experience a tire blowout every quarter mile. It was also the time we biked into the Sierra Madres with the aching fear of being abducted by a guerrilla village and drafted into their junta.
The one characteristic of this day was the prediction of rain all day. It was to clear up by afternoon, but we received the bikes around noon, and had 4 hours of play time. Just starting out the downpour happened. We waited out the burst under the carport of the hotel. Once it passed (or so we thought), we jumped on and headed out. We navigated the sidewalks for a bit as sharing the roads with the vehicles was a “hard NO”.
On the way out of town, the rain came again. We kept going and just figured "oh, well", think of it as a shower. We finally found the trailhead by a small enclave of village restaurants and was at least away from the cars. It was still coming down. Now and then we would seek cover under trees, but it was no use. We encountered a boardwalk on part of the trail, and you could see that it was probably the original wood from the 1960's. We had to navigate around missing planks, nails and slippery surfaces. We continued for a few miles along the beach. The waves were big, and the ocean was full of white caps. I was thinking ahead to our upcoming BVI part of the trip where we would be out on that ocean and fighting some good wind. But that was days ahead, and we still had to fight the boardwalks and rain.
Turning around, we remembered the restaurants we had passed, and so we stopped at an interesting little beach place. We had some empanadas fried in the traditional way. I think I will be full until October. Sandra had an even bigger type of empanada. She should be good until the new year.
After lunch, I went back to the sanctuary. The rain had pretty much dissipated by this time. The good thing about the rain is it takes the heat out of the air quickly. I was comfortable on this stay because of it. Alexa was D-U-N with the biking and was ready to get back to her tan. Sandra and I had about an hour left on the rental, so we headed the opposite direction of our ride to see where the other bike-trails would be. We had to navigate primarily on the sidewalks and avoid collisions with pedestrians and cars turning into driveways or streets. We never made it to the trailhead as we ran out of time. We turned around and saw a nice beach around a neighborhood and headed back to turn our bikes in.
Not much time left of the day, but Sandra wasn't going to be deprived of the dip in the ocean. I sat back and had a beer and waited for dinner. We ate at the happy hour the restaurant provides, and called it complete again in the early evening. Tomorrow...it's the old town.