Isla del Encanto

We haven’t done anything spontaneous for a while. Years ago we would regularly make last minute trips bound for unknown places, but children and life got in the way of such whims and a global pandemic of course.

Anyway that outlook changed suddenly yesterday when we went online and booked a hotel and a flight to Puerto Rico for this morning.

Two hours and fifty minutes from Tampa Airport, Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island nestled between Dominican Republic and the British Virgin Islands and an unincorporated U.S. territory.

We visited once before, in 2009, when I was enchanted by the ‘Island of Enchantment’ in particular the surreal sounds and exotic sights of the capital San Juan.

“Blue cobblestones glistening in the sunlight, the rythmic sounds of a salsa stanza drfiting out of welcoming narrow bars, busy people not knowing if they are Spanish or American walking quickly down to the harbour, and the omnipresent roar of Atlantic breakers battling mercilessly with the sturdy 500-year-old fortifications of El Morro, which protects this wonderful city.” (more)

This time we are looking to do very little and are staying for a few days in a small town called Herreras, a neighborhood in Río Grande at a hotel on an old coconut farm situated between the El Yunque National Forest and Espíritu Santo River State Preserve and about 25 minutes from San Juan.

I look forward to being enchanted for a few days again.