Rincon, Puerto Rico
Sunday, May 20, 2007
We set out for our next destination, Rincon, equipped with a Toyota compact rental car and a map. Our plan was to drive south to the Routo Panaramo and take this scenic route through the central mountains to the west coast. As it turns out, this route is not very scenic. The route is difficult to follow requiring you to change roads every 2-20 miles. Most intersections have an arrow pointing to the Routo Panaramo, but some do not. So after realizing we were off course, back tracking several times, frequent hairpin turns, and drivers coming from the opposite direction at full speed in your lane, we decided to get off of the scenic route and utilize the northern route. This turned out to be a wise decision as the afternoon storms rolled in and would have made the Routo Panaramo even more stressful. We arrived in Rincon (a mere 85 miles from San Juan) after a grueling 6.5 hours. As we checked into our hotel, Tamboo Beside the Pointe we were informed that we were assigned an upgraded room, the "honeymoon suite" overlooking the ocean
. I started to wonder how we were getting such special treatment in Puerto Rico. We settled for dinner and drinks at our hotel restaurant and bar, Tamboo Tavern, mostly because we didn't want to get back in the car. The food was very good, the beer was cold, and there was a live band. We spent the next several days at the beach in front of our hotel. I walked about two miles down the beach and while there were homes and hotels along the way, the beach was completely empty. We encountered The Taino Divers dive shop in town, which offered diving and snorkeling. As we had not yet been scuba diving, we decided to take the snorkeling excursion to Desecheo Island 13 miles off the west coast. We snorkeled in 6 to 50 feet of crystal clear water. This snorkeling trip definitely enticed me to consider scuba diving. Tomorrow we head back to San Juan.
