Over spring break I went to Vieques Puerto Rico for an Alternative spring break! Our main focus of work was environmental- mainly cleaning up beaches, planting trees, working in the greenhouse etc. We had a great group of people that got along really well and it was probably one of the greatest weeks of my life.
The bus from campus to take us to the airport came at 3 am on friday night, so naturally, I didn't sleep at all. Traveling consisted of a bus ride, two plane rides, and a cab ride to the hotel after we arrived in San Juan. A whole day of travel. In the morning I was stopped at security because I forgot to take our my swiss army knife from my carry on bag. They had to search my bag and me then took it away from me. When I boarded the plane I also realized that i had left my pillow by the security gate as well. haha. Other things I lost this week: my bathing suit bottoms (no idea where those went, i searched the entire house before leaving), my toothbrush, and a ring. At least I left little bits of myself all over Puerto Rico!
This the was the front entrance of our little home, I couldn't get all of it in one picture.
This is the view from the roof of our house
When we landed in San Juan we hailed a cab and told them the name of our hotel. He looked at us and started laughing. With the language barrier, it was hard to understand what was going on but I managed to hear the words "really? staying there? change your reservations." We were all stumped because we couldn't really change reservations this last minute and we didn't really know why he thought it was necessary. We later found out that the reservations had been booked in a hospital. It was four floors, the first three with hospital beds, patients.. the whole nine yards. But the 4th row was a hallway of hotel rooms to rent out. So that was where we stayed on our first night. It was a little shady and very strange but not bad since we had to leave so early in the morning anyway. That night we went out on the town to dinner, ice cream and to see the sites.
Me and Carolyn enjoying Mofongo: a tasty Puerto Rican Cuisine.
The next morning we took our 9 am ferry to the island! We stayed in a beautiful rented house with all necessary accommodations (not to mention wifi and cable!). We spent this whole day at a nearby beach, snorkeling, swimming, tanning and generally enjoying the warmth and sunshine that we were so lacking back in Michigan. To top off the day, we made spaghetti dinner and ate it on the roof during the sunset.
The next day, our work still didn't start until 5:30 when we had a meeting with the fish and wildlife office to find out what we would be doing for the week. So to fill our time we went to an even more gorgeous beach, La Playa Caracas, which means Red Beach. There were palm trees every few feet, completely clear water, and little lizards that we could catch running around!
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| Beach! |
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| Caracas |
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| My New Best friend |
Tuesday was our first day of real work and everyone packed up and we were picked up at 8 am and driven to the greenhouse. We spent the first half of the day weeding around the greenhouse, pulling up unwanted shrubs and trees and watering the plants in the greenhouse. We found several forms of interesting wildlife like a coci (native frog), a cool walking stick, a ginormous spider, and some cool little lizards. At the end of the work day, they took us down to Caracas after work for a quick swim.
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| Oh just Walkin stick and me |
Our second day of work was a little more fulfilling, and we got to plant trees on the beach! Our lunch break was interesting to say the least. We were all eating our lunch quietly when one of the guys we were working with called us over because he had caught an iguana! we all excitedly ran over and started petting it and taking pictures with it. At some point in the mayhem, the iguana got its front portion of body loose from his grip and started twisting around while its tail was still being held on to. This resulted in the tail ripping off and the iguana charging straight for us in its attempt to escape. The dynamic of the moment changed completely as people screamed and jumped on chairs and as Mike threw the (still twitching and bleeding) tail onto the table where we had just finished lunch. whew.
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| Iguana + Tail |
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| Ahhhh |
This was the night of our biolluminescent bay tour! We shopped around and ate dinner until dark then took a cab to the beginning of the tour. Let me explain, there are these awesome microorganisms living in a certain bay in Vieques that have some sort of chemical process that make them glow when they are touched! That was a horrible explanation but I don't really know the science behind it. We took kayaks into the middle of the lake (as you dip your paddle in the water the water glows around it for a few seconds AWESOME). Me and Maureen had some slight trouble with our kayak and got a little over zealous trying to race someone. We flipped it. Within the first five minutes. We had to get help from the guide to flip over the kayak and get back in. After that it was filling with water and we were falling behind and had no way of communicating to the guide. Our tour guide did not speak any English and rambled on at us for a few minutes in spanish. We were flailing our arms trying to get his attention and tell him that we were sinking. When he finally noticed our predicament, he uttered the only English words I had heard form him. "Shit. The Titanic." After this we had to catch a ride with someone else back to shore, but not after we got to swim in the water with the dinoflagellates! It was honestly the most awesome thing I can think of. As you moved your arms in the water it created a pathway of glowing water. And when you lifted your arm out of the water you could see little sparkles sprinkling down your arm.
Thursday was our last day of work. We spent it on the beach cleaning up trash. There was SO much. We had filled all the garbage bags shortly after lunch time. We got to spend a lot of time exploring the beach and looking at seashells also. We found a ginormous star fish as well.
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| Me and the Starfish |
Friday was our day off and we headed onto the main island to go to El Yunque the rainforest! We spent a glorious day with an awesome tour guide, hiking to picturesque locations, swimming in waterfalls and taking lots of pictures of exotic plants.
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| Swimming in the waterfall! |
Now I'm sort of shortening this post as it is getting incredibly long and I have probably lost everyone who is reading it, if anyone is.
But, needless to say, it was a very awesome trip and we were all sad to leave. But what I took away from it was a great new group of friends, a sense of accomplishment, and a lot of seashells. :)
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| I LOVE VIEQUES!! |
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