Hotel and a sneaky snorkeling trip.

We had a lovely hotel in Puerto Rico. It was called the Ciqala, and was about a mile and a half from Old Town San Juan. I was disappointed in the pool being a lot smaller than it looked online, and I was hoping we were closer to the water than we were, but the floors and bathrooms were all travertine and clean, and the views were gorgeous.

Breakfast was included every day, and not only included cereal, a variety of quick breads, juice, and fruit, but custom ordered omelets, oatmeal, french toast, etc.

We ate out on this balcony every morning, and had a nice breeze come through and keep us cool.

Sunday we were fasting and only went to church and slept to finally get ahead of our jet lag until we ate a little picnic dinner out here with these views.

Free wifi was included too, which was nice for my blogging, and Jeff's Monday morning working. He had to work some since he didn't really have the vacation time to use at this point. 

He wanted me to just use the fitness room, and wait for him, but I got really antsy. I knew a snorkeling beach was only a little over a mile away from looking on trip advisor forums. I'm not good at being a safe, protected woman I'm afraid. I packed up some stuff in a grocery bag and left.

The walk was fine. The first couple of blocks are back streets, but after that, everything was very open and public and touristy.

We saw these signs all over the island, and I was interested enough to take a picture here. There were tsunami danger zones, and high ground where you were safe. The signs marked the zones, and the escape routes.

The plants here! Gorgeous. I love the lushness.

There was a big bay on the way to the beach, and it was full of kayakers and paddle boarders. 

The water was so gorgeous.

This was an old hotel here named the Normandie right at the entrance to the beach that was so pretty, with such a fascinating design, (and strangely abandoned) that I shot a picture of it. The history of the building is very interesting.

Saw a little iguana dude on the hotel lawn. 

Here is the cove where I first snorkeled. This was Columbus day, so there were a lot of local families there hanging out. 

I tried to wrap my phone in a couple of ziplocs to keep it dry and take it with me so it didn't get stolen, but the bags leaked. I ended up leaving them on a little ledge halfway down the rock wall. 

Snorkel selfie. I saw so many fish with beautiful colors. (that's a link with a lot of the fish we saw both times I went) . I spent a lot of time snorkeling up and down next to this rock sea wall. Then I packed up my stuff and walked over to the other side of the point, which the forum also recommended.

Dreamy walk!

The clouds kept covering the sun over here, but it was also beautiful. Lots of the same colorful fish, and I saw a small blue spotted flounder, here's a link --pretty cool!

After hanging out in this second spot for 40 minutes or so, I rushed back to Jeff so we could go to lunch. I'm so glad I didn't let fear keep me from this great time!

Tweet