¡Feliz Navidad! / Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This year for Christmas, Maria and I decided to get away from it all and take a tropical vacation to the Isla Culebra, "Snake Island." Culebra is a small island 17 miles off the eastern coast of the Island of Puerto Rico and 12 miles west of St. Thomas, and is part of the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico or Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (wiki/Culebra).

Isla Culebra

Puerto Rico and Culebra

We decided to go at the last minute although we had been researching the nearby islands for things to do. It took a few emails and phone calls but Maria finally found a nice little place on the Island for us to stay, Casa Ensenada. So at 6 am we left the house and headed for Fajardo, about an hour away, to meet the ferry. They say to get to the ferry terminal early because there is no guarantee you'll be able to get a ticket. We made it in plenty of time, got our tickets, and then waited until around 9 am for the boat to leave.

We arrived at Culebra around 10 am Christmas Eve, before our room was ready, but we were able to stash our luggage and head to the beach, the main reason Maria wanted to go. There are numerous beaches on the island, but the best is Flamenco Beach. This beach is ranked in the top beaches in the world for it's beauty and I'd have to say it certainly was a beautiful beach, and not too crowded either. It was actually quite comfortable for a holiday weekend. The beach is a couple miles from the port so to get there you can either walk, rent a bike, rent a golf cart, rent a car, or take the local guagua "bus" taxis. They're not really buses they're just passenger vans, but they like to refer to vans and station wagons in Puerto Rico as guaguas or guaguitas, little buses. It's 3 dollars per passenger but worth it when you are lugging a cooler full of food that your wife was so gracious to prepare.

Maria and I at Flamenco Beach

Maria likes to go to the beach to soak up the sun while I like to go for the water and swimming. I have limited sun-soaking ability. Flamenco beach is on the north side, Atlantic side, of the island, and on Christmas Eve the ocean waves were pretty choppy. That didn't stop me from enjoying the water, and although Maria did get in for a little bit, I couldn't get her to go very far because she had just read about undertow and was extremely scared of being sucked out to sea. Ignorance is bliss I guess, because I had lots of fun playing in the waves and couldn't have cared less.

Here's a video of the beach shot by Maria. I'm the pale guy if you couldn't tell.

Once we exhausted ourselves at the beach we hopped into a guagua and headed to Casa Ensenada. We had a nice little room located on Ensenada Honda, the protected harbor in the center of Culebra. They also had a two person kayak that we used Christmas morning to paddle out to the middle of the harbor to get a close up view at some of the many sailboats anchored in the harbor. We were able to wish a Merry Christmas to some Canadians, Australians, and Americans. The idea of sailing around the Caribbean and anchoring in exotic ports fascinates me.

Ensenada Honda

Besides the harbor, Culebra contains a nice little town called Dewey. Dewey is mostly made up of restaurants, bars, and gifts shops to cater to the tourists, but they also have a real community with churches, a school, municipal buildings, gas stations, and grocery stores. On Christmas Eve night we were having a drink when we heard what sounded like a lively party. We decided to check it out and we were surprised to find out that this party had a super special guest... Santa Claus! There were kids all over the place getting gifts and sitting on Santa's lap. They had music playing and a DJ and the kids looked like they were having a blast. I'm just not sure how Santa handles the heat in all of that red fur he wears.

The Bushwacker

We had a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Mamacita's with a few drinks, one of which is a local Culebra drink (or so we were told) called the "Bushwacker." Man does that thing pack a punch. I could only handle one before I had to go to bed.

After our Christmas morning kayak adventure, we packed our things, enjoyed sitting by the harbor for a bit, and then headed to the ferry terminal to get our tickets home. While waiting for the ferry, we stopped into a bar and discovered the traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink, coquito. It's like egg-nog but much better.

Although Culebra is a small Island, there is so much more to do there that we didn't have a chance to see. There is a National Wildlife Reserve, a beach for turtle nesting, snorkeling, sailing, and the list goes on. We will definitely be back especially since the ferry from Fajardo to Culebra is only $2.25 a person and it's only an hour drive to Fajardo from San Juan.

Once we made it home, we cleaned ourselves up and decided to head to Old San Juan for Christmas Dinner. We scoured the net for restaurant ideas and found a couple that seemed promising. Once we made it through traffic and finally into Old San Juan, we somehow found a parking spot on the street, a small Christmas miracle. We walked a couple blocks to the restaurant only to find it closed. We searched for another, walked there, closed, another, closed. The only place we could find open, besides Wendy's and Burger King, was a little Italian place called, Il Bacaro di Venezia. We were not expecting much but were pleasantly surprised by their delicious food and just happy to be eating at the same time.

After our meal, we wandered the streets of Old San Juan which were full of locals enjoying the fair-like atmosphere. We saw a group of young people playing drums and singing, and I had my first taste of Mavi, a fermented drink made from the bark of the Mavi tree. I'd describe it like a ginger brew but without the spiciness and much sweeter. It smells terrible but tastes great.

We had a great Christmas in Puerto Rico but we really missed being with our friends and family and hope you all had a very merry Christmas. ¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año!