Monday, February 3, 2014

Escaping Old Man Winter, Part 1

Every winter about this time I start to become incredibly grumpy. The short days, cold weather and significantly reduced social interaction just gets to me in a way that I can't totally shake until spring arrives. So, for a few years I've been wanting to take a winter break to someplace beautiful and warm. This year I decided to not let another winter go by without doing something. Seriously guys, this trip was awesome self care and it totally got me out of my funk.

The area of Puerto Rico we stayed in is Rincon, a sleepy little surf town. They get a lot of surf tourism and so there was quite a bit to do and see. I decided to do this post in two installments, half of the pictures are up today and I'll put the other half up tomorrow.  

Below are pictures of our trip. Two things to note:

Feet Haters: Randomly (seemingly at least), we took a few pictures of my feet in the various places we visited. I included the pictures because I like the texture of the the ground in each one (but feet are kind of creepy).

Dog lovers: Puerto Rico is full of stray and unleashed not stray dogs. The not stray dogs had collars. That's the only way I knew they had an owner. I saw dozens of stray dogs. It was a hard thing to see and there is some reflection of them in tomorrows pictures. I can say that although it does not make up for having a loving, comfortable home, all the stray dogs seemed to well fed by the local people. I never saw a starving dog.

Wrap around patio of our tree house cottage.

Beach below the cottage. 





Sunset at dinner.

Nick "Take my picture so it looks like I'm holding up the sailboat."
Me "Okay !(?)"
Ooops!


A little after dinner swinging. 

We drove one hour from Rincon to San Sebastian to see the Gozanlandia waterfall. 
It was a steep hike down and a local man encouraged me by saying "Come on Chicago, one foot in front of the other!". 








Hanging in after a long day.

War-Nick wins.

Nick and I learned to stand up paddle board! 
We took this awesome tour with an awesome dude through an iguana filled, mangrove covered river.
If you're in the area I would highly recommend using Verde Azul.
All the SUP pictures were taken by our guide.

Nick takes a break from SUP to jump into the river.



He thinks he's a pro now. 



More pictures tomorrow! (Find them here!)

XO,

M

PS. No photoshop or filter. This place is really THAT gorgeous. 

2 comments:

  1. Wow, PR looks gorgeous!! I'm adding it to my list of places to visit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes you should! While you're at it, add Chicago. :)

      Delete