playas y cavernas

Here are a few photos of yesterday’s beach. No matter how many other beaches I go to, having grown up at the Jersey shore I am always amazed to see both blue water and green vegetation all in the same landscape. Not just sand, but plants & grass.

This is the fort in the background:

Today, I went on a trip to Rio Camuy Caves. We stood in line for a very long time but once we got in there, the caves were pretty amazing. The took us down in a tram & they have 5 trams total. 3 are currently being repaired. One more broke this morning, it needed new breaks. As soon as we started down, it became clear why breaks were important! We went down a very steep windy road to the bottom of a 400 feet sinkhole. Inside the caves were stalactites & stalagmites in all their glory. The Rio Camuy is the 3^rd longest underground river behind one in Yugoslavia and another in New Guinea. We took a bus about an hour and a half out of San Juan so it was nice to get to see other parts of the island. There are two sinkholes and the caves were discovered in 1958. A traffic-y road runs above. They originally thought the sinkholes went straight down when they built the road, but that turns out not to be true. They balloon out to the sides. So, the cars above are driving on land that is actually hollow underneath. The scenery was quite spectacular. Very lush & green, it’s part of the rainforest.

There are also thousands of bats in the cave, but we didn’t see any. We did see some lizards & some Puerto Rican tree frogs called coquis.

Tonight we have a faculty meeting at 9:00 (yes, that would be 9:00 pm on a Friday night) where, amongst other things, we’re going to try talk about scanning requests. Wish me luck! Mitch asks me to thank all the UVA scanning folks by name: June Trainum and Betty Mickens, as well as Donna Barbour who did the material retrieval for us. thank you all!

And then off to Brazil … Tomorrow I work the night shift (til 11:00).

so much for museums

I wandered around Old San Juan again this morning taking photos and strolling along el Paseo de la Princesa, along the outer wall of the city.

And then I went to the beach in the afternoon. The sand was pretty course and darker than it is at the Jersey shore, but the water was as warm in February as it is there in August. It was beautiful just hanging out in the ocean listening to the waves crash along the shoreline. From the beach, you can see the forts where I was yesterday and the capitol building.

I’m a bit sunburnt despite having slathered in sunscreen so I have to figure out what to do about that. It’s going to be very hot & very sunny everywhere we’ll be.

I was going to go back into town tonight, but two of us are now thinking about trying to crash a field trip. We’ll see if it works. A group is going kayaking at Bioluminescent Bay (http://www.biobay.com) and they just added another bus. We won’t be able to go kayaking, but we’re going to try to get on the bus and wander around ourselves. Tomorrow, I’ve got a trip to Rio Camuy Caves (http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/camuy.shtml) & then we leave for Brazil.

A view from a fort

forts might not have offered the best living conditions, but they do have very awesome views.

Today, we docked in Puerto Rico. I missed the pulling into port because (as mentioned yesterday) I wasn’t feeling so hot and thought it best to get a little sleep. I woke up feeling much better. We got off the ship about 9:45 this morning after clearing immigration & hearing the Governor of Puerto Rico speak. I took a walking tour of Old San Juan which took us to two different forts (San Cristobal & El Morro) and a very cool cemetery with -- as already mentioned -- amazingly awesome views.

Everyone who has ever been on Semester at Sea says that their current port is their favorite port. Of course, we haven’t even technically left the United States yet, but let me tell you I could totally live in Puerto Rico. Except for the part where it’s a million degrees in February. I heard it snowed in C-Ville today, Deej emailed me snowy library photos:

I love the mountains in Virginia, but I do confess to very much missing water. Puerto Rico has a lot of water. Walking along many streets you can see water both to your right & to your left, the Atlantic Ocean and the San Juan Bay. The streets are made of blue cobblestone:

Therre’s both Spanish influence:

& French influence, in many ways Old San Juan looks very much like New Orleans:

Then Peter & I had lunch & went to Casa Blanca, the home of Ponce de Leon. Peter is a life-long learner from Colorado. He’s taking classes & traveling around the world. They asked us if we wanted the tour in English or in Spanish and we opted for Spanish for the challenge. I got about 90% of it which I figured to be pretty good since it’s been awhile. The house was nice (though much of it was added on to much later) and the gardens were beautiful, although they also were later add-ons.

And then we walked a million miles back to the ship. I’ve added more photos to the map above. I was thinking of taking a shower & going back out, but I’m fried and we’re pretty far. Tomorrow, I have an entirely free day to wander around more. I hope to hit a few museums. The relationship to the U.S. is definitely interesting. You see the U.S. Post Office and the Fuertes (forts) are U.S. National Historic Sites with familiar signage. Road signs are all U.S.-style except they are in Spanish. And gas is sold in liters rather than gallons.

On a few other notes:

Be sure to check out Sherri's blog for other perspectives of shipboard life: http://sojournerlibrarian.blogspot.com

I've added another blog to the links section. Mary Keller teaches world religions and spirit possession traditions and she is blogging for her kid's class. She has a 5 year old and a 7 year old who are following along from home. Find Mary's blog at: http://kellersas.blogspot.com/

The book for the Archbishop arrived today. Thanks much to Jean & to Acquisitions & to Cataloging for being so incredibly speedy. I brought it up to the faculty/staff lounge this evening in search of the Archbishop (the shipboard equivalent of LEO), but he doesn't seem to be around. I'll catch him tomorrow.

Finally, I had dinner this evening with Leigh Grossman & her son, who flew up from Granada for a visit. She flies back tomorrow to Charlottesville. I have really enjoyed getting to know her & will be sad to see her leave. Leigh has definitely been added to my list of very-cool-women-to-admire.