ann and i went to puerto rico for about 1 week in january! our first few nights we burned some hyatt points at the hyatt grand reserve resort about an hour east of san juan, which was very nice, and has the largest swimming pool in puerto rico! there were many covid-19 restrictions at the time (beaches closed and nighttime curfew such that we needed to spend the night of our arrival sitting on the floor of the airport rental car center, but all’s good)!
we got food off property to save money, and out favorite was a prolific puerto rican acai bowl franchise called acai express.
further east on the road to fajardo, there is a great strip of beachside restaurants at luquillo. people drive out from san juan for the food along this strip.
one evening we went kayaking on the bioluminescent bay at laguna grande near fajardo, which was truly amazing! puerto rico has 3 of these bioluminescent bays, which have large quantities of bioluminescent dinoflagellates living in the water. In the dark, when these are disturbed by your hand or your kayak paddle, they glow. with time and pollution (especially fuel from motorboats) these organisms are becoming less prolific, so they may not be this bright, or present at all, in the future. the locality has banned motorboats in this lagoon, so hopefully that will keep them glowing into the future.
