After a long travel day, we spent the night in old San Juan. We walked around the old city walls and Castillo San Felipe del Morro in the morning, then took a short flight to the island of Vieques.

On Vieques, we dodged horses in the road on the way to our house. We went snorkeling off a pier and swimming in the clear turquoise water on the north and south coasts of the island. We found a tiny private beach on the south coast, and turtles and lots of fish off the west coast. We paddled clear-bottomed kayaks through the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world.

We picked up a rental car in San Juan, and drove into the steep forested Central Mountains. We stayed at a jungle cottage at the top of a steep road. We went swimming in their local swimming hole, climbed up a waterfall, and slid down a petroglyph-covered boulder. We hiked down to a river and floated through rapids and caves on tubes. Just down the road, we made a quick stop to see the ruins of Arecibo Observatory.

We drove back to San Juan for one night on the beach before heading home.