The East Coast beach towns of Luquillo and Fajardo are less resorty and much more of a locals spot than some other beaches on the island. Personally we loved it but, we think its worth mentioning as a fair warning, if you’re expecting a scene from a Sandals commercial this isn’t the place for you.
After spending a full day in El Yunque National Forest, we packed up the next morning and headed out for the day to the beautiful beaches of the East Coast. We had really hoped to spend the day exploring the Island of Culebra, but we ran into a lot of locals who cautioned against it for a day trip- the long story short is the ferries can be hard to get tickets on and at times can be unreliable. What can we say… sometimes things don’t go as planned, so we readjusted and followed the tips the locals gave us to making the most of our time!
Following the suggestions of our new friends we started our day out exploring a local surfing hot spot known. Maybe it was the breezy weather that day but this beach was nearly deserted save for a few other random explorers and a lot of lost coconuts. We had a great time weaving around the rocky outcroppings and checking out the sea turtle nesting areas ( look don’t touch!), but quickly realized this wasn’t going to be lounge on the beach and take in the sunshine kinda spot.
Just down the road we stumbled on Balneario La Monserrate, a city maintained beach. Parking cost us $4.00 but it was well spent! The beach here was beautiful, the water crystal clear, and the gelato vendors plentiful!
No matter how much gelato a person consumes, at some point it becomes a poor substitute for real food, and with a night time kayak trip planned for that evening we were going to need fuel. So once again we deferred to local knowledge and followed our noses and stomachs to the Kiosks of Luquillo- a long chain of restaurants rowed up side by side to each other where you can enjoy anything and everything you could possibly imagine. We got so excited we totally forgot to take pictures of the line-up!
After walking up and down 3 or 4 times we settled on kiosk #20 Terruno and were not disappointed. We both ordered Mofongo, a popular Puerto Rican dish that we ate ALOT of during our trip, and this was by far the very best we had during our whole visit.
Field with tasty carbohydrates we headed to Fajardo for our night time paddle on one of only five bioluminescent bays that exist in the world. This was on our top 3 to do list when we visited Puerto Rico, and while we were both incredibly happy with our tour we learned a few things. Firstly, we’re not the really “group tour” type of travelers and secondly, to remember to keep our expectations in check ( thats more of a me thing than a DJ issue).
Did the water glow? Absolutely. Kinda, it was more of a sparkle than a glow. Was the kayaking fun? Sure. The night paddle was unique, but trying to do so through mangroves and a group of 15 people with very little kayaking experience, at least made it pretty entertaining. We did however get this sweet snap shot out of it, which of course now we can’t find anywhere!
As always, thanks for reading! Let us know what you think in the comments section!
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