We arrived to the San Juan airport and a good friend of ours that lives in San Juan was waiting for us. He came on the trip around the island with us and it was really helpful because he knew his way around. In San Juan we stayed at a hotel the first night, and explored the nightlife. San Juan is very similar to Miami; it has modern highways, casinos, restaurants, and clubs all over the place. Most of the hotels and clubs are located in the area of Condado, so the first thing we did was go there. In Condado we whent to the casino at the San Juan hotel to kill some time, had a couple of drinks in the casino and then hit the clubs.

The next day we went to see the old San Juan, which is the old part of the city. The old San Juan is full of winding streets, quaint houses, bright splashes of color, and well-restored old-fashioned buildings. El Castillo de el Morro overlooks the sea, still defending the island from the Spanish armada... It's really cool. The streets in Old San Juan are really old and some of them are too narrow to fit cars. We went inside and on top of the El Morro castle, from up there the view of the ocean and the city was unreal. That night we sleep in a different hotel because it was closer to the next destination "Ponce".

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In the morning we drove from San Juan to Ponce; the drive was about 2 hours... Driving in Puerto Rico is really dangerous, people drive really badly and nobody respects the traffic signs and rules... It was funny but scary.

We arrived to Ponce at lunchtime, so we decided to have lunch in a restaurant right by the ocean... the food was delicious and the weather was perfect. Ponce is beautiful (the downtown, anyway). Many fine colonial buildings, a grand central plaza with a massive fountain and such oddities as a red and green Victorian gingerbread building that was once a firehouse and now is a historical museum..

We walk around Ponce all day enjoying the weather and the views... The city is kind of small, so we got bored fast. The Puerto Rican friend of ours had a house in Ponce so we did not have to pay for a hotel. At night we drove up to a big hill which is next to the city, there's some colonial houses up there and some restaurants. The view was amazing... So we decided to stay up there and have dinner in a little restaurant. Ponce is a very quiet city, so after dinner we had some beers and went to sleep.

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After going to Ponce we decided to drive 3 hours to a town called Fajardo in order to take a ferry that goes to Culebra, which is a small island east of Puerto Rico. We got to Fajardo really late at night and since Fajardo is so small we could not find a hotel, so we had to sleep in the car to wait for the ferry that leaves at 8:00 AM.

The ferry ride takes about 2 hours. When we got there I realized that I was in paradise... that island is beautiful... you arrive to a small town that consists of the ferry dock, tourist-trap shops, food, drink, ice cream vendors, and a scuba/snorkeling shop.

Not that the view from the port isn't beautiful, but it requires about a ten minute taxi or van ride to get from the dock to Playa Flamenco. When we pull over the hill we were greeted with the breath-taking vista for the first time, it is an awesome feeling. The beach is about two miles long, a curving stretch of extremely fine, light colored sand. We stayed in hotel in Playa Flamingo that consisted of old beach houses and a bar... it was heaven... we played soccer on the beach, went swimming, and all that... It was super relaxing.

After staying two nights in Culebra we went back to San Juan, for a last night in Puerto Rico. That night we went clubbing in Condado again and had a pretty bad hangover the next day. I really enjoyed going puerto Rico and I can't wait to go back.

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More pics from the trip