Ever asked yourself how close Puerto Rico is to Venezuela?

That's okay, we never asked ourselves that question either, but now it's going to be indelibly burned into my brain that it is about 525 miles from Cabo Rojo PR to Caracas Venezuela, as the bomber flies.

If my vision serves me right, this is a Lockheed C-130 Hercules, military transport plane. We saw this the evening before the US bombed Caracas. For those of you who are not familiar with this plane, let me give you a few stats that let you know why we were concerned, but didn't know the full extent of how concerned we should be. No one ever thinks I should change my plane ticket and leave a day early just in case the President of the United States strikes another nation. The C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop aircraft used for tactical airlift, mission support and personel tranport.

This aircraft is capable of operating from short, unimproved runways. I cannot tell you how many of them we have seen on Puerto Rico.

If it was an AC-130 then it would have been a gunship. You can see how far away the plane was so it's hard to tell.

I know that I've posted some of these photos before, but I wanted you to get an idea of all of the military gear up that we've seen. The photos are from the western side of the island as well as the center north. The next to last photograph is what google maps looked like when we were trying to book a Verbo the eqrly morning after the attack. We had to make a decision and I said, prioritize the airline first, the car second, and accommodations third. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I thought at the absolute worst, I would call the woman I met on the plane and ask her if we could bed down in her living room. To Americans, this kind of forwardness might seem absurd, but when there's nothing else to do, you simply make do. This is one of the many skills that hiking has taught me. When I'm really tired and don't want to walk any further I say to myself well you can sit down and live here forever or you can move forward and see what's out there. I always keep walking with renewed energy because i thrive on the unknown. The last picture is a large navy transport ship. I know you can barely see it, but it's on the horizon, on the left hand side. Then the last photo was Wednesday January 7th. There's still an unusual amount of military activity.

Luckily, we are not sleeping on the floor of a random person's house. We did end up finding accommodations for a reasonable price but we had to go a very long way. So far away that we are staying almost exactly at the farthest East point that we traveled in this entire trip. When we got here, we were exhausted and passed out on the beds at a really early hour. We had no idea what we were going to do tomorrow other than call the airlines repeatedly and try to get on an earlier flight. I'm not joking when I say there was absolutely nothing for days. In fact, when we first started looking, we couldn't even get on a flight by Sunday the 10th. While Mike was calling Frontier and I was calling everybody else, a couple from New York City and their kids showed up at our hotel. The wife freaked and burst into tears. She couldn't even be persuaded to see the room. She told her husband, who was yelling at somebody on the phone, that this was so horrendous, she couldn't stay here. He reminded her that they had been paying a thousand dollars a night near San Juan and she said I don't care. I asked them when their flight out was and she told me Tuesday January 13th. After they left, Mike and I looked at each other and said it could be so much worse. This is one of those times when I'm glad that I'm so well matched with my partner. Both of us think that this hotel is amazing. It has clean rooms, private bathrooms and even a kitchenette. There is a pool we are right on the beach and the staff are incredibly friendly. We even have snorkeling, right off the beach where we can swim to it.

Here is mike looking at frontier once again to see if there are flights. At least his view is amazing!

Here is me getting ready to go spear fishing. Luckily we brought all of our equipment. This was the first day that the surf has been calm enough.That I felt confident enough to get in and hunt. Now I don't feel too bad about striking out because as you can see, there are other people on the beach getting ready to hunt as well. They were locals, incredibly well outfitted, and they came up empty. What do you have was really hoping for was a caribbean lobster or three. You better believe that if I get one, it will be on this blog stat.

ting ready to hunt as well. They were locals, incredibly well outfitted, and they came up empty. What do you have was really hoping for was a caribbean lobster or three. You better believe that if I get one, it will be on this blog stat.

The area that we're staying in has a very interesting history. The name of Barceloneta ("Little Barcelona") is derived from the Spanish city, from where the town's founder originated. The town was founded on July 1, 1881 and it was one of the last municipalities created by the Spanish Government in Puerto Rico. As you probably know Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a territory of the United States. After its foundation, the town had a significant economic development led by agriculture and industry. By 1894, there were three sugarcane estates, 93 sugar mills, and the production of other fruits. The first 3 photographs that you can see in the gallery above are Mike and I visiting the historic remains of an early sugarcane windmill and processing plant. At this small historic site we learned about the rail road in the area and how after Central Plazuela, a large sugar cane mill, closed in 1963, Barceloneta i worked to diversify their economy by getting into pineapples and other fruits for export. Efforts to revive the economy via agriculture were not successful. In the 1970s the pharmaceutical industries came to Puerto Rico and one established themselves in the town during the 1970s. Super fun fact for you and all of the older gentlemen in the United States.... for a time, Barceloneta supplied all of the Viagra for North America. I think a stand in salute is in order 😉 When hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017 some homes and establishments along the coast were flooded with up to 15 feet of water, and nearly all wooden homes were destroyed. Today you can still see the aftermath of this because there are many enormous homes that would go for multiple millions of dollars, were regular Barcelonetans used to live. We met a lovely couple here, and they said they ignore all of those houses because many of them are owned by the cartels in South America. We said thank you for the information, we'll keep our noses out! The area that we're staying also has a stunning territory park. Mike and I took a lovely 10km stroll. Unfortunately, the parrots you see, there are not the endangered ones in puerto rico, they are escapees from the pet trade from South America. And trust me, these photographs were hard fought because these little jerks do not like to sit and have their photo taken. As you can see, it took some food as bribery!!

When we got home after our walk, we ran into people that are now our friends. You can see Mike talking to Maximiliano, and I am standing next to Juan and his mother Stephanie. Luckily, we had stopped at the supermarket on the way home to buy dinner because every dining restaurant was ridiculously crowded because of the holiday. In America, we call it Epiphany, but here they call it Dia de Tres Reyes, or Three Kings Day. Here it is a much more sacred holiday than even Christmas and everybody is off. If you go back to the beginning of my blog, i'm all sad that i'm going to miss it, ittle did I know I wasn't going to! They invited us to have a cook out with them and we excitedly accepted. Mike and I privately said, thank God, we got beef, because we almost didn't, they were grilling and the only thing they were short on was a protein. Sometimes the world just falls into place.And you get an experience you never thought you'd have. The other other two people in the photograph are Scott and Barbera from Pittsburgh. They counted themselves as lucky as they were going out on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they got trapped in Florida and didn't get to Pittsburgh until today! I'm telling you the entire airline industry that does anything with Puerto Rico in the Caribbean is a mess right now. The gentleman that were renting from had people who were supposed to come in and many of them canceled, because they just couldn't get the flight here.

Now the barbecue actually occurred on Tres Ryes Eve. So welcome to the actual holiday. I texted Stephanie and Juan and asked them if they'd like to go out to dinner with us and have a swim in the pool. They immediately accepted and mike and I were so happy to have someone to do a little sightseeing with. She took us to this beach, which has two fun facts about it. Number one, look at all of the driftwood. Artisans from all over the island come to this area to pick up their driftwood, because for some reason, tons of it centers on the beach here. No joke, there were metric tons of it everywhere, from tiny little sticks, the size of toothpicks all the way up to near full trees. The second super fun fact is that beach scenes in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever were filmed along the northern coast of Puerto Rico, including the town of Arecibo, where Playa La Boca did other beaches are located. 

Normally, if an action hero movie was filmed somewhere, I wouldn't be so excited but I really enjoyed the Black Panther series and could actually remember the scenes that we're done here. Also, full disclosure clearly the photographs above are not mine. I took them off the internet in a simple Google search.

Mike and I have been in Puerto Rico long enough that we finally decided that we'd had enough of the traditional food for dinner, and what a place to decide that!

Welcome to Bocata Smokehouse. Both mike and I agree that this barbecue rivals, The Shack in Mississippi. Those of you who have come along on all of our trips, know that Mike and I said that The Shack was the best barbecue we'd ever had in our lives. Wow, does this place give it a run for its money. Everything on the barbecue plate was perfectly done, and that is octopus ceviche, in the foreground. Does it get any better than this! Seriously, when life gives you lemons and traps you want a tropical island make lemonade, and by that I mean barbecue!

I'm going to sign of for today with this amazing video of a sunshower. Just to let you know there'll be one more blog post that hopefully ends in a puppy reunion. See you all in the continental US soon!