Vieques Part 2

Saturday turned out to be the day we had the guided bike tour for half a day with Gary from www.viequesadventures.com . Since he was generous enough to give us the bikes Friday because of the rearranging we had gone all around Esperanza. He popped us in his truck and we headed to the other side of the island and started out near this Ceiba tree. I can't wait for my Ceiba to start getting roots like this - unfortunately I won't live long enough to have a 300 year old tree like this in my lifetime!

Here's Jeff near the giant roots.

Jeff and I in a pose near the roots. How fun to grow up here and use this as a fort! It is a really cool tree. We hopped on bikes and went 1.5 miles to the end of the pier for some instruction on shifting and a little island history, then back out and off down some trails. Gary has a permit to take people into government owned property that is also, I think, protected wildlife area (actually I think the whole island is protected). Anyway, the wonderful thing was that there were nice trails, some small paved roads, a little mud and puddles, sand, and NO CARS. This made it real fun without worries or looking over your shoulder. We cruised around past government bunkers and some large installation of some kind that was all fenced and said no photos. We made stops to talk about some of the fruits and shrubs along the way and then went into some ruins of old sugar processing areas.

This is an old sugar processing area that is falling apart. It was really neat to see.

We stopped to add flowers to my helmet...and finally climbed a few hills and ended up back in Esperanza where we were staying. We probably went 15 miles I am thinking. Something over 10 anyway. We took a quick shower, checked out, and had an hour or more before our transportation came.

So we went for a final meal at Tradewinds. I had had the seared tuna/olive/egg/greens/tomatoes etc salad yesterday and Jeff ordered it this time. I had ice coffee and a bacon/turkey/cheese wrap that was very good.


After that we took another quick stroll down town then back to the hotel. The public transportation was already there and for 5 bucks each we were off to the airport. We "checked in" which essentially is giving your name and waited about 15 minutes before taking off. Doesn't get any easier than that!