Tropical Paradise

There are coconut palms on one side of us, and a trellis with passion fruit on the other side. Our manager cuts the coconuts for us, and we pick the passion fruit as it ripens. Truly a tropical paradise...

Paseo Lineal

There is a beautiful bike path here that goes through mangroves, over wooden bridges, along the ocean, past a fishing village, and to one of the coolest beaches ever. We stopped at the village (Villa Pesquera) for a pastellilo - meat turnover. A woman and her 93 yo father were enjoying a beer, when a popular song about Puerto Rico came on the radio, and the father got up to dance, and then was joined by his daughter. I love Puerto Rico!!

Our house is a very, very, very fine house...

front balcony

We love our "home" for the next few weeks- with it's wrap around balcony, and windows and doors everywhere (even in the shower!), to let in all those wonderful breezes. We were pretty surprised to find our view was of a pasture with cows and a horse - so peaceful!

Side balcony

Puerto Rico! Checking out the neighborhood...

Happy Belly's

Walkway to the beach

The Rock

Abandoned Beach Beauty

After a month in Sint Maarten, it was time to move on. We took a quick flight 225 miles west, to Puerto Rico. There is essentially no public transportation in Puerto Rico (outside of San Juan), so we rented a car for a day, and followed the beautiful northern coast through very green forested mountains to the northwest, and our next home for the next month, in the seaside town of Isabela. According to Wikipedia, "It could be said that Isabela is a hybrid town of sorts, with the rarity of being a coastline city that has beaches but is also known for its mountains (with peaks of over 1,000 ft [300 m] above sea level), rivers (surface and submarine), lake, caves (surface and submarine), cliffs, coastal flats and forests (Tropical and Mangroves)."

Walking with new friends 

We, once again, have a great apartment (more on that next time)- and a great apartment manager that helped us return our rental car, and stop at a grocery store to stock up. (Groceries seem so cheap after Sint Maarten!)  Then we went for our first exploratory walk. At the end of our street is a path to the beach- which is wild, windy, empty (except for a few kite surfers in the water), and beautiful. A couple of neighborhood dogs accompanied us as we followed the beach into the popular surfing area, and "The Rock".

Sint Maarten Beaches

The many faces of Sint Maarten Beaches....

Cupecoy Beach

Grand Case

Orient Bay

Pointe Blanche pools

Philipsburg

Baie aux Prunes

Having Fun in Sint Maarten!!!

Trampoline at Orient Bay

Kayak to Pelican Rock

Fatum Loop Annual Run

T shirts from the run!

Heading to the snorkel trail on Pinel Island

Marigot

Marigot 

Buying sweets

The Spice Man

The Neighborhood

Guavaberry Juice

We took the "bus" to the Marigot, the capital of the French side of the island, for the Saturday market.  (The buses are actually privately owned vans, licensed as buses. There are some official bus stops, but you can hail a bus from anywhere. And being the friendly island that it is, it's customary to say "good afternoon" to everyone when boarding.) Lots of good stuff to see- all kinds of spices, juices home-made and sold in hand painted bottles, pastries, and fish right off the boat.

Beautiful Sint Maarten

We lucked out again with a great place to stay, large one bedroom condo on the seventh floor, ocean and bay views with wrap around patios, and a constant tropical breeze. The ocean in Sint Maarten is an incredible aqua color, and the weather is perfect. They call this "The Friendly Island" for good reason- the people are great. We are staying on the Dutch side, but there's no obvious border when passing to the French side, which is easily done on a bus.

Grocery Shopping in Sint Maarten

Tastes like chicken?

Grocery shopping wherever we travel is always part of the adventure. Sint Maarten, like most islands, is expensive in many ways, so we try to buy local, and skip the imported stuff.

We're not eating strawberries these days...

Manuel says "Not for me, thanks..."

Ajijic

hike to waterfall
Ajijic is one of the villages on Lake Chapala, with a very large expat community. There is the Lake Chapala Society, with lessons, clubs, services and activities for anything you can think of. The "social activities" calendar alone had 17 things listed for the week we were there. And although there are so many expats, it still has that "puebla" feel- with cobblestone streets (so the water coming down the mountains in the rainy season soaks into the earth between the cobblestones, preventing floods), church bells ringing, and the occasional caballero on horseback. Ajijic is also at the base of
the Sierra Madres, making for some great hiking.

Tonala, Tlaquepaque

In Guadalajara, there is a "hop on, hop off", double decker, open top (duck the trees!) tour bus that was cheap, easy, and fun. It stopped in Tonala and Tlaquepaque

Tonala Plaza

Tonala Street

Tonala was a great place for shoppers (we're not, but they really had some great stuff for homes). They also had some of the best pozole I've ever had!Tlaquepaque was a bit more "upscale", with a wonderful Bustamante Gallery

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