Vieques (think of the word Vegas, with an i before the e, and turn the g into a k)is an island about 1.5 hours away from Puerto Rico. The only way to get there is by ferry. There are actually two islands like this, the other is called Culebra. We didn't have time to visit both islands, but from my limited one-time experience, I would say to try Culebra first.
We start out the day very early, about 7:30 a.m., leaving our hotel and driving to the marina to get our ticket for the ferry. It was only about 15 miles but due to PR's horrible interstate system (there is none) and the bad drivers, it took a good hour. We arrived too late to get on the Culebra ferry so we settled on Vieques.
The problem with Vieques is that you cannot walk to the places you want to explore. You have to rent a car or hire a guide. We thought that there would be taxis in the area but not so much. The taxi system is plain clothes people offering to give you a ride - scary!!! Right when we got off the boat we had several people approaching us telling us they can give us a ride to the beach for 30 bucks. This seemed pretty high, but then this one guy gave us a "deal" and told us he would stay with us all day for $75. OK, sounds good, then he takes us to his "taxi" and it is his junky 4-Runner. I got nervous, so did my roommate, then when we questioned him if we was really a taxi driver, he got mad and told us no deal. Fine. So, we walk up the street (and let me be honest, I was a total B this day. I will get to that later.) We find a car rental sign. The guy wants us to pay $100+ to rent a car for 4 hours. Geez, that is a lot of money.....then the guy tells us he has a friend that will take us around for $45. Great.
His friend arrives in his taxi.
This picture does not do this car justice. It was nothing that you would really ever want to drive. He then tells us that he has to leave, so we need to go to his house to sign the contract and we can drive his car around all day by ourselves. Interesting.....we got to his house, sign this "contract" and leave. This man is trusting two complete strangers with his car. Doesn't this sound strange to you??
We then follow the maps to the beaches. We are driving on dirt roads, then all of a sudden you will see a little opening that you drive down, and you see this. These beaches are in a completely natural state. They are beautiful, but I would prefer if someone would kill off the sticker bushes. Stickers don't go well with flip flops and swimsuits.
Ok, so why was I a total B? (more so than usual, that is!) Well, this was the day I became really sick with a bladder infection. I was so completely miserable and I had to pee about every 10 minutes. Here is documentation of the misery. I know, I don't look miserable here but I was in so much pain I really wanted to be anywhere but here.
On our way back to San Juan, beautiful sunset picture taken by my roommate.
2 comments:
I live in vieques... you can get here by plane from San Juan or from Ceiba (town just south of Fajardo where ferry leaqes). It takes 7 minutes to fly over and only $48 RT PP.We have LOTS of taxis..they are vans called publicos and have yellow plates. But we also have lots of friendly entrepeneurs to give tours. and after driving the roads yourself - did you figure out why cars look in bad shape and/or are expensive to run? I think you need to open your mind up a bit to adventure..Culebra is even more rustic.Maybe your infection really was the root of your fears though
Apparently the "entrepreneur" we pissed off found my blog. This is an opinion blog, and while my opinion of Vieques is not half as nice as I tried to make it appear on here, I will NEVER recommend Vieques to anyone for the SOLE reason of rude people like you. We met three friendly people in Vieques - a lady at the snorkel shop, a man while getting our ferry tickets, and a man at the car rental shop. Everyone else was down right rude. No, my infection was not due to fears, it was your dirty water.
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