A Town, a Lighthouse, a Sunset

It's a beautiful morning here in Puerto Rico, and before I go off to enjoy it, I thought I'd write about our Wednesday adventures.

I took the lessons of Tuesday at heart and settled into a morning of reading, journal writing, and watching the sea. Half way through the morning, a beautiful brown cat came to keep us company. He flirted with us for pets and then basked in the sunshine. His blue collar and bell indicate that he was a local cat, probably adept at visiting new guests. The sun was warm, and my pale skin drew in the vitamin D.

After lunch, we went on our daily excursion. This time a triple stop: the town of San German, the Cabo Rojo lighthouse and the sunset at El Combate beach. We drove to San German, and Google took me through Lajas again, which irritated me from the night before. So, we turned around and got on the right road and made it to San German.

An almost five hundred year old town, it has all the charm of an old chapel ruin and new-ish charm of the early 1900s architecture. Our first stop was the Museo de Puerto Cielo, where a very friendly museum director named Guido, took us around the museum, giving us little bits of history on the church and town. Rebuilt 50 years ago, it still has a ruin of the old chapel and the original old wood beams. As we were preparing to leave, he handed us two CDs of Puerto Rican music and his business card, saying to call if we have any trouble anywhere. So, off we went to the next square to admire the various architectures and colors. A cute old town definitely worth a casual meander.

Then, back in the car and back south to the far western peninsula of the Cabo Rojo reserve and lighthouse. The roads meandered through quiet countryside with a few small herds of cows and lots of trees. The guidebooks all caution about the terrible dirt road with potholes that leads to the lighthouse, but it was easily navigable and not so bad--not like the roads and potholes I remember in Kenya! The lighthouse sits atop beautiful cliffs and is a beautiful grey and white with bright green shutters--which seemed to me another reminder that the Puerto Ricans love color. We walked all around the lighthouse, soaking in the beautiful spot. It was Janvier's first lighthouse, so I was quite glad to share my passion for them with her.

After a good hour or less, we made our way back to the car and El Combate, a small little coastal town with small beach houses and bars, but most of it was closed up. I imagine next week will bring out all the holiday revelers. We found a spot on the beach and watched all the clouds roll towards our sunset. It was a beautiful spot to sit, and music wafted from the bars while we waited. While we couldn't see the golden orb sink beyond the water, we caught all the beautiful reflections off the layers of clouds. So while we didn't get the sunset we searched for, we still found beauty.

We made it home and cooked up our dinners, sinking into bed early and pleasantly exhausted. The only down side was being woken up this morning with a mosquito in my ear. We get ready for the day, which will include a hike along the beach, hoping to reach the mangroves this time.