Although there’s been extraordinarily little snow this season, we have been beleaguered with long stretches of sunless gray days, and by mid-January desperately needed some sunshine. The gloom was finally enough to make my more fiscally responsible better half start to crack–when I caught her looking at flights to warmer lands I knew it was time to strike. Luckily San Juan, PR is an easy nonstop ride from our New England base.
After setting up shop at the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar , we were hungry and thirsty, anxious to shed our New England winter traveling clothes for lighter garb. It seems wrong, but I got my first lifer, one of the many personable Greater Antillean Grackles, in swim trunks with a cervesa in hand.
We booked a rental car and headed up to El Yunque , the only US National Forest that is a tropical rainforest . The rebuilt visitor’s center is beautiful and accessible, with the opportunity to peek into the canopy as well as to get up close and personal with a few endangered Puerto Rican Parrots. We never ventured much beyond the center, but very much enjoyed the birding around its woods and gardens.