We woke up today to pick up our cars that we rented. We each got a Toyota Yaris.It was kind of cool to drive this car because it is similar to our Ford Fiesta and we had considered trying out the Yaris. So far I am happy we went with the fiesta.

Since we couldn’t check into Coqui’s Hideaway near the rain forest until 3 pm we decided to hang out in Old San Juan. We left our hotel to head for Old San Juan around 10 am. We found parking spaces in a garage in Old San Juan…it is very hard to find parking! Never rent a car if you are just staying in Old San Juan.

We stopped for breakfast sandwiches and lattes before we started walking around. We started walking to one of the forts, Castillo San Felipe del Morro, ‘El Morro’. The walk there was very hot, but the views were great and we saw lots of cats! The cats of Old San Juan!

Once we got closer to the fort it was cooler with a breeze. El Morro was $3. We walked around there for about an hour and took lots of pictures. It rained a bit on the way back but it felt good. We found a place to eat, Manolin. It was pretty good, but it was so cold in the restaurant! The power went out for a bit and it was nice because then the AC couldn’t blast. The food was okay, nothing spectacular. I had fried steak with rice and beans and plantains. After we were done eating we checked out a few gift shops. Then we went back to the car to make our drive to Coqui’s Hideaway.

The drive to Coqui’s was about 30-40 minutes. It was a nice drive until we started heading into the mountains. It got scary, the road was so curvy. Once we got to Coqui’s we met with Ray. Coqui’s Hideaway is basically a house rental and Ray is our host. He lives next door with his wife. Coqui’s is very nice and the property is beautiful. There was a little welcome basket with fruits grown on the property, rum, Puerto Rican snacks, and supplies to make pina coladas.

Once Ray showed us around we decided to check out the pool. The pool area was awesome. It overlooked the rain forest, El Yunque. The pool water was very cold though so I did not get in. I just enjoyed laying in the sun; it felt awesome. The views were amazing.

We found a few coqui frogs, which is how coqui’s got its name. Coqui frogs live only in Puerto Rio and they are loved by everyone. They make a mating call that sounds like “co-key”. They are also small and super cute.

We found a huge spider up in the rafters above the grill. He looked like he had been in a fight because he was missing 2 legs. We named him Senor Seis. He was very scary looking but still he was very interesting. I wonder what kind of spider he was. He was above us and too hard to kill so we decided to just keep our eyes on him.

Once we got out of the pool we decided to go to Ralph’s Grocery Store. We picked up a few things then on the way home we stopped at El Verde BBQ. It wasn’t really a place to sit down so we got our food to go. It was a little interesting place on the corner. It seemed to be the place to go and they even had a couple of gambling arcade games. We got a ton of food: a rotisserie chicken, pork, rice and beans, plantains, sausage, and sweet fried potatoes. The food was delicious. After dinner we were stuffed but we still had room for some rum and coke and beers.

We went out to the pool again and saw Senor Seis. He had moved a little and was between the boards now in the roof. Then we came back inside and watched some movies. There is a huge movie collection at Coqui’s. We watched 2 movies, I can’t remember the first one but the second one was Whip It. Then we went to bed. Tomorrow we are going hiking into El Yunque.