After one day back in Austin, I decided to head down to Costa Rica for a few days. I understand there are many adventures to be had and many diseases to be caught. It sounds like a good time!

Towards sunset, we traveled over to the west side of the island to watch the sunset. We were in an area called “Bravos,” where all the gringos hang out and do all kinds of fun white things like badminton and not looting.

There were some very pretty houses over on this side of the island and there seemed to be a lot of renovation happening. It is starting to appear that people are finding out about how pretty Vieques is and it may turn into another St. Bart’s, in terms of escalating real estate prices.

After making several wrong turns and going through a slum area where people scowled at me as I ripped through their shanty town with my sweet SUV, I finally found my way to an old Spanish fort that overlooked Isabella Secundo. I would have stayed up there longer and taken more pictures, but there was a Conquistador following me, trying to give me Legionnaire’s Disease.

(Picture quarantined.)

The US Navy used to own about 22,000 out of the 33,000 acres on the island. Even though they recently released a lot of the land for public use, there remain several restricted areas. It was with a leery eye with which I anxiously explored down the roads that said, “Danger, Unexplored Ordinance.”

I knew I was staying in a bad part of the island when my hotel directions said, “Turn left at the hidden land mine and keep going straight for 2 miles when your Geiger counter explodes.”

I rented this car from Maritza Car Rental. The island only had one gas station that was open right when I ran out of gas. Luckily, I ran out of gas at my destination, where I bribed a guy to go fill it with gas for me while I was busy eating fried conch fritters. Handing money blindly to a non-English speaking Puerto Rican may sound scary, but it really wasn’t. Yes it was.

We stayed at a unique little place in Isabella Secundo called Casa de Amistad. At first I thought the rooms would be inexpensive because we would be sleeping aboard a slave ship. I was wrong, unless Martha Stewart came up with her new “Fall Slave Ship Collection.” It did have tiny rooms, but they were very nice. It also had a nice pool out back.

On the way to the bioluminescent bay, we found a pregnant crab. Even though this looks like a pretty nasty thing to hold, it was a little bit more pleasant, like holding your own entrails as they spill out of your severed belly.

You can see the hairy egg sacks on the bottom of the crab. I suppose that sort of thing is pretty gross, unless you are a male crab in Puerto Rico that has nothing to do all day but watch Telemundo.

Don’t fly this airline. It wasn’t bad, if you are into death and turbulence. We took it from Puerto Rico to Isla de Vieques. Halfway through the flight, the pilot asked us to put our hands out the window at a slight angle to increase lift.

After leaving Nevis, we decided to go to Isla de Vieques for a while. Never heard of it? Neither had I a few months ago! It is a tiny island right off Puerto Rico that used to be a fairly major Naval base for the US until just recently.

It is completely undeveloped and undiscovered. The beaches here are some of the best I have seen in the Caribbean, and I was really impressed. Most of the beaches we visited were either totally empty or had just a few people on them.

I’ll put up a few quick pics here of the beaches until I have more time.

Two-thirds of my cab drivers in Nevis only had one functioning eye. I tried to get a better picture of this second guy, but trust me. There was just one.

(Picture not visible via stereopsis.)