South of America: Weekend fun!

We got away from the field station friday night and hit the town. It was great, I had a stuffed avocado w/ fried green plantain and fried sweet plantain for dinner. The sweet was definitely way better! Mom and dad were right, food here is on the bland side.. Luckily they have garlic/cilantro/salsa that I poured over everything. It added lots of flavor.

Afterward, we perused the town, and we found a great little beer bar!

Melting Faces.

I thought Punto was a curse word....

Street Art, is as good as the street food.

Reminds me of Barleys and Sunspot

Beer Bar! Bartender is wearing a "The Shins" t shirt. Freakin sweet!

Then, saturday, we toured the touristy side of El Yunque National forest. I have SO many pictures from there and It takes a long time to upload them to here, so for more photos, the facebook is good. facebook.com/brandyp

Anyway, we hiked up to a tower and got some great views of the island. Also, we were able to see where at the top of the mountain, the composition of the forest changes to Elfin, or dwarf forest. Growth is stunted and there are less Tabonuco and Cecropia trees and many many palms. Then, we hiked back down drove halfway down the mountain and stopped at La mina Falls. We hiked down and saw some beautiful scenery. As always. People were barbecuing and oh it smelled so great. Afterward, when my camera finally died, we went down to Luquillo and got to eat some street food, I had a shrimp filled fried taco thing that was bananna shaped dough filled with spiced shrimp. With the hot sauce, oh boy, was it good. Emily bought those and so I bought us two beers. I'll try to take more pictures of food. We got to swim in the ocean, which had no waves at the time. It was strange. There was a flow crossing the beach that was freshwater coming down from the mountains. It was cool and unsalty, yes I tasted it because I have an unhealthy lack of fear of germs. Maybe Peru in december will change that.

Anyway, Enjoy the photos :)