Wednesday adventure

We live near the beach and we love the ocean so many of our adventures are in and around the water.

But one of the things that attracted us to Puerto Rico in the first place was the great variety of environments on this relatively small (111 mi x 39 mi) island lately we've been trying to explore some of the other environments. Yesterday we headed up into the mountains looking for waterfalls.

At least waterfalls were the excuse. Mostly we just wanted to drive around in the mountains around Las Marias and Maricao. The roads up in the mountains are incredible: narrow, windy, twisty, up and down and around with huge stands of bamboo growing right to the edge of the road.

 

We were looking for one waterfall in particular and we almost found it. When we got to the parking place on the road -

it started to rain (it is a rain forest after all). When we realized we still had a 30-40 minute walk - in the late afternoon rain - we decided to save the waterfall for another day and continued our driving adventure.

We had no idea what an adventure it was about to become.

We decided to go through the town of San German (the second oldest town in Puerto Rico) and head for the coast. We thought we'd drive up the coast and find one of the seafood restaurants in Joyuda.

In San German the road narrowed unexpectedly and I hit a curb. A high curb. Hard. The impact blew out the sidewall of the right front tire. It's drizzling. We're stopped on a small hill right in town. Big sigh! I got out the jack, chocked the wheels as best I could and started jacking the car up. But not chocked quite well enough and the car rolled off the jack. It all sounds like a disaster in progress.

But...

There were two women on the porch of a house across the street. Elaine asked them if they had a block of wood we could use. They said yes and brought us a chunk of 4x4. I chocked the wheels with the 4x4 and started to reposition the jack. One of the women said, "No, no! Espera! (wait!)" Her husband brought out a Craftsman floor jack. He stuck it under the car and with a few short strokes, the car was up! Busted tire off, spare tire on.

While all this was going on, there was a man, not even from San German but from Mayaguez, near the crest of the hill making sure no one coming over the crest hit us. He was also waiting for a tow-truck he called for two women farther down the street who had down almost the same thing I did.

So the spare was on. Lowered the jack and...the spare was flat. Shoulder slump. But not to worry! Another guy came out of another house with a battery-operated compressor. In a few minutes the tire was inflated and we were ready to go find a new tire. Pep Boys is about our only option at that time of the evening. Mike, the man from Mayaguez, told us he was going right by Pep Boys on his way home and we could follow him.

What amazingly wonderful people! What an amazing happy-ending adventure! We never did get our seafood. We decided that was enough adventure and took the easiest most direct route home. But we will go back!