Una Buena Despedida del Ano

A winter storm this week wreaked havoc on the New York streets and the schedule of departures from the San Juan airport. Four days after the storm, it appeared that Jet Blue wasn't yet back on track as our return flight was cancelled. This afforded me the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful ride with Lizzie, her friend Miguel, her coach, and his son.

We started at the coach's home in the hills to the west of the city of Ciales and headed down into Utuado for another lovely view of Lago dos Bocas. We had a good sightseeing pace and the weather was cool (for Puerto Rico) and sunny. Next we enjoyed a smooth ride along the river to the town of Utuado. Then some nice slow climbing and a visit to another lovely lake with a name like Caonillas. It was quite senic because of a high green headwall behind the bridge. It's been raining here, and we saw several waterfalls as well, one small ribbon of a waterfall on the headwall and several others on the roadside. More climbing from the lake with views as we followed the edge of the lake. Pink flowers grew by the roadside and were lovely to see as we pedaled up. I don't know the name but the flower is ubiquitous in the moutains here. I also enjoyed looking at the brightly colored little houses in the countryside and the holiday decorations. Next we entered an incredible valley . We had crossed over the moutain ridge at this point and the jungle gave way to grass. A tall pampas grass grew down by the river. With the sun on our backs, it really was paradise. Traffic was minimal. We were on the kind of road that I might had doubted actually led anywhere had I been doing this route alone. The road was narrow and clung to the hillside. Water flowed over the road in several places. In others, there were many holes in the road and the pavement was destroyed. In others, sand covered the road. Rather than dangers though, these were mere annoyances as we were spinning slowly and able to ride through all sections. I did nearly hit one of the many small dogs which ran out at us, fortunately it dodged the wheel. We arrived at the town of Jayuya and headed for the church. Lizzie is collecting photos of churches which she visits on her bicycle. This particular church was on a quiet plaza and very cute. She posed in a life size nativity scene set in front of the church. The town is very small and after just a little pedalling we were back in the countryside and able to appreciate that the town is surrounded by green mountains, so there was really nowhere to go but up. More sweet climbing and we returned to jungle scenery and riding through cool tunnels of bamboo. We started a long descent a bit after regrouping at an intersection with signs for Florida and Cieles (we headed towards Florida). I took it easy on the descent because there were a few occasional cars and bad pavement and many blind turns. Also, I was trying to catch a view of the landscape below. The karst formations in the area of Cieles were visable as small bumps way below and the ocean was on the horizon. After a descent long enough to give a few muscles in my upper body a reminder that I'm not as fit as I'd like to be, we hit a section of rolling hills. This gave way to to the home stretch of about 5 miles of steady climbing. By this time, it was afternoon and several small children were out and very excited to see a women riding a bicycle by their house. In total we covered over 60 miles and literally the only sections which were flat were the town streets of Utuado and Jayuya, a short stretch of riverside in Utuado, and the dams on the two lakes. This was one of the most beautiful routes that I have ridden - what a treat for New Year's Eve.