Subject: Re: Puerto Rico for 11 days
G'Day folks,

I lived in Puerto Rico during my childhood and re-visited it about 1996 so I'm not sure my info will be as up to date as maybe some others is. But anyway here's what I know...

For the first part of your question...the roads have improved enough that you could use San Juan as a base for exploring much of the eastern side of the island and to the north west towards Mayaguez too. If you are surfers, the best or most popular sites for this are not easily accessible as a day trip from San Juan since they are on the western south part of the island.

We found a beautiful small hotel owned by a couple who reside in Maine in the USA down that way. It is beautiful and the surrounding countryside is as different from the rest of the island as the desert is from a rain forest.. The hotel is called the Copamarina and I think it is in Guanica. http://www.copamarina.com/

If you are interested send me your private e-mail address and I will send along some pictures of the property we took while there. And I will also try to find the contact info for it. I am not affiliated with the place in any way. We found good discount bargains on the net for the big resorts like the Hyatt Regency and The El Dorado just outside San Juan...also the El Conqusitador on the eastern side of the island.

We did love this one since it had it's own private island, two golf courses, a casino and lots of other big resort amenities. We did stay in several very low end Paradores but would not recommend them even though they are very inexpensive. The level of cleanliness was shall I say not all that could be desired.

Hope this helps, Jane Nowlin in Florida