Humacao and Monkey Island

Yesterday Geoff and I decided to get out and about a little, since its been a while since we've done some exploring.

We had intended to go into the mountains, but found ourselves passing right through Caguas, and ending in Humacao at the Reserva Natural by the Department of Natural Resources. We just stumbled across it - and what a beautiful little spot! No manicured beaches here, but also no people, no hotels - just lots of lizards and beautiful flora!

We did a little hike up one of the bigger cliffs which opened up into a gorgeous view of the Caribbean Sea and Cayo Santiago (Monkey Island) - which is when Geoff suggested that we go for a kayak out there.

We stopped at a little stand for lunch and had freshly made fish empanadillas - yum!

Unfortunately we missed out on the last boat that left for Monkey Island that day - but then we got in touch with Barefoot Travellers, a couple run and owned guesthouse that also offered kayak and hanggliding to their guests. They happened to have an opening in the afternoon since the weather was too bad to go hang gliding, so offered to take us out to Monkey Island. Keisha, one of the owners is a dog-lover with 4 of her own, so offered to "babysit" Alpen whilst Geoff and I headed out with her husband on the kayaks.

The weather was brewing up something big - so we paddled straight to the island, splashing over the choppy waters and I jumped in for a snorkel as we got closer. There are a lot of fish, and I saw my first conch!

The island has about 1200 monkeys, all from India. The University of Puerto Rico are doing research on their social-behavioural learning, therefor the public are not allowed to set foot on the island. Plus - many of the monkeys have diseases that are dangerous to humans.
It was interesting to see how the monkeys interacted and all the babies scampering around.

We made it back, but not before we got rained on! All in all a great day out and anyone that wants to check out Monkey Island, I definitely recommend the Kayak option over the boat - you're much closer to nature!

(Pics are coming later, for some reason Blogger wont allow me to upload this morning. For those of you who have Facebook, they're up there!)