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NOVEMBER 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home NOVEMBER 18, 2021 | The Jewish Home
The Wandering
Jew
Puerto Rico By Hershel Lieber
Cabezas Nature Reserve
I
sort of dreaded tax season. It meant full days, late nights, myriad phone calls, and paperwork galore. I enjoyed seeing my clients, especially the ones I met only annually during tax season, but I can’t say that I appreciated the tension that preceded the April 15th deadline. Although my workload was full with year-end accounting work for corporations and preparation for personal taxes, I felt that a pretax season vacation would have a calming effect to help me pull through the impending storm. Pesi understood my needs and supported my wish to get away for a week. Where to? Israel and Europe were really out of the question. Too far a destination for so little time. Most U.S. states were too cold in January to spend there a week’s vacation. Florida? Been there, done that – a number of times. The Caribbean Islands? Everything revolved around beaches and the ocean – traditionally inappropriate. But there was one island that had enough to see and what to do that would be of interest to us.
The beautiful bioluminescent bay
And that was Puerto Rico. There was history. There was culture. There was natural beauty. And it was close enough to New York and had adequately warm weather. So in early January of 2011 we arrived in San Juan. It was Tuesday, and we rented a car and drove about forty-five minutes to Villa Sevilla near the El Yunque National Forest. We rented a small cottage situated on beautiful tropical grounds. There were a scattered number of rental cottages nearby, but all were empty since
we arrived just after the busy holiday season. We basically had the whole compound for ourselves. Other than one shopping trip to a local Walmart, we spent Tuesday and Wednesday just relaxing. We read, learned, talked, cooked and prepared meals from food that we brought along, and took more than one nap each day. Maybe it was a bit boring, but it was just what we needed at the time. By Thursday we were ready to take on the island! Early that morning we went to see the famed Luquillo Beach.
There were no swimmers there at the time, so we were able to sit and enjoy the tranquility of the white sanded seashore surrounded by majestic palms. From there, we went to see the Las Cabezas Nature Reserve. We took a guided tour, which included a lecture by a park ranger. We also hiked for a while along a mangrove habitat trail. The scenery was stunning, and I was constantly snapping away with my camera. We had to rush back to daven and eat supper since we had booked a very unusual night activity. We found out that there was a unique natural phenomenon nearby called Bioluminescent Bay. Microscopic organisms in the bay light up blue when the water is agitated. This natural wonder is seen only in five places on Earth, three of which are in Puerto Rico. This wonderous sight can only be seen during nighttime and to get out to the bay you have to rent a kayak. We bought water shoes and then rented a kayak. A guide went ahead of a group of ten kayaks and directed us into the bay. I never kayaked before
