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Playa Carlos Rosario, Isla Culebra
In contrast to all of my previous walk reports, this one's outside Scotland, and by that I don't mean England, I mean the tiny island of Culebra in the Caribbean. When I went to Culebra, I didn't envisage myself coming back and writing a report on here, but even although the walk in question is only 20 minutes long, it was very interesting experience, off the beaten track, and to one of the most beautiful (and deserted, hem hem dare I say s.k.i.n.n.y--d.i.p.p.a.b.l.e all day long) beaches I have ever been to.
Culebra is a tiny island a 15 minute flight or 90 minute ferry ride from Isla Grande (or as it's better known, Puerto Rico). Unfortunately, getting there for us was a bit of a nightmare - the ferry company are useless: there is very little information about schedules online and no way to reserve - we called them on all of their phone numbers for 4 days previous to our trip and noone bothered to pick up. We were hoping to take the 9am ferry on the 8th but, instead of arriving to find either the boat was full (which is commonly the case) or wasn't going (which is also commonly the case), we decided to try our luck at the airport instead. This was also an interesting experience: you can reserve flights to Culebra, only we hadn't had the foresight to do so (what with hoping to take the ferry for $2). So we turned up at the airport, waited a couple of hours for enough people to show up to fill the 9 seat plane, and went. I might add, the couple of hours waiting in the airport were a bit tense - not knowing if, never mind when, you're going to travel at all isn't a brilliant feeling. But the flight made up for it several times over - I've never been in such a small plane, and flying over the Caribbean archipelago on a clear morning in it was one of the most memorable experiences I've had.
Landing at Culebra was a lot of fun (apologies for the quality, taken on my iPhone [on airplane mode ofcourse!]):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwr2B1_J22k&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
We spent the rest of the day on Playa Flamenco, the beach that Culebra is most famous for (no. 2 beach in the world according to this:
http://www.beachbumparadise.com/top-ten-most-exotic-beaches-world-part/ ). It is absolutely gorgeous, and the swimming and snorkeling on the reef is extraordinary, but it gets very busy and there isn't much shade (a definite requirement for yours truly, being Scottish and pasty). That night, in Mamacitas restaurant, a kindly soul quietly informed us that if we wanted to get away from the people at Flamenco, another beach worth visiting was Carlos Rosario, not marked as a sandy beach on the map and not signposted, so on the 9th, we headed up to the Playa Flamenco car park and looked for the start of the path to Carlos Rosario.
This is what greeted us, not something you often see munroing in Scotland:
Culebra was used by the US Navy as a bombing range (much like Cape Wrath) until the 70s - there are still a few signs of this, including the ' possible unexploded military ammunitions' and even full size tanks like this one:
This'll put hair on your chest:
After double checking with a Culebrense (local lass) that it was indeed the route to Carlos Rosario, we proceeded to tip-toe through the gate and onto the path. I might add that I don't condone walking through mine-fields, and I don't think that Paul and WH will do either. The trail climbs gradually up for about half a mile through the jungle - it's quite well worn, and by sticking firmly to the track we figured that our chances of blowing up were pretty slim.
As the track starts to descend, the first look at the deep blue sea comes into view, and eventually you arrive beside Playa Tamarindo, a nice strip of sandy beach, but not our ultimate destination. The track turns right along the shoreline and narrows before cutting across a tiny headland (it's more of a spit really) to Playa Carlos Rosario.
Playa Tamarindo from the track to Carlos Rosario
Arrival
Enjoying a beer
What a view
In the whole day we had the beach pretty much to ourselves, and the warm Caribbean sea was calm and full of fish. The only regret was forgetting the snorkel as the reefs around Culebra are incredibly luscious, and Carlos Rosario is completely surrounded by reef.
From the plane I took 2 pictures of Carlos Rosario without even realizing it (we hadn't even heard of it at that point). View of Playa Carlos Rosario (lower left), and Playa Flamenco (top right) with part of the route visible in between:
and from a wee bit further away
