Always Order Dessert: Honeymoon

I've been wanting to share some of the pictures from our honeymoon with you, but there was so much to tell that I didn't know where to begin! I decided to split it up into a few posts. First, a recap (and a few photos!) of our stay.

Eugene and I spent our honeymoon in Vieques, the small island 8 miles off the East coast of Puerto Rico. To get there we flew four hours from New York to San Juan, then took a cab ride from the airport to Fajardo, a coastal town on the Eastern tip of the main island. In Fajardo we paid $2 each to board a ferry that would take us the hour-long trip over the choppy sea to Vieques.

The boat was freezing and Eugene and I spent the trip huddled under my airplane blanket, eagerly anticipating our arrival. [You can also travel directly from San Juan to Vieques by puddle jumper, but I had a hysterical panic attack the last time we traveled on one of those little planes (I blame one-too-many childhood viewings of "La Bamba" and "Sweet Dreams") so Eugene promised me we'll never have to do that again.]

The boat docked at the main dock, and we excitedly rolled our overstuffed suitcases down the metal gangplank. From there we had to flag down a ride to our hotel. Since Vieques is such a small island, with a limited number of vehicles, those residents and visitors who don’t have personal cars, ride around in shared passenger vans called "publicos." We found one quickly, and were soon on our way to Hacienda Tamarindo, the gorgeous bed and breakfast that would be our home for our two-week stay.

This was our second time in Vieques and at Hacienda Tamarindo. Some of you might remember that we spent few days there last February and that it's the very spot where Eugene proposed to me. When picking the place to spend our honeymoon we tossed around multiple locations around the world, until we finally realized that we just wanted to go back to Vieques.

Our room was gorgeous! It was a large corner room with a small balcony overlooking the freshwater pool and a gorgeous palm tree-lined field where wild horses grazed and galloped all day and night. The sea lay just beyond, and from our room we could hear the crashing of the waves against the coast.

The hotel's resident (adorable!!!) sheepdog Zach, who played a prominent role in our engagement last year, was still there and I made a point of spending as much time with him as possible.