Rainforestinn's B&B Blog -- El Yunque, Puerto Rico

Blogging Often? I'd Rather be Biking

Blogging authorities agree -- a weekly blog post (some say daily) is the only way to keep your readers coming back for more. But there's so many things vying for my attention. It's high season at the rainforest inn. All our villas are booked with no vacancies in sight. The calendar looks all red with the marking tape we use to show bookings. We are now using an internet booking calendar which is saving some time.  I don't have to answer as many calls from guests wanting to stay nights that we're already booked because they can check the calendar themselves. We are also looking into a call answering service that will take messages and take bookings those times when we can't answer the phone. So what am I doing with all the extra time?

  This is a picture of my bike, taken this morning, leaning up against the sign just up the road from our entrance. I love to bike up that road in the morning. The rainforest is densely packed green vegetation on each side and the trees grow over and shade the road. There are stands of bamboo that move in the early morning breeze making spooky sounds. Two bridge crossings go over the headwaters of the Espiritu Santo river with lovely waterfalls on the south side of the bridge and an expansive view down the mountain to the north. After that early morning ride I always feel more full of energy and more able to deal with another day of not enough time (to blog). I have an extra bike and often ask my guests if they're interested in joining me for the ride up the road but no one has yet taken me up on the offer. I recommend highly for anyone else who finds themselves with too much on their calendar and no free time to take off in the early morning for a brisk 45 minutes of enjoyable aerobic exercise. It is not lost time. 

Mistaken identity

This morning I slept in too late to ride my bike before helping Laurie deliver the breakfasts (we serve breakfast at 9 am so I had no excuse). I was walking around, a little groggy from sleep, and kept hearing someone hammering in the background. There was also a bird squaking (a parrot?) but the hammering sound came from a different direction like someone working upstairs. I didn't really think about it because, if I had, I would have realized that there wasn't anyone upstairs 'cause we never do any work on the inn when there are guests staying.

When I walked up the driveway to open the gate the hammering sound got louder. We have two gates. The main gate is a mile down the mountain and it has an access control automatic system that calls my cell phone so I can beep someone in but our second gate is just above the parking and I haven't installed a gate opener in it yet. I kind of enjoy the quiet late evenings and early mornings when I walk up there to push the heavy gate aside on its steel rollers. The walk up the driveway also helps wake me up because I realized that the hammering sound had to be a woodpecker. He was really going at it. Pounding away furiously in small branch coming off the palma rosa tree in the dense brush there. Bits of wood fibers and sawdust were spewing to each side. I wish I could have gotten a video to post here but by the time I got the camera changed to video he flew off. He came back the next day but when I snuck up with the camera that time he must have already talked to his agent because at the first sight of the lens he took off again. I will keep trying though because he looks cool going at it with his hard beak and the hammering sound is so loud.