Lost? I never get lost!

“Lost? You can’t get lost on an island. It’s 35 miles wide and 100 miles long. How can you get lost? And besides, we’ve got a GPS…” Those words were ringing through my mind as we drove through the mountains of Puerto Rico without a map and with a GPS that decided not to work. It was Nikki’s birthday and we decided that we would get out of San Juan and explore a little. We drove to the south side of the island and had a picnic lunch on the Caribbean coast and then decided that we would head back through the mountains taking the “scenic route.” That morning I had looked for our detailed map and couldn’t find it so we decided that we would “wing it” and besides I’m good with directions and we had a GPS. On top of all that it’s an island—how could you get lost.

Once we began our ascent up into the mountains things began to change. The road narrowed, but oncoming traffic didn’t seem to mind. I could have sworn that we would lose our side view mirror at least a dozen times. Puerto Rico is very mountainous with several mountains over 4,000 feet high. That may not sound like much but when sea level is about 10 miles away, that’s pretty intense. As we continued to climb higher and higher, Nikki began to get quieter and quieter. Our fun filled day was entering a transition to a not so fun filled day. I reassured her that I knew the “scenic route” and that once we got to the top of the mountain we would hit that road and head east.

We finally found route 143 “the scenic route” and headed east. By this time, Nikki was wishing that she had taken some Dramamine and I was wishing that we would had taken the interstate back home. Anyway, I thought I knew where this road would take us…until we came to a crossroads and I had no idea which way to turn. Our GPS was confused as well. According to it, we were not on any known roads. I felt a sense of panic set in. I have no idea where we are. This is not at all the way I remember the map. Which way…? I made a choice and this choice seemingly put us deeper into the mountains. We found a little town and there we stopped to try to figure out what to do next. The GPS was still just as confused as ever and was telling me to go back the way we came. My thought was…there’s got to be a better way. I remembered that my cell phone has this nifty little GPS function on it so I tried it and then figured out where were. We were somewhere between Barranquitas and Honduras. I was a little confused at first but quickly realized that Honduras was a little town nearby and not the country.

Once we got an idea where we were we continued to head east through very mountainous and curvy roads. Nikki was beyond the point of enjoying her birthday and this culminated in the fact that we had to stop on the side of the road because Nikki got sick from the curves. Just to give you an idea of how curvy the roads were, it took us an hour and a half to drive 15 miles and from the point that we got “lost” it took us about 3 hours to find our way home.

We made it home and learned a valuable lesson through it: Don’t forget your map!

In case you are wondering, Lydia was with us and handled it better than either one of us!