Puerto Rico

Ok, it's been a long time in the coming: a new entry on the travel blog! Persistent people (like mom) check it every day, probably for months on end, and continue to see the same old stale entry about Costa Rica. So sorry... I will try to play catch up now.

My Puerto Rico trip last October was another spontaneous trip. I have an instinctive reaction to spotting a super discounted airfare. Immediately upon the find, I systematically check my calendar dates for any conflicts, circle by my supervisor's cubicle for clearance to leave work, and then go to work organizing the details. It's a thrill knowing that I can be that spontaneous and that I can just DO that sort of thing.

The airfare to San Juan was somewhere in the neighborhood of 230 USD round trip. I know, I know, that's just a crazy cheap airfare. Granted it was a red-eye flight, and my routing was through JFK, but that's a small price to pay for the promise of sunny beaches and tropical waters. Never mind too that it was hurricane season.

My coworker Shawn and his wife Billie were also coincidentally planning a trip there at the same time, so there was also the promise of some company for maybe a little bit of the trip. My intention though was to remain relatively independent and to do my own thing. Sometimes my trips are nice that way. It seems that when I travel by myself, I also have better luck at meeting new people... if that's what I feel like.

The weather was hot and muggy when I arrived. I had opted for a small, quaint inn close to the beach in a section of town outside of old San Juan, called Ocean Park. The location seemed perfect. I could walk to the beach in under 5 minutes, and the inn appeared to be a renovated villa that was fixed up nicely.

I spent the first evening with Shawn and Billie. We went to a restaurant in Old San Juan that laid claim to the discovery of the Pina Colada. We ordered, of course, Pina Coladas, which were just-- ok. Go figure... shouldn't they have been like the "best" Pina Coladas, since were were after all, at the source? hmmm... After dinner, while walking, we stumbled on a fun club called "Milk" in the upstairs of an old building. It was almost Halloween, so a number of people were in costume. After Milk, we parted ways and I taxied by myself to another club that I had read about in my preparatory reading for the trip. There, I mingled and talked to several people, enjoyed the music, and then called it a night.

The next day it rained and I hung close to the pool and my room, waiting for the weather to clear. It never did clear that day. The wireless Internet signal was very weak in my room, so I camped out for a while in the lobby, surfing the web, and chatting up locals in different chat rooms. (It's a tactic I've found to be a productive for meeting locals) I had an engaging chat with one guy in particular, Javier, a professional type about my age, congenial and normal enough. I agreed to meet up with him for dinner and some site-seeing around the streets of Old San Juan. Javier and I had a a nice dinner in an upscale restaurant and then we walked around while he shared some of the buildings and history of old town with me.

We then met up with a couple of his friends at one of his favorite hangouts, a lively little hangout, painted in bright colors. That began the late night club/pub crawl. At about 3am, we encountered on the street, several of Javier's friends from his apartment building, still in costume from a Halloween party. We went all together to a cozy neighborhood bar. It was one of those places that has been established for probably generations and is filled with dozens of pictures of people and mementos on the walls. Various currency notes from around the world were pinned up around the cash register and everybody seemed to know everybody else. One drink into our visit, the bartender spontaneously started the salsa music. The very next moment I was pulled away from the bar by Maria, a self-identified salsa teacher, for an impromptu lesson. It was fun. I like that kind of spontaneity and I seem to find it more often in latin cultures.

The next day it was rainy again. On the weather channel in my room, I watched Puerto Rico being soaked by the backside of hurricane Noel. No threat to me, except to my beach time, it was slogging across the Dominican Republic to the west. Finally, there appeared to be a break in the afternoon and so I promptly headed for the beach. It was quiet except for the surf and was nearly empty of people. I called my sister Jeralee to chat while I dug in the sand, watched the ocean, and kept an eye on the dark clouds. It wasn't even an hour before I had to run for cover from the rain.

I didn't really get much beach time or sun in Puerto Rico, but I did acquire some Don Q (Puerto Rican rum) on my way through duty free in the airport. I love duty free. Unfortunately, I didn't get to keep the rum for long, let alone drink any of it. Due to a security breach at JFK, the terminal where I was waiting for my connecting flight was evacuated. We stood outside the terminal for what seemed like hours, waiting to be called back in slowly, flight by flight, to be re screened bag by bag, body by body. Grrr... With no obvious way to check my "liquids", I had to abandon my Don Q on the Delta ticket counter.

Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of this trip. I took my camera, but I was so distracted by all of the rain that I didn't think to snap any photos. I did bring home something though- a dozen or so sand fly bites from that very short beach visit.


next up... China!!!