Puerto Rico - Jan 22, 2008 - Day 11
Day 11 - Puerto Rico - Mayaguez, Holiday Inn Tropical Casino, Boqueron Lighthouse
Quiet day. We tried to find a local coffee shop based on some sketchy instructions, but ended up at Denny’s. Which, by the way, had decent coffee and free high speed internet. Hmmm, y’know, this internet thing could catch on in places. Really. Got lost in yet another area that under normal circumstances, triggers my “lock the door” impulse. Bars on the windows, cars up on jacks, rotted pickup trucks, craptastic asphalt, fences with barbed/razor wire on top. But that describes half the country and it feels safe to me.
People have been really nice to us. redjo used to speak Spanish half decently well, but she still has solid vocabulary and pidgin Spanish for nearly any tourist situation still usable. I speak enough to get my face slapped. By either gender. Now, I find that we speak Spanish to locals, and they speak English back to us. It works.
By the way, I’ve seen a couple of maneuvers in traffic that would make a [New Englander] proud. My favorite so far is using the wide skirt on a highway service road exit as a way to pass traffic on the right. Bumper chewing is a national blood sport. I’ve seen Californians do the motorcycle thing between lanes of traffic at high speed, but never with a pizza delivery box three feet wide on the back.
In the afternoon, we headed for San German, which we sorta missed. Then we headed for Lajas, missed the next few turns and missed it too. We ended up in a beautiful little back road, with an overhead tree and bamboo canopy. There were signs to the lighthouse at Boqueron, so why not? It was absolutely gorgeous. There is a mangrove swamp enclosed on three sides by the ocean, large salt deposits brushing up on the opposite side of the prevailing wind in the lagoon water.
The road goes up towards a salt pool operation. The ocean clearly overruns the road and the beach and the little sliver of trees on a regular basis, and then it dries out in the hot sun. The water is saturated with salt, and it peaks in a different way than ocean water. It looks black, even in daylight. The tips of the peaks foam constantly.
The lighthouse is at the tip of the road. If the water was two feet higher, it would be a full time island. It’s fully electronic now, and the buildings for the lighthouse keeper have been abandoned. The local ranger was by to check on the quantity of couples finding quiet places to make out, but it was a quiet night and rain was threatening. As the sun went down, I snapped a few pictures on my cell phone.
We drove back, relaxed, on the little back roads to Joyuda. Got lost twice. Felt like one of those warm sunny nights back home where midnight comes far too fast and the lights twinkle far out on the ocean, calling for me to imagine a perfect story of their reason for being. When we got back, it was definitely a movie night.
We sampled the culinary delights of dinner at the combo Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The indigestion twins, all under one roof. Across the parking lot, we meandered to the Cineplex theater to watch National Treasure 2. A bit less tightly written and exciting than the original, but I liked it. Just, please, the White House Oval Office is one of the most heavily alarmed, guarded and video recorded places in the US. Don’t make mistakes like that. Please ;)?
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Quiet day. We tried to find a local coffee shop based on some sketchy instructions, but ended up at Denny’s. Which, by the way, had decent coffee and free high speed internet. Hmmm, y’know, this internet thing could catch on in places. Really. Got lost in yet another area that under normal circumstances, triggers my “lock the door” impulse. Bars on the windows, cars up on jacks, rotted pickup trucks, craptastic asphalt, fences with barbed/razor wire on top. But that describes half the country and it feels safe to me.
People have been really nice to us. redjo used to speak Spanish half decently well, but she still has solid vocabulary and pidgin Spanish for nearly any tourist situation still usable. I speak enough to get my face slapped. By either gender. Now, I find that we speak Spanish to locals, and they speak English back to us. It works.
By the way, I’ve seen a couple of maneuvers in traffic that would make a [New Englander] proud. My favorite so far is using the wide skirt on a highway service road exit as a way to pass traffic on the right. Bumper chewing is a national blood sport. I’ve seen Californians do the motorcycle thing between lanes of traffic at high speed, but never with a pizza delivery box three feet wide on the back.
In the afternoon, we headed for San German, which we sorta missed. Then we headed for Lajas, missed the next few turns and missed it too. We ended up in a beautiful little back road, with an overhead tree and bamboo canopy. There were signs to the lighthouse at Boqueron, so why not? It was absolutely gorgeous. There is a mangrove swamp enclosed on three sides by the ocean, large salt deposits brushing up on the opposite side of the prevailing wind in the lagoon water.
The road goes up towards a salt pool operation. The ocean clearly overruns the road and the beach and the little sliver of trees on a regular basis, and then it dries out in the hot sun. The water is saturated with salt, and it peaks in a different way than ocean water. It looks black, even in daylight. The tips of the peaks foam constantly.
The lighthouse is at the tip of the road. If the water was two feet higher, it would be a full time island. It’s fully electronic now, and the buildings for the lighthouse keeper have been abandoned. The local ranger was by to check on the quantity of couples finding quiet places to make out, but it was a quiet night and rain was threatening. As the sun went down, I snapped a few pictures on my cell phone.
We drove back, relaxed, on the little back roads to Joyuda. Got lost twice. Felt like one of those warm sunny nights back home where midnight comes far too fast and the lights twinkle far out on the ocean, calling for me to imagine a perfect story of their reason for being. When we got back, it was definitely a movie night.
We sampled the culinary delights of dinner at the combo Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. The indigestion twins, all under one roof. Across the parking lot, we meandered to the Cineplex theater to watch National Treasure 2. A bit less tightly written and exciting than the original, but I liked it. Just, please, the White House Oval Office is one of the most heavily alarmed, guarded and video recorded places in the US. Don’t make mistakes like that. Please ;)?
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