November Adventure/Post
Puerto Rico
Originally uploaded by mercurialdawn It's the last day of November. On one hand, I want to say "holy crap where did the year go!?!" but on the other hand, it's been quite an action packed year: Manila, Tokyo, New Delhi, London, Seattle, San Jose, Phoenix, went hang gliding, took the GMATs, and had a good friend move to the West Coast. Jeez.
My November adventure consisted of a trip to Puerto Rico with Tim, his guitarist Adrian and Adrian's gf Dale for five days and four nights a couple weeks ago. It seems early November is the perfect time to go, as their tourist season is from December through April, so flights and accommodations were surprisingly reasonable: The flight from DC was 3 hours for $250, and the condo A. found was approximately $100 per night for 2 BRs split between 4 people... so travel and lodging came up to less than $400 per person. Pretty sweet.
PR also felt much more like a different country than I was expecting... more people spoke Spanish as a first language than I anticipated, and the food was much different than I've come to expect from travelling in the US. I particularly liked the Pianonos... ground beef wrapped in plantains. mmmm.
Adrian's dad is from PR, and he'd spent a considerable amount of time there during his childhood, so we got to see a couple things that were more "local flavor" than just hanging out in old San Juan... but it also seemed that the gods were transpiring to foil Adrian's plans at every step, which made things... interesting to say the least.
The first day, promptly after landing, we got trapped in a traffic jam going the wrong way on the highway after a flash storm basically flooded all the exits. We finally got to the condo and relaxed to the spectacular view of both the beach (which you can see in the pic) and the el junque rainforest before heading to a place A's dad had recommended for salsa dancing in Old San Juan.
While we were getting ready, the toilet exploded all over Tim. Thankfully it was only the water from the tank, but it sprayed the entire bathroom and all over his clothes, so by the time we got that relatively cleaned up and Tim into a new set of clothing, we were well past our originally planned departure time. We drove the 40 minutes or so to Old San Juan, following Adrian's dad's directions, only to find that the police had blocked off most of the streets that the directions told us to go down. We parked and walked around the city in search for a bite to eat and called it a night at about 1am sans Salsa as we had to get up relatively early the next day for a trip into the center of the island to partake of the Sunday Lechon tradition.
The next day we drove towards the center of the island, near a town called Caguas to have Sunday Lechon lunch. We drove on roads that wound up the side of a mountain, alongside which there were several roadside restaurants teeming with Puerto Rican families eating and dancing along to live music being played from inside the restaurants. We finally got up to the restaurants that Adrian's dad had recommended; Adrian, whose Spanish is apparently not as good as he thought it was, accidentally ordered one lb of pork for each of us instead of one lb. for the four of us to share... As we tucked into the pork, it was good, but I wasn't entirely impressed, and chalked it up to the fact that Filipino Lechon is just awesome and my standards for Lechon are just too high. Despite being a little disappointed with the food, i enjoyed taking in the ambiance. There was a band comprised of three older men who played guitar, congas, and sang in Spanish; The audience was engaged with the performers, with several people standing up near the stage and singing along to the tunes and clapping along with the rhythms.
Puerto Rico
Originally uploaded by mercurialdawn After wandering around a couple of the roadside stalls and buying gifts, Adrian decided to stand in line at a different lechonera and order about 1/2 a lb more of pork, as he too had been dissatisfied with the pork we'd ordered. The second place also had a band, but a more modern, salsa oriented band playing upbeat music. Quite a few couples were dancing, including a very pregnant woman who looked hours away from delivering, but was light on her feet as her partner twirled her around the floor.
It was a fun, vibrant atmosphere, and the people standing in line for their pork danced in place. It was nothing short of hilarious to see the three men standing in front of Adrian each dancing in their own way: the first bobbing his head in a manner that would fit right into most of DC's hiphop clubs; the second cha-chaing in place and occasionally clapping along with the music; the third being the most exhuberant, shaking his butt and fervently playing the air maracas. And then there was Adrian, standing silently, smile-lessly in his Hatebreed shirt.
The second plate he brought had a two inch square of skin that we split between the four of us and was, in fact, up to par with the skin on Pinoy lechon. After relaying the story to his dad later that evening Adrian's father was quite upset: "I can't believe it! They treated you like Gringos!"
I personally think it was coz Adrian didn't dance in line.
That night Adrian drove us to another club that offered Salsa Dancing called the Oyster Bar, only to discover that the only club that offered Salsa Dancing on Sunday was closed for reservations. Poor Adrian was visibly disappointed; We ended up grabbing some dinner and going home.
The next day we took a trek up to the El Yunque rainforest, and took a 45 minute hike up to one of its lower peaks. As we stood from the bottom, we could see a Spanish-era watchtower, from which Adrian said the view of the Luquillo coast was spectacular. I didn't think we'd make it that far that quickly, but we did. As much as my knee does interfere with my day to day activities, I'm happy to have managed that trek.
Puerto Rico
Originally uploaded by mercurialdawn
When we got to the tower, though, a dense fog had set in, and we couldn't even see the mountainside below us, much less the view of the beach. We climbed up to the top and hung out and ate our packed lunch of PBJ, waiting to see if the fog would clear. At one point we saw a break in the milky soup and caught a glimpse of the ocean and shore, but then a huge cloud rolled in; We watched it essentially run up the side of the mountain towards us and settle atop the tower, making for the second time this year that I've been in a cloud. When we got back to the car, near the same point that we'd started our hike and looked up at the tower, we looked up again; The tower was completely obscured, and the cloud didn't leave the top of the mountain for the rest of our stay there.
The next day we hopped onto a catamaran for a guided snorkelling tour. The snorkelling wasn't spectacular, but it a good enough "first" for Tim. At one point I saw a large, white, mammalian tail descend into the water about 500 feet away from the boat, which could have been either a small whale or a large manatee. Tim, Adrian and Dale were all getting into the boat from the water, and didn't see it, and it didn't resurface for the rest of our trip. The sea is both amazing and creepy that way. All in all the snorkelling trip was $73, and included open bar and lunch, which is shockingly the same price that the 2 dozen Sprinkles cupcakes my cousin bought cost when I was in CA. Much better value, if you ask me. That was the one event that went without a hitch, much to Adrian's relief.
So yes, all in all, a good trip, despite the lack of Salsa, unexpected fog, and lechoneras treating us like gringo; great memories to recall as I nurse this cough that hijacked my Thanksgiving weekend. I guess life can't be exciting all the time.