As we pick up our story, our weary traveler had just settled down for the night in the backseat of his plush rice burner looking for a long rest after a stressful day of travel. At 10pm (I crashed early) I felt a bump as the car was rocked backwards. I groggily sat up and looked between the front seats to see red and white lights coming at me from the rear of a Land Rover. I barely had time to utter the cry, “hold on men she is coming around again” I was again rocked, but this was a sustained rock, pushing my car into the car behind me. I sat for a moment, amused, but then exited the back seat of my car in my boxers. The driver was a bit shocked as I walked up to her car (women drivers). She got out. Ok I understand what she was trying to do in theory; move my car back so that she could fit her car on the corner of the street. The one problem being that I was already flush with the corner and there were cars behind me as far as the eye could see. So I just kinda looked at her and at the spot she was trying to create. I really did not care too much as it was a rental car, and from recent posts one knows how much I have trashed them without the slightest penalty. I finally said, as she was kinda shocked and scared, “I don’t think this is gunna work out for you.” She looked at me and said, “ya, maybe I should go.” I retorted, “It is an idea.” And that was it.
So I was able to get a bit more sleep as I flung myself all around the car. I am kinda a violent sleeper, known to quick jerking movements of a threatening nature. It tends to be a real relationship killer. Both on an intimate level and platonic level for fellow plane passengers.
So I cracked the trunk, threw some water on, deodorant, toothbrush, all not missing the chance to utter a “top of the mornin’” to those early morning tourists, not quite sure if those were boxers or some new trend in swimwear I was wearing.
Here is a shot of the alley next to where I stayed for the night.
I set out to see the forts and walk the cobblestone streets. Old San Juan is decorated with vibrant colors. Here is a grouping called the doors of San Juan
I walked around the exterior of El Morro as it was not open yet. A pretty interesting structure and they have done a surprisingly good job of keeping it in historic condition, which is not the case with most parts of the island
There are of a few of the gateways shown below that functioned as ceremonial entrances into the city. I used this one to get out to the walkway that was created at ocean level allowing one to circle the fort walls.
This place is called “The Convento.” I took a picture as my mother mentioned before leaving that she had visited here on her last trip to the island. It now functions as a restaurant / hotel.
I walked over to the other fort, El Castillo de San Cristobal. I had a few minutes before it opened so I walked into the modern section of the city. I found the government building, it was pretty gaudy. Again, I have no interest in trying to determine what type of business goes on in there and what there responsibilities are vs. the US federal government. For all I know they could be doing Wii bowling at 10am, arts and crafts and noon and a trip to grocery store at 2pm. No, that is the schedule for my Aunt’s Independent/Assisted living home, but they could just be copying the schedules and faxing them back and forth.
I headed back to the fort and walked around. Both forts are pretty similar. They have open areas to march around and various lookouts and areas where canons can be fired. They have recreated bunks showing Spanish soldiers sleeping and they even have the prisons done up as well. What I thought interesting, one of the prison cells had drawings of boats and such that they think could have come from a captain who was prisoner in the 1500’s, but with a little elbow grease the drawing came right off.
These 2 shots are interesting
I saw the above and thought, now that looks like something I have seen on Utah/Omaha beach as German defenses, not on a Spanish fort. It turns out that during WWII the US occupied this fort and would search for German U-boats traversing the same waters that Spanish Privateers did hundreds of years earlier. I thought it was pretty cool, and the fact that although they did add onto the historic site, they did a good job of not completely trashing the place in the process.
I walked back to El Morro and crossed the field designed to be a barren to make a land attack difficult. The field was loaded with trash last night and today I realized why, as school kids were running crazy
This is a shot looking down to the water from the tip of El Morro. You can see some people sitting down there that had taken the Ocean walkway I mentioned earlier.
I walked around a bit more and then headed off for some new adventures. Driving out of Old San Juan I passed the hotel district which was very similar to the area of South Beach Miami where all the chain hotels have 20 floor monster structures along the beach, pushed back from the street a few hundred yards in some Vegas casino type entrance. I parked my car near Isla Verde looking for some trouble. This is the area of the city where the locals hang out on their days off. There is a nice boardwalk that stretches 11km and I was hoping to rent a bike and stretch out the legs.
At this point I should mention something. All signs of distance between cities are mentioned in Kilometers, but all speed signs are done in miles per hour. It was strange, but I was a guest in the country and did not feel like turning around and heading back to the Parliament or Palace.
I found the bike shop
I walked in and all the bikes were pretty much rusted through. It took a few times to find one that might last the journey and my level of acceptability was low. I went to the girl at the counter and filled out some forms. She wanted to hold my DL. I hesitantly passed it along holding onto it when she grabbed it in such a fashion that the 2 seconds while our eyes locked I hoped to transfer the importance of her not losing this. I did not like this as I did not bring a passport to PR (not needed). She said it was $5 deposit. I thought that was about what I could get for bike on black market so I agreed. I pulled out a $20 and she expressed possessing no change. I was not going to give her $20 bill so I held out $3. She said no. I said listen you have my DL, that is worth more to me than the $20, I am not going anywhere. She would not budge and was willing to abandon sale until I got change. To get change I went out a street vendor and bought some fried animal under a heating light. For the hell of it I asked what it was and he said fish. It was fried and about 1/8 in wide. I took a bite and it was all salt. I don’t know why but I took a few more bites before throwing it out and it still regret ever putting the flat fish to mouth.
I was off on my bicycle singing an old Queen song about bicycles. I went along the beach for a bit, and then entered a pine forest which was really weird as I felt like I was in Northern Michigan.
I completed the 11km route in an hour and got back to home. Turned in the bike and happily retrieved my DL.
I stopped next door to grab lunch at this place
I tried to order what another table was having as our communication was faltering. He brought me a Heineken, which was nothing like the plate of food they were eating. I walked him over to the table and pointed to food and he agreed to sell me the product. It came out looking pretty sketchy but was actually a pretty tasty shrimp concoction
I found myself getting pissed that no one spoke English. Like, if they wanted to be a US Territory, Commonwealth, etc then they should learn the language. Every time I walked up to someone I did not know if they would speak English or Spanish. This made it hard because when I am in a Spanish country, before undergoing a conversation I will reach back into high school Spanish and come up with some ridiculously simple translation, with planned hand gestures. I soon got over this and decided they were allowed to speak Spanish if they must.
When they brought the bill it was $20. I paid $20 for a beer and a Jello mold of shrimp from a roadside stand? Again this left me stupefied how anyone afforded to eat at their establishment. All the people were one step away from homeless and tourists were not combing these beaches. I did not get it but paid the ransom. For all I know it was normally a $5 meal, but he figured correctly that he could get more from me.
I pulled this quarter out of my pocket
It had Puerto Rico on the back. I sat there, not long, wondering if that was random luck or if they actually seeded the island with more of these than the mainland, cause I had never seen one. I digress.
I got back in my car to head to El Yunque, the only Rain Forest on American soil. As I was driving away looking at the bike shop, I was reminded of something. I had paid $5 for a great bike ride and then come back and dropped $20 on a decent mound of shrimp. The bike rental was getting shafted, I felt. When I ran my Bachelor Party company I would get grinded down on prepacked prices with these guys, until I was beaten, and hated them for it. This was because I knew full well that they would be spending $400 with me up front but would each drop that on alcohol alone throughout the weekend and not bat an eyelash. The upfront cost kills people in many cases. If you can get them to spend more when it is necessary along the way, you are better off. This was evident in the new sales tactic of our airlines as the upfront cost is cheaper but you shell another $100 easy before you get back home. They don’t even offer free water or soft drinks on the flights. I can’t really blame them for figuring out the game. People will complain for a couple more years but they will get used to it.
I was driving to the rain forest talking to a friend from home and almost flipped my car and caused a wreck as a 2 ft iguana was ambling across the highway. Everyone else just drives on by while I feel I am about to kill an escaped species from the local zoo. I wonder if Puerto Ricans would freak like I did if they came across a squirrel driving in the US.
I had heard that El Yunque was pretty touristy so I searched the web and found a little known trail that led to a waterfall where you could go swimming that was unmarked and unnamed. It told you what mile marker to stop at and how far to walk along the road before looking for a foot path. It worked out perfect. I hiked in and found this pool all to myself
I stood under it and although cold it was awesome. It was the first time I did that whole “standing under a waterfall” bit. I was gunna take a picture of me, but figured it might look less than cool. Actually that is not true, some other kids showed up and I was too embarrassed to try it. I climbed up the side of this waterfall and found this second one
Coming down I took this shot and it was a fateful decision
I wanted to get the pink flowers in the above shot and that required me plucking a few little stems and bending some plants out of the view of my camera setting on a rock. Well, the jungle god was not ok with it because those transgressions led to 1 week of poison Ivy covering my hands. It took a couple days to manifest, but I was unable to touch anywhere else on my body or I knew from experience how fast it was going to spread.
These are a couple shots of the more popular sights in El Yunque
It was about 4pm and I was headed to the East coast of the island, hoping to reach a beach to camp at. I entered the town of Trujillo and was unimpressed. I had just got off the phone with a Nurse I work with who said she stayed here. It did not add up as this town was a dump and I did not see her slumming it this bad. As I got near the beach I saw a huge resort on the top of a hill and sanity was restored.
I found the campgrounds but they were closed. They actually closed the campsite at night, this must be dangerous. I drove down to the beach as the campground was inland and found a hole in a fence here
I was gunna park here on the street and hike in after dark and stay near a tree off the shore. I was being top secret because camping on the beach was illegal, but more so because there were lots of burglaries in the area for campers. I asked 2 teenagers if they thought it was a good idea to leave my car here and camp there. They said sure. I then kicked myself because if they wanted to rob me or steal the car I just gave them the green light.
There were a few hours before dark so I went a bit further down the shore to where some bars were. When I got a beer I saw all these kayaks taking people out on tours of a bioluminescent bay. I thought that might be cool. This is where some small organisms glow when you disturb the water and it is pretty tripy from what I understand when you experience it firsthand. I booked a kayak on the 9pm trip and sat around and watched the sunset and some other kayakers head out
I talked to the owner of the kayak company, Mike. He told me how he graduated as marine biologist from Texas and moved down here 15 years ago to help Yamaha set up some adventure operations. He decided to start this kayak company (where there is now 13 companies) and fought for the protection of the lagoon where these organisms exist. It requires a very delicate balance in ecosystems and only exists in a handful of locations around the world. Along the way he married a PR wife and had 3 Texirican kids. Does not sound too bad.
9pm rolled around and a bus brought all these people down from a hotel or over from SJ. I was the only solo who did not book in advance. I got joined up with a mother, where the father and son took another tandem kayak. I put her out in front and told her that if she did not want to paddle she did not have to. After a few minutes of her paddling I reinforced the offer, then I basically just said, “Why don’t you let me paddle and you just sit back and enjoy the ride.” We paddled in pitch black through this mangrove river, a pretty awesome experience once I got our kayak ahead of the other 7 to avoid the annoying banter. We entered the lagoon and joined our kayaks to each other and let the guides paddle the group as we listened to him give the history of the area, the process by which the organisms light up and how the government is stepping in to help in some cases, but in other allow development close to the shores.
We got back feeling refreshed and in touch with nature. I tipped the guides, thanked all and headed back to my car. I parked my car back near my spot and scampered from the parking lights onto the beach. Unraveling my tarp and climbing into my mummy sac, I was out before long and slept through till morning.
Until Tomorrow
Darren
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