Back in Fresno

It was a long and tiresome flight home, each leg was delayed, an hour & twenty minutes in Puerto Rico, 50mins in Miami, and 40mins in LA. But we finally got home at about 10:45 last night. We had dinner at Mangosteen (there was nothing to eat along the way). It was good to be home. The dogs missed us and we the dogs. Now it's to the business of getting back to business. Trying to get things back in order. Tomorrow is Easter, it'll be good to see the family. We're going to get film developed to take over.

We usually do up a pretty extensive vegan Easter lunch, but I think we're going to keep it simple this year.

It's good to be back, but Puerto Rico is still pretty fresh in our memories.

Hopefully it's not goodbye Puerto Rico, but we'll see you next time...

Goodbye Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is a wonderful place. For such a small island, it packs a lot in. We barely scratched the surface. Even so, it's time to go home. We're packing up getting ready to head down for one last breakfast. We fly out at 11am for a marathon trip home (two stops along the way), we land in Fresno 10pm.

Last Night in Puerto Rico

It was a good way to finish our trip. We started with dinner at the Italian place down the street. Then we came back to the hotel for some drinks (actually had some sangria with dinner) swimming and relaxing, which included smoking the cigars we picked up in San Juan on the second day.


Aside from the fact that the pool was as crowded as it's ever been, everything went about as well as it could for a last night.


We mostly talked, drank, and smoked. It's always bittersweet on the last night of a trip with friends you don't see very often...laughs mixed with, "we're going to miss you," and "can't wait to get together again." There were more laughs than anything, and that's all you can ask for.

We finished up our cigars then headed off to bed...early morning.

Day 5: Arecibo, etc

Today didn't turn out quite as we planned, but in many ways, it turned out better.

The first oddity was our attempt to go to the caverns at Camuy, which came highly recommended by several acquaintances and the travel books. When we bought the tickets at about 9am, they said it would be about a 25 minute wait until our tour. The music in the waiting area was true hell - it was literally one song with bad vocals on a continuous loop. The same awful song over and over and over... When we asked about our tour again at 10am, they said it wouldn't be until 11:30 because of the tour buses. It was frustrating at first, and then we just said heck with it (or words to that effect) and left. It was somewhat liberating to be able to let go of a plan like that.

So we went to our next intended destination, Arecibo, the largest radio telescope in the world (also where they shot parts of the films Contact and Golden Eye 007). Arecibo was great. We got there before much of a crowd was there, so it was pleasantly low key. The telescope was impressive and expansive, and some of the astronomy exhibits were nice.

Next we went to a restaurant Lisa had read about and had a pretty nice lunch. Puerto Rican food exhibits a much greater appreciation for yuca root than I imagined possible, so that's been fun. At lunch, we had yuca fries, mashed yuca, fried, formed into something about the size of a fried zucchini stick. Good sangria at this place, too. The best part was definitely the view, since we were eating outside right on the beach.

On our way to the restaurant, we had spotted a great looking beach. We didn't have swim suits or towels with us, but the beach was so enticing we had to swim in it anyway. So we went to a nearby drug store and bought some towels, then went back to the beach and just swam in our cloths. It was definitely worth it. The waves were pretty strong, so we didn't go out far, but we had a blast.

All in all the day felt fun and spontaneous, yet we were still able to cross something off of our wish list of things to do, so it was a fantastic way to spend our last full day in Puerto Rico.

Tonight we'll just hang out at the hotel: have a drink, smoke some cigars, maybe swim, and just chill...make the most of our last evening to hang out with Mike and Lisa!

Day 4: Relaxing at the beach

Today we took a break from our busy touring to spend some time relaxing at the beach. The beach out our hotel isn't great, but we were able to identify a good beach on the northern coast of Puerto Rico that was good for swimming (this is a bit rare on this coast: too rocky) and that wasn't too far away (Carlos said he's getting tired of driving). We ended up at Cerro Gordo beach, and it was a great place to spend the afternoon. We swam and lounged. The water was the perfect temperature, and the beach wasn't too rocky. Lots of people were out (many of the local kids are on spring break), but it didn't feel overcrowded. Carlos saw some parrots. Mike and Lisa ate some street-vendor food.

On the way back to Dorado, we stopped by an open-air sport bar for some sangria and mofongo. It's tough to imagine life without mofongo at this point, so I'll have to figure out how to make it. The sangria was bright green and very different. It had kiwi, grapefruit, lime, and wine. Tart, but good.

Tonight we'll just spend some time relaxing at the hotel, maybe take a late night swim. Tomorrow - our last full day in Puerto Rico - will likely be a full day.

Day 3: At El Yunque National Forest

Carlos says I make too many comments about food, but I have to say we had an interesting little adventure on our way to El Yunque National Forest. We went to a grocery story (a Ralphs) to get a few deli sandwiches to take with us on the hike. Lisa and Mike ordered sandwiches as well as a couple of pastries. The sandwiches were still being made when a lady working behind the counter handed Lisa a styrofoam container with the pastries. Lisa asked if they would wrap them in foil (since we didn't want a lot of bulk on the trip). The first lady didn't speak English, so we got the guy who did. Lisa asked for foil and - bless his heart - he wrapped the *styrofoam container* in foil... and plastic wrap. They must've thought we were crazy for "wanting that." But Carlos and I got two sandwiches with just veggies, and they only charged us 75 cents per sandwich. We also got a couple of cups of their coffee (which was excellent) for just 80 cents each. So we spent about three bucks on lunch.

Next, we were off to El Yunque National Forest, a rainforest inland a ways. When we first got to the visitors center, we became concerned that there seemed to be a lot of people there. So when we drove by the trail heads for a couple of the easier hikes we had hoped to do and saw lots of people milling about, we decided to do the tougher hike "first" ... that's right, we actually thought we'd do more than one hike. We were wrong.

Fortunately, we were wrong in a good way, because the hike we chose was spectacular. It was the El Yunque trail, about five miles long round trip. It was a "strenuous" hike, and there were some rough/rocky areas that were a bit tough. There was also an impressive (we thought) elevation gain of 1400 feet along the way, going to El Yunque Peak, the second highest peak in the forest. We saw some gorgeous views along the way, from the beautiful trees and ferns surrounding us to breathtaking views of the ocean several miles away.

Much of the trail was through the "Cloud Forest," also called the "Dwarf Forest" or "Elfin Forest," so called because the winds and rain in the higher elevations stunt the growth of the trees. Most of the trees seem to be about 12 feet tall, and they were covered in moss.

We didn't see a lot of wildlife, but we heard a lot of it: lots of birds and frogs. We saw a few birds and lizards, though.

We were pretty tired towards the end of the hike, so coming upon a small, cool stream to soak our feet in for a few minutes truly seemed like a gift. By the time we finished the hike and got back to the car, we felt a great sense of accomplishment - it was a pretty tough hike! And it was well worth it. Of course, we didn't have any time (or will) for an additional hike, so we headed back to the hotel. We got some mojito stuff back at grocery store, so at the hotel we made ourselves a pitcher of mojitos to drink in the pool and called it a day.

Out and about on Day 2

Our first stop was the Bacardi factory. There were good points and odd points about this stop. Good points were that it was free and they give you a couple of drinks. Of the several "tour guides" involved in the ordeal, one (Thomas) was really fun and nice. Odd points were that parts of the "tour" were lame and boring (like the video they make point of telling you not to record... who would record this?!). You don't get to see any of the factory. AND, there were a surprising amount of kids on the "tour," and it's surreal and somewhat disappointing to see their parents buying them Bacardi t-shirts. I did buy a mint muddler thingy, though, to commemorate the occasion, and I hope there are many mojito-making days in my future.

Our next stop, where we spent the rest of the day, was back in Old San Juan. We went to lunch at El Jibarito, a place the tour books noted was "off the beaten path," "away from the hustle and bustle," a place with "great authentic food" and "horrible service." The books were right on all accounts. Seriously, I don't know if I've ever had to wait so long for food, and we felt a little ignored. Once we got someone's attention, ordered, and got our food, it was absolutely wonderful. Carlos and I had plantains, red beans, white rice, and mofongo (a vegetable dish). Carlos had a plantain mofongo that was so so, but I had a yuca root one that was outstanding. It's like a fried bowl-shaped yuca thing. Very good (we had some later in the day with a lot of garlic in it). The beans really were some of the best ever. I also enjoyed the sweet fried plantains.




Next we went to the other fort, Castillo de San Felipe del Morro (El Morro). This fort was smaller than San Cristobal, but in some ways nicer. One of the first things you encounter is a large green space area as you're walking to the entrance, and there were dozens of people hanging out and flying kites. Inside the fort, with everything fairly compact, you're just engulfed in angles. There are several cannons about and some really spectacular views. Again, it's neat to see such an old building, and it's striking that the walls are so thick. I'm very glad we got to see both forts, and that we went to them on different days. I think it would have been overwhelming to tour both on the same day, and it would be too tough to differentiate the memories. We may actually take Lisa and Mike to San Cristobal later in the week, if there's time.



























We spent several hours just wandering around Old San Juan. The cobble stone streets and building facades have so much character. We've encountered really friendly people who will just stop and chat with you for a while about their city. We had a great drink at a beautiful restaurant, and later we had wonderful coffee from a small kiosk in a plaza. All the plazas built into the city are great, both as places to sit and as a break for your eyes. We wandered in and out of a few shops.

We had dinner at Cafe Berlin (where we had breakfast on Sunday). I was very happy with my Criollo Tofu, and Carlos had a good vegetarian Philadelphia "steak" sandwich. After dinner, we made our way back to the car (which was quite a ways away, since we had walked so much (we got a parking ticket, some locals who parked behind us told us to disregard the sign that said no parking, "they never give tickets.")) and headed back to the hotel.



We had big plans to hang out more, but we called it a night at a decent hour because we have a big day tomorrow: El Yunque National Forest, the rainforest. We'll take a lot of pictures and post them tonight.

You can see all of our pictures from each day of the trip at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817538@N04/