Puerto Rican Adventures 2010

I took the red-eye from LAX to San Juan, Puerto Rico on a saturday night. With maybe two hours of sleep I was restless and wide awake. Looking out the small airplane window, I saw a flash of light that I knew was not from the planes light system. Quickly realizing that what I had just seen was a lightning storm up ahead, I immediately hoped we were not going to be traveling through it. Luckily we were able to go around the aggressive storm, however I had the perfect seat for the show. Watching the flashes of light from above wondering how bad it really was on land, we were high above all the chaos while the moon was shinning on the tops of the dark ominous clouds. Up ahead I saw what looked like a city blanketed with light clouds. My eyes were playing tricks on me though, I then realized I was looking at the beginning of the sunrise through a window in the sky. Once again I had scored the best seat in the house for this particularly spectacular sunrise. I waited and watched as the sky on the horizon turned from deep dark blue to light powder blue. Five minutes later other colors began to appear. Different shades of orange and red were seeping into the picture perfect sunrise, this part of the world was waking up. I still couldn't see the actual sun, but I knew it was coming, with the way the colors changed in the sky, it was close. Huge rays of light were sprouting up on the blurred horizon. The anticipation was starting to get to me, every time I thought the sun was going to break up over the clouds, I was wrong. After five miss judged sun sightings, it finally rose above the clouds, forcing me to squint hard and shade my eyes in order to look in that direction. The way the suns rays danced on top of the clouds, I felt like what I was witnessing wasn't real, like I was looking at a painting. The day had finally arrived for American Airlines Flight 238. 

I arrived in San Juan at 9:15 in the morning. I was exhausted but my adrenaline kicked in when I realized who I was going to see at the arrival gate. My best friend Scott is a USA national Coast Guard, stationed in Puerto Rico (one of a couple reasons as to why I decided to go). I made my way outside and was instantly hit with a breath of hot, wet air. First words out of my mouth to Scott "its hot as balls out here!" truth. It must have been about 85-90 degrees the day I got there. After an awesome hug from Scott, we jumped into his terrifically air conditioned truck and headed for the base and the beach. What I noticed while driving around in PR was the illusion of the not so smooth roads. It may look like they are nicely paved with little pot holes and cracks, but that is just because you are racing along at incredible speeds. Puerto Ricans are crazy drivers, yes, but not as crazy as German drivers. I would place them 2nd to the Germans. A friend told me that the law's in PR were more like suggestions or guidelines. They are there, but most people usually don't follow them, so you need to be on your game when driving at all time, especially during heavy traffic or late at night. The Coast Guard base was right in the middle of San Juan directly on the beach. We then immediately changed and headed to the beach close by. It was a sunday so people were out and about everywhere. The beach we went to was beautiful yet small, the water was like bath water, I loved it. While there I decided to call college friend Alejandro who is from Puerto Rico and lived close by. Since Scott had to go back to work, Alejandro took me to another beach away from the tourist trap that is San Juan, where we drank beers and updated each other on our lives. After about an hour on the beach we ended up at his friends place inland for some more beers and BBQ. It was great meeting his friends but as I sat there listening to them talk, I realized I had no idea what they were saying. They spoke so fast, it was very hard to keep up at all, so I gave up and opted to taking pictures. Later that night Alejandro took me to one of his favorite restaurants for dinner. I told him to order anything traditional to Puerto Rico. When our meal arrived, there was a baked whole fish (including the head, teeth, and eyeballs), rice, sausage in red wine sauce, beans, and chicken mofongo. The fish was crazy good, sausage in red wine was amazing, rice and beans were standard, and the mofongo was my favorite. Mofongo is mashed up plantains with chicken, beef, or seafood in the middle. I wish I could have eaten the whole thing but plantains are very filling. Alejandro was surprised and excited to see that I loved everything he ordered. I was happy and full when we left. 

That night I stayed at Scotts house in Vega Alta, a nice suburb about 30 minutes from San Juan. We rolled up to a 4 bedroom two story house at the end of a coldasack. Since Scott had to work all the next day, I met up with three of his friends from the Coast Guard. They took me to a beach they go to often. It was partly sunny that day but extremely warm so getting right into the ocean was priority for all of us. Two of them started a hand stand contest that lasted for about 20 minutes and was highly entertaining and a bit dangerous at times since they were crashing into one another every so often. Lucky for Scott, his Chief let him off early so we were able to hang out that night. He decided to have a small party where I met some more of his friends and co-workers over a competitive game of beer pong, which we unfortunately lost by one cup. Slightly hung over and wondering where I was, Scott went to work around 5:30am. I decided to get up, feed the cat Scott was babysitting and clean his place in preparation for our three friends who were getting there that night and early the next morning. Once scott came home after work, we both decided to collapse on the local beach near Scotts house for the day. The ocean water was slightly cooler then the beach in San Juan but still like bath water. That night we picked up our 3rd member of the Puerto Rican crew, Kim. She told us that she will probably never come back to PR since she thought they were going to die on the flight coming in. The next morning the rest of our group arrived, Tom and Vince. They too commented on how the flight was a little rough, quoting Tom "The landing was rough, we hit the ground pretty hard. The man sitting next to me who said nothing through out the whole flight sort of screamed." Apparently this time of year, its difficult to fly because of all the weather, something I should have known but didn't. 

The adventure began that day at the local beach near Scotts house. We were in and out of the water, snorkeling, and drinking Corona's. One of Scott's Coast Guard buddies had an underwater camera which I instantly fell in love with and took a few pictures. After the day at the beach we ended up going home and crashing on the couch with Guitar Hero and some good home made food. Earlier that day we went to Costco to buy the weeks food. That was a genius idea since going out to eat every night would add up financially. The next morning we got up early and headed to Charco Frio, a popular hiking trail that heads at a waterfall with a pool of deep water and two tree swings. Along the way we trudged through deep mud, slippery tree roots, and steep inclines. We finally made it to the pool under the waterfall. All was so beautiful, however there must have been some young juvies that had just been there because there was a huge mound of trash to the right as we walked past to the water. That was the hardest thing to see, was all the trash around such a beautiful area. knowing it probably wouldn't be picked up for a while or ever was disheartening. Disregarding the trash as much I could, we began to play in the water and on the tree swings. Tom jumped off the tall rock formation with a small yell on the way down. After we had had enough of the tree swings we headed a little further up the waterfall to another high cliff that Tom, Vince, and Scott all jumped from. Having a pretty big fear of heights, it looked way to scary and high for me so Kim and I both decided to bail on that idea. I decided to conquer my fear though and jump from the smaller rock formation by the pool, the one Tom jumped off of earlier. They had to do a count down for me to encourage my jump. I was scared but I did it, I couldn't believe it, but I guess you do more daring things when your around people you trust. The five of us trekked back not by trail but by river, weaving, slipping, and swimming our way back. Note of caution, go slow when walking on the river rocks and boulders, they are ridiculously slippery, we had a few nasty falls on the hike back. In total the hike took us around 35 minutes there and 45 minutes back. Driving home we were all exhausted but felt great after the long hike. 


Friday was my favorite day in PR. We woke up early and started our drive to this spectacular cave. What was interesting about this particular cave was you started your hike at a gas station. Pass a stolen gutted car rolled on its side, and then around a corner to two caves, one is worth seeing and the other, not so much. We lowered ourselves down the rickety steps and slippery rocks into the first part of the cave. Note: wear shoes not sandals. Once inside you wind your way around a few turns and end up in an open cavern, the ceiling slightly covered with bats who fly and chirp all the time, especially when you flash your lights on them. Scared that one of them was going to swoop down onto my head and give me rabbis, we moved through quickly, ducked around a couple more rock pillars and into another large cavern. This time however, the cavern had an opening with a spectacular view of the valley below. If you walked to the mouth of the opening and looked out what you see is amazingly gorgeous and calming. It was a 200 to 300 foot drop to the valley floor. There was a river running through a small village, brown from the rain we kept receiving three or four times a day.The green on the mountains across from the cave was a deep green color and the sky was slightly cloudy, showing just enough sun through the opening to snap off some great silouetted shots. After sitting for a little looking out at the view of the valley before us, we packed up and left the same way we came in. We stopped for a minute in the bat cave and Vince took some cool pictures of us turning the flash lights on and off in the dark. With the long exposure, the pictures turned out really great, illuminating the spots where the light hit. Once back at the car, we headed to Crash Boats beach on the west coast of PR near Rincon. The beach was the more beautiful beaches we had been to while in PR. At this particular beach there used to be docks and piers for military boats a long time ago. Now the piers were in ruins and the docks were dry. We were told that there was a lot of snorkeling and diving to be had near the pilings. Unfortunately the sun was behind clouds so visibility was short, plus we were with out fins and the current was strong and a little on the dangerous side so we decided to not take any chances getting pushed up against the pilings. Still we enjoyed the water and the boats stacked on the sand to our right. Tom, Vince, and I decided to do a short but heavy work out on the beach that almost made me vomit but I finished right along side the two firefighters. We left the beach around 5pm, sleeping in the car on the way home. We needed a lot of rest because that night we were headed to La Placita, a local bar scene, like Hermosa Pier but with many more bars and rowdier people. 



We headed out to La Placita around 9pm that night and met up with my PR friends and Scotts Coasties at a bar called El Rubi. The place was decorated with 1940's style pin up girls dressed like the Chikita Banana woman and tinker bell painted on the walls. There was a stripper pole placed right in the middle of the small dance floor and a big bar in the front with a patio area on the side. The reggae tone music blared and as the Don Q shots set in, we began to dance. The stripper pole was to be had by all of us. Tom attempted an upside down manouver a few times and unfortunately failed, he wasn't worried though, he knew we would be back and he would try again. The next destination was Fat Tuesdays around the corner. Once there we were ripping it up on the dance floor and on the bar. After we left Fat Tuesday, successful we headed back to El Rubi for some more dancing and attempts at the pole. We headed home around 2am and were all in bed by 4am, exhausted. Saturday was a lazy day filled with movies and sleeping. We decided to go to San Juan later to walk around and the boys bought cigars. Kim and I also went to a popular restaurant "Raices" for some amazing mofongo.

Sunday morning was upon us to fast. The airport was where we said our sad goodbyes to Scott. I wish I could have stayed longer to have gone island hopping and seen Rincon, but I have a feeling I will be back again some day in the future.