Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico: Part 1

Hi All –

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We just got back from Puerto Rico last night. We decided to divide this blog up into a few entries since we have a lot of pics. I wrote notes for the blog every night so this is more like a travelog and is in present tense.

Monday: To start, we had a great flight into Puerto Rico. It was so fast, Glenn and I didn’t even get to finish the movie we were watching on his laptop before we landed.

We are staying in the Condado area of San Juan, the nicer tourist area, which was a quick ride from the airport. We’re in the Condado Hilton Plaza, which looks like it was recently a very nice hotel, but is, like the rest of Puerto Rico, falling into disrepair. Our hotel was supposed to have a casino, but it, and several of the restaurants that were supposed to be here, are gone. Our room looks elegant, but is very damp and musty. If we were frogs, our room would be awesome.

A historical and rather disturbing note about our hotel, which has two ten-story towers. In 1978, one of the Flying Wallendas attempted to walk a tight-rope between the towers and failed, falling to his death. (I’m sure very upsetting for the gathered tourists as well.) Years later, one of his sons completed the walk, but yuck. I already thought the balcony was rather frightening.

A brief word about Puerto Rico in general. Its name means “rich port” but as you may have heard on the news, the island is in a terrible financial crisis. It seems like most of the buildings here are run down or falling down and there is graffiti everywhere. There is an abandoned and collapsing hotel across from ours that made Glenn say “Welcome to Beirut” when we got to our room and opened the curtains.

It is sad. The people seem very friendly, and they are very appreciative of tourists. We aren’t afraid to walk around at night or anything, but the island is in bad shape.

This is also a big contrast to the fact that the scenery here is amazing.

Ok – so anyway, a brief walkthrough of our adventures in the first few days.

We arrived and had lunch at a little café by the hotel swimming pool. Walked around the grounds of the hotel and the beach. The ocean is incredibly blue and the waves are dramatic. We are not tempted to swim in the ocean or go boating, but it is wonderful to watch the waves crashing on the giant rocks.

 

 

 

We walked into town and checked out some parks along the ocean. We also visited the Vanderbilt Condado hotel. We have adopted this as the place we are pretending to stay at – it has amazing balconies and pools overlooking the ocean.

 

 

 

These are the balconies at the Vanderbilt.

 

 



This is a little park in Centro Condado.

We walked back to our hotel and I took a siesta, while Glenn checked out the gambling facilities nearby. This will be a common theme of the trip.

Monday evening, we went back to a little bar at the Vanderbilt and had drinks by the ocean.

 

 

 

Then we found this lovely Italian restaurant with gluten free pasta! So delicious. We sat outside and it was warm and delightful. Afterwards, we went and played Black Jack at the casino and met a very nice couple, and ended up leaving the place like old friends.

Tuesday: In the morning, we took a short 2 mile drive to Old San Juan to visit San Cristobal Castile, one of the two forts in Old San Juan. It was huge and offered great views of the ocean from its walls, and also an impressive system of tunnels. Hope you all like some Spanish fort pics, because we have lots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Cristobel is at the top of a hill, so you can see the port and Old San Juan and more from up here.

 

 

The fort you see at the very top of the hill is El Morro. We'll show you that later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too many stairs! Too hot! Taking a break with the pigeons.

 

 

Old San Juan seemed cute too, but I was worn out, so we returned to the hotel, where I took a siesta and Glenn went to the casino. (theme)

Later, we decided to go to a botanical garden, which was supposed to be about 20 minutes away.

Unfortunately, we got lost, and that, combined by the fact that the drivers here are quite aggressive and the roads are very narrow, made for a long, harrowing journey. We finally found the place though and it was really beautiful. I felt like we were walking through Jurassic Park. The trees and foliage were gigantic. Lovely and cool to walk back in the woods, and fortunately, we didn’t even get bitten by mosquitos or anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the biggest palm tree I have ever seen. Please note Glenn is standing next to it for some perspective.



Glenn took one of me by it too.

 

 

 

 

 

That night, we were grungy and sweaty and tired, so we showered and dressed up and took a cab over to the Ritz Carton by the airport, where we dined at BLT Steak and then tried our luck at a couple of casinos.

 

At one point, we walked out by the pool at the Ritz, and were just surrounded by the sound of frogs – it was unlike anything I had ever heard before. They have little tree frogs here called Coquis (ko-kwees). They are named after the sound they make. It was magical – they sounded almost like millions of chimes or something out of a fairy tale.

 

So - okay, that's enough for now. Siesta time. Stay tuned. Hope you are enjoying Puerto Rico thus far.