A brief news report since we returned from PR. Glenn and I took last Tuesday off and took a walk along Bayshore in the morning. We went out to the pier and were delighted to discover that the manatees had returned for Christmas. There were a lot of them, and I embarrassed Glenn by greeting each one as they surfaced for air.
We also discovered that our air conditioning had died during our trip, so we had to replace the whole thing, which was an unpleasant expense. But the old one looked like it probably needed to be replaced.
Tuesday night, in an effort to extend our last day of vacation, we went to Clearwater Beach, where Glenn got some pretty pics from a roof top.
I was warmly welcomed back to work (I love my new job!) and last night, Glenn and I went to our office Christmas party. Our CEO, Mike, rented a nice house on the water and hired a caterer, and we had a great time. I was not excited to hear that we were playing some games - like charades - but we actually had a blast, and I was happy Glenn got to meet my coworkers.
Today, we are planning to get a real tree (!) and decorate for Christmas. I will photograph the results.
Ok - so back to Puerto Rico.
Wednesday: Today, we drove to El Yunque (yawn-kay) National Forest – the only tropical rain forest in the US. On the drive there, we saw a number of kids riding horses down the side of the highway, and a homeless guy with a Mr. Bill doll strapped to the front of his cart. (“Oh nooooo! This guy es loco!!”)
We got to the visitor center of the park and were dismayed to see tons of tourist pouring in from the cruise ships (ay caramba!). So we spent a good bit of our time racing around trying to avoid them. We drove the car up a very winding, almost inconceivably narrow road, where passing another vehicle is an exercise in extreme prayer.
We took a hike through the rainforest – on a surprisingly well kept, yet also very narrow – trail to a huge waterfall. It was a very scenic hike, but also exhausting as half of it was up a very steep mountain or going up a million stairs.
[Note: Glenn volunteered to download all my photos off my camera to the computer, but when I returned home, two days of my photos were missing - including all of my pics of the rainforest. He apparently "accidentally" deleted them. SABOTAGE! He is clearly jealous of my superior photos, which I never even saw. So our pictorial representation of the next couple days is incomplete. Please feel free to send him your complaints directly.]
We visited two waterfalls - the second of which people were allowed to swim in.
After surviving that, we drove another 10 minutes to Luquillo – home to a “World Famous Beach!” Well, the beach was huge and gorgeous and mostly empty. In the US, that beach would have been surrounded by condos and million dollar homes, but the town there was pretty much a slum. We couldn’t even find a restaurant to have lunch, so we took a few pictures and left.
On the way home (around 2 and we were starving) we went to a Wyndham Golf Resort near a town called Rio Grande looking for food. This resort is enormous, but also empty – boasting 7 award-winning restaurants, but 5 of them were closed. We found a pub at the country club and had a nice lunch outside overlooking the course, with mountains in the background.
Back to the room. Diane siestas. Glenn gambles. (theme)
Wednesday night was wonderful.
Glenn and I went to a gorgeous open air restaurant on the beach called Oceano, where I had, seriously, one of the best meals of my life. I got Palermo Pork, which had a guava bbq sauce and a little brie over smoked corn. It was AMAZING. Glenn abandoned his meal completely and helped me eat mine.
Afterwards, we stopped back at the Vanderbilt hotel, where I asked them to make me a real, authentic pina colada. I had read that Puerto Rico invented the pina colada and that it is not supposed to be made in a blender or with a mix or any of that crap.
Now I am ruined. I will never have another one that good.
Glenn and I took our drinks outside and found a little private balcony overhanging the ocean, which was lit up, so we could watch the giant waves crashing in. He put some Frank Sinatra on his phone and for a while, we felt like the richest people on earth.
Too dark to get a pic there, but here is the spot during the day.
Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! We decided to drive back to Old San Juan this morning and were delighted to see that there was no traffic. We were headed to El Morro – the other Fort at the tip of Old San Juan. Partway there, we realized the place would be closed for Thanksgiving (which is why there was no traffic), but we went anyway since we could still see the outside.
We decided we'd be way too tired to attack El Morro by the time we got there. |
People fly kites here in El Morro's yard. |
Glenn, knocking at the front door. |
Some historical notes just so my dad will know I was paying attention. El Morro is a six level fortress that is over 250 years old. San Cristobel was built to protect San Juan from land attack, and El Morro was built to protect against a sea attack. Because Puerto Rico was a rich port with lots of fabulous goods coming through – furs, spices, etc. – people were always attacking it.
In 1625, the Dutch invaded San Juan and came very close to defeating the Spanish at El Morro. The Spaniards won (barely), but as the Dutch were leaving, they looted and burned the city, pretty much destroying it.
Anyway, we walked around the Fort which was huge – and it had a lighthouse and watchtowers and a pretty chapel and cemetery next to the sea. I think El Morro was the more scenic of the two forts. We also saw some photogenic iguanas.
From there, we walked into town and nosed around. Some places were closed, but most eventually opened as the cursed cruise ships showed up and suddenly the quiet little town became a zoo.
Old San Juan is charming. The roads are narrow and steep and made of blue cobblestones. It definitely has an old European feel to it. Houses and shops are painted in bright colors like turquoise, yellow and pink. We walked down through the Red Gate, which is the gate that visitors walked through from the port, and along the fort walls on the water.
Guarding the fort |
Happy Thanksgiving! |
For Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up at Morton’s Steakhouse where we ended up following Thanksgiving tradition and stuffing ourselves.
Ok - I think that is enough for now. I think I'll be able to wrap up our trip in the final installment of this special blog series. Stay tuned!
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