Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico: Part 2

Hi Everyone -

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

We ended up walking our feet off.  We're not used to walking up hills anymore. We took a break.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Later, Glenn and I both took a siesta.

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!

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.