My Trip to Puerto Rico

In June, 2009 I took a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico with Bernie. This is my journal of the trip.

Saturday, 6 June
We flew into San Juan, arrived around 3 pm, and picked up our rental car, one of the few vehicles in San Juan that is NOT a huge SUV. Apparently car size / model is a status symbol here because those large cars really don’t seem practical on the many narrow, traffic-clogged streets. We had our first getting-lost experience driving to the Numero Uno guest house. Fortunately it only added 10 or 15 minutes to our drive, so it wasn’t very stressful in long run.

The Numero Uno was a nice, beautiful little guest house on the beach with about 15 rooms or less, a small pool, a wonderful restaurant, and a very friendly staff. After unpacking and putting on shorts, Bernie and I went to explore the neighborhood in search of dinner. We walked down Santa Ana Street, turned left, and discovered the next day that a right turn would have taken us to a much better neighborhood. Oh well… to the left we found streets and houses that were filthy and crumbling, several hole-in-the-wall bars with blaring music spilling onto the street, and a Walgreen’s. J slightly discouraged and a little worried about safety, we settled on dinner at Wendy’s. It was fine, and in general we felt safe and comfortable at the guest house.

We sat on the beach for a bit and went swimming in the warm waves. We soon found that the stretch of beach there was quite popular with the locals. There was a lot of smooth, white sand and a variety of food and beverage vendors. They also have an excessive amount of police officers patrolling the beach every day. The cabana boy, Christian, told us that the police are looking for people who are smoking marijuana. Must be a big problem there, but it hardly seems worthy of the police presence. We walked along the beach after dark and admired the highrises adjacent to our neighborhood.

Late that evening, we met Karam and John, Bernie’s colleagues, for drinks. We strolled in the area of Ponce de Leon Street and found a hip, popular bar off the beaten path. We sat there for a while chatting, then walked to Krash, a club that Bernie and I had read about. It was surprisingly empty for a Saturday night. After one drink, we left and walked a few blocks down the street to Starz – THAT is where everybody was! The place was packed to the rafters. We squeezed our way through and stood on the balcony for a bit and talked outside as we watched people walk by down below. Then we went back inside for a little while before heading back to the hotel.

Sunday, 7 June
Bernie and I had breakfast each morning at Numero Uno – fruit, pastries, and juice. We spent the rest of Sunday morning on the beach, and the weather was beautiful. There was enough of a breeze that it felt great by the water. When you’d get away from the water it was very hot and sticky in the city.

We walked over to Ashford Street to find a place to eat lunch and happened to turn a corner and stumble into a Pride Parade that was assembling! We spent the next couple of hours watching the parade as we slowly moved up the street. There were a lot of people in it and lots of spectators! We ate paninis at an outdoor patio as we watched the remnants of spectators strolling by. Then we walked a few blocks further to see the Atlantic Beach Hotel, a gay hotel with a large outdoor bar. We just sat relaxing in the shade there for a bit and then walked back to the guest house.

In the evening, we walked back to the Atlantic Beach Hotel to see if it was the hotspot described on its website. Upon walking in, we recognized a guy we had seen around Madison – Dan – who struck up conversation with us. We had a nice time chatting, and then walked down the street and had dinner at a restaurant nearby.

Bernie and I drove to Krash (the bar) later that night. This time it was filled with people, and they were having a foam party. We weren’t dressed for it, so we watched the dancing from the upper level. Then we walked down Ponce de Leon in search of a particular bar that was advertised online. It was nowhere to be found in the 1200 block, the exact address didn’t even exist, and we discovered the next day that the bar is on a different stretch of Ponce de Leon about a 10 minute drive from that area. That can cause some confusion…but the streets sure aren’t laid out as clearly there as Madison or other cities where we’ve traveled.

We were ready to head back to our hotel, and we couldn’t find an easy way in the car to cut over to the parallel one way street from Ponce de Leon. So we “got lost” on the exact same route as the previous day’s trip from the airport. San Juan is ridiculously laid out as a series of mostly one way streets, and the drivers only follow one rule – anything goes! We were surprised to see that they park all over the place, including on street corners, and apparently yellow zones don’t necessarily prohibit parking. We’re certain that there’s no parking enforcement department in the city.

Monday, 8 June
Around noon we picked up Dan and his friend, Todd, at their hotel and drove out to see the El Yunque rain forest an hour outside of the city. Highway driving was ironically very calm and easy compared to what we experienced in the city. Traffic was relatively light in most areas, and folks tend to drive below the speed limit. I certainly wasn’t expecting that on the highways.

The entrance to the National Forest was poorly marked and began with a narrow, poverty-stricken street. Then we had a beautiful drive past a muddy river and green fields for about 10 minutes before hitting the official entrance to El Yunque. We had a great time enjoying the visitors’ center, the long twisty road up the mountains, the spectacular views, a couple of downpours, taking pictures, and having lunch at a roadside stand. We had a good hike down the stone steps by the creek. After about 20 minutes of walking we came to the bottom and swam in a cool, rocky pool under the waterfall. There were lots of other hikers, and we actually bumped into Brandon and a couple of other people from Bernie’s company on our hike back up to the parking lot.

The four of us admired the scenery some more on our drive back down the road through the rain forest and then we headed back to San Juan. Bernie and I ate a delicious dinner at Pamela’s – the restaurant in the guest house - and went to bed early and exhausted.

Tuesday, 9 June
Bernie wanted to get out of bed and just walk right into the ocean, because how often do you get to do that in your life? From our room to the water it was 125 steps. We ate breakfast, mailed postcards, and then drove over to Old San Juan. Traffic was a bit tied up on the way into the old part of the city because of a film crew and a small crowd standing around. We didn’t know what they were filming, but we found out later that Johnny Depp was shooting a film in Puerto Rico, so we probably just missed seeing him.

We walked around for a couple of hours admiring the beautiful, European style, candy-colored buildings and the many hilly brick streets. We ate lunch at a delicious sandwich shop that seemed to be off the main tourist streets. Old San Juan is on a small island that is easy to traverse in a short amount of time; it’s about 7 square blocks.

Back at the guest house we swam a little, napped on the beach, and relaxed until dinnertime. Then we drove over to Ashford Street and ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. Our waitress was lousy…barely speaking or making eye contact with us, but we loved watching the people go by on the street. Jogging seems to be a popular evening activity – we saw people run by about every 30 seconds during our dinner.

Wednesday, 10 June
Today we opted to do lots of relaxing and very little activity. We spent most of the day on the beach. Our observations of the locals included this: many of the men and women are attractive and enjoy dressing in glamorous clothes day or night (or when they go to the beach it’s small, colorful bikinis). Many of the men shave or wax the hair off their chests and legs, and quite a few have tattoos, sometimes covering most of their back. Another interesting pattern – as people come walking onto the beach from the street, when it’s a man and woman together, the man is almost always walking a few steps ahead of the woman. It appeared too consistent to be a random thing. Paddle ball is a very popular pastime on the beach as well; every day we saw several couples playing right along the water’s edge.

We had lunch at the deli down the street from the guest house today. They had a surprisingly large selection of desserts – yum! We saw lots of people having long, leisurely lunches – and we were there around 2:00 in the afternoon. We just had some leftover pizza for dinner, then later we drove to Tia Maria to have a couple of drinks. The bar was quite full, and it had a nice, friendly neighborhood bar vibe to it.

Thursday, 11 June
We spent some more time on the beach today before we had to pack our bags and check out. The first significant rain storm of the week happened while we were packing, and it was done and hot & steamy outside when we loaded the car at noon and walked back to the deli for lunch.

We drove to Ashford intending to walk around for a little while, but when we couldn’t find any place to park, we just decided we might as well head to the rental car drop-off. The guy driving the shuttle to the airport offered to take us over to the Ritz, so that made it quite simple for us, and we were at the official start of Bernie’s company gathering – AGM!

We registered around 1:30 and were fortunate to be able to get into our hotel room right away. Then we walked around the lobby and pool area saying hello to folks as they arrived. We swam in the ocean for a little while, had a $14 mixed drink (par for the course at the Ritz Carlton!), and then went up to our room to get cleaned up for the evening. The welcome reception was outside around the pool with a few bars and food tables set up. We kept looking around for Kara and Jacob, and we were surprised that we weren’t seeing them. Laura and Mike told us they had eaten in one of the hotel restaurants the previous night, and the couple at the next table had ordered 2 bottles of wine and 7 rounds of shots. Bernie and I knew right away that they were talking about Kara and Jacob.

On the way to the after-party, we chatted with Will and Nancy. They’re such a sweet couple, and they invited us to come visit them in Boise sometime. Will also gave Bernie a wonderful compliment when he said that the interview dinner with Bernie 4 years ago is one of his most memorable, enjoyable ones. I wish we would have had time to talk with them more during the weekend.

We finally did see Kara and Jacob as we entered the Mares Bar/Restaurant. We also saw Seth later in the evening; his flight had been canceled and Fast Enterprises had re-routed their group through NYC so that they could make it to PR sooner. Otherwise they would have had to wait for a flight the next day. Bernie and I danced with a few people for a little while, drank a lot, caught up with everyone, and took a late night swim in the ocean. It was so much fun!

Friday, 12 June
Bernie and I had breakfast with the Fasties up on the outdoor dining area, and then he was off to his meeting for the morning. I went right back to the room and took a nap. When I woke up, it was raining, but the rain ended shortly after that. I took a long walk along the beach and then swam my way back to the Ritz. On one stretch of public beach, I was surprised to see how lax the lifeguards were – one was stretching and doing exercises while casually watching the swimmers, and another one was laying on a lounge chair with his feet up on a railing, reading a magazine. I hope they spring into action if/when there is a crisis! After my walk, I talked with Melanie for a little while and then swam in the pool.

After Bernie’s meeting, we ate lunch in the Mares restaurant. It was good, but everything is way over-priced at the Ritz. Our burger, sandwich, and calamari (no drinks included) came to $60 with tax and tip! We went to the beach and congregated in the water with most of the Wisconsin team. We entertained ourselves by digging holes and a trench and laughing at our handiwork.

We went up to the room to rest for a bit and get dressed for the formal. The evening began with cocktails on the beach. It was a nice idea and there was a beautiful sunset. Reclaiming our bagged shoes at the small tables afterwards was a little frustrating. Everyone was feeling hot, sticky, and uncomfortable from the humidity – we were more than ready to go inside for dinner.

We sat at a table with a group of fun people from Denver – Kara, Jacob, Seth, Beth, Asmaa, Monica, Sam, and Adam. We really enjoyed eating with them, and a few of us sat and had a fascinating conversation for a while after dinner was over. We grabbed an assortment of delicious desserts and continued talking a bit more. Later on, we went outside by the bar…it was a very humid night! We had a couple of drinks and a round of kamikaze shots at the prompting of Twin, a teeny woman who LOVES doing shots! J Late in the evening, a group of us went for a swim in the ocean, and then some folks went to the hot tub. I jumped in the pool and played volleyball with some people for at least an hour. It was mostly laughing and trash-talk with a little bit of serious playing thrown in…it was great! I lost track of Bernie and found out the next day that he had gone inside to have more drinks with some people. He made it to bed around 5 am.

Saturday, 13 June
Bernie and I had breakfast outside again, and then he went to his meeting. I gathered a few things and went to the beach. I looked around for someone familiar to sit by, but not many people were out there and I didn’t see anyone I knew. I dozed on my lounge chair for a bit, went for a quick dip, and then sat under an umbrella as a light rain turned to a heavier rain. Eventually I moved under the canopy near the outdoor bar with some other folks. The rain came pouring down in sheets for at least a half an hour. It was nice watching it and staying relatively dry, but I couldn’t help wondering how long it might rain during the day.

I went to the room and cleaned up. Bernie got out of his meeting a little early and told me where Fast will be taking us next year – Marco Island, Florida! Fast even brought in reps from the Marco Island Marriott to share information and answer questions for people. Bernie and I walked down the street to Chile’s for lunch, and then Bernie took a nap while I swam at the beach.

Around 3:30 everyone loaded onto several buses to go to Old San Juan for the evening. It was only about a 10 minute drive from the hotel, but we sat on the bus for a long time at the entrance to Old San Juan waiting for a police escort to lead us in. I’m not sure why that was necessary…maybe traffic gets really snarled around there. A lot of us spent an hour or so wandering around in the fort taking pictures. Some people did a little kite flying on the windy, grassy field by the fort, and a group of us from the Wisconsin site did a walking tour led by a humorous, energetic woman who told us a lot of interesting facts. When we walked down “cat alley” we saw a BUNCH of cats lounging on rocks near the beach, taking baths, walking by the fortress walls, and even one cat who was laying peacefully on the sand a few feet from the water.

Fast treated us all to dinner and entertainment in a big courtyard of a building that used to house soldiers and then was used as a hospital many years ago. We wandered around chatting with people and tasted samples from “Rums of Puerto Rico” and then took the bus back to the hotel around 9 pm. Some people stayed out in Old San Juan later into the night, but Bernie and I (and LOTS of other Fasties) opted for a refreshing swim in the hotel pool. Bernie and I went to bed just before midnight exhausted and wanting to get a little sleep knowing we had to get up at 6 am to pack and have breakfast before our transfer to the airport.

Sunday, 14 June
We ate breakfast and flew home with about 12 or 13 folks from the Wisconsin group. It’s always nice traveling home with the group because we’re all worn out from a fun shared experience, we don’t necessarily mind a long layover since we can hang out together, and the group enjoys meandering through the airports together braving the security screenings, reminiscing about the fun from the weekend, and eating lunch as a group.

We returned to a sunny, beautiful evening in Madison. Bernie and I dropped off Karam at his apartment and then went home to do laundry and catch up on a few things to finish out the weekend. The trip was definitely fun and memorable!