Matt and I had left home after work on Wednesday and driven up to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale, since we had an early flight to San Juan. It turns out the La Quinta near FLL is a great deal – it’s cheap, has free breakfast and a shuttle to the airport 10mn away, and they let you park your car in their lot for up to two weeks. We’ll definitely be doing that again in the future.

One of the benefits of our move much farther south – it’s now only a little over 2-hour flight to San Juan. We landed around noon and took a cab into town. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags at the Hotel Plaza de Armas. I’d forgotten that we’d stayed there before, because it has a different name – it used to be a HoJo. Nothing much had changed, and while the rooms were totally fine, they have no windows. Do not stay in a room with no windows or you’ll never be able to wake up in the morning. It was just one night, thankfully.

San Juan was decorated for the holidays in festive fashion. I love it.

We needed lunch right away, so I suggested checking one of the side streets nearby where I’d seen tables set up in the street on previous visits. We found a cute little place with Mexican food, so we sat down for tacos and Medallas.

After lunch, we walked down to the city gate. It was gorgeous outside, and even warmer than in Florida.

The city is so picturesque it kills me. I want to spend so much more time there.

If you’ve wandered around San Juan, you’ve probably noticed that the streets are blue-tinted cobblestones. (You’ve probably almost broken an ankle on one of them, too.) They’re called adoquines, and they started out as furnace slag in Spain that was then used as ship ballast. Over time they’ve weathered into this color. They’re threatened by car traffic, which is one of the many reasons it would be awesome if Old San Juan banned cars.

I think it’s funny that the facade of the cathedral is perfectly spotless, but the rest looks pretty weathered. (I mean, it’s the oldest cathedral in the western hemisphere, so we can cut it some slack.)

Here’s El Batey, one of the greatest bars on earth. I had to stop and get a picture of it during the day.

This guy seemed pretty chill:

Our friends’ flight was arriving fairly soon, so Matt and I decided to go have a drink at the bar in El Convento. The former convent, now the fanciest hotel in OSJ, is a mere 356 years old. Their central courtyard seems to always be empty, which is kind of amazing. We grabbed seats at the bar, ordered papaya-ginger mojitos, and sat talking to the super-awesome bartender. He gave us samples of his coquito, the traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink. It’s like eggnog, but better.

Kris and Orsi found their way over to the hotel and joined us at the bar. We hung out there for a while, and then decided to walk down the block to La Barrachina, the restaurant that claims to have invented the pina colada.

Post-colada, we walked down the hill to get dinner at Old Harbor Brewery. I don’t love their food there, but their beers are decent and they had a vegetarian option, which is something. After dinner, we walked back up the hill to a cocktail bar Matt had heard about recently. It was billed as a speakeasy, which made it hard to find, because it wasn’t really hidden at all. OK, there’s a different bar’s sign on the wall, but still.

La Factoria was hopping, but we managed to get a table in the corner. Their cocktails were pretty excellent, too, but there wasn’t anything especially Puerto Rican about it. It was like any city bar anywhere. After a couple drinks there, it was time for the main event: El Batey.

We drank rum and Medalla, and played a half-assed partial game of Moby Dick and then dominoes. Orsi wrote their names on the wall, and I left a Key West sticker in the bathroom. It’s important to leave your mark at El Batey.

Then it was time to go sleep in our dark, windowless hotel rooms, so we could head out of town in the morning.

We got up Friday morning (painfully, since the lack of windows made it seem like it was 3am), and hauled our stuff downstairs on the slowest, tiniest elevator in the world. (It’s the kind with the two gates you have to pull shut yourself.) We found Kris and Orsi’s stuff sitting in the lobby, and Kris texted that they were getting the car. Matt and I walked over to Plaza de Armas. Kris said they were bringing coffee, but the plaza booth sold mallorcas.

I love this giant Christmas tree in the middle of the plaza. At night it’s fantastic.

You see the three wise men all over San Juan. We didn’t figure out what this was about until we got home. Apparently they like to hand out gifts to kids on the 12th night, the Noche de Reyes, when the reyes magos visit.

They arrived with the car and coffee, Matt arrived with the mallorcas, and we were off to Rincón.

Our first destination on our journey was La Ruta de Lechón, i.e. the pork highway. Matt had wanted to go there since he’d learned of its existence long ago, but obviously I was less than excited about visiting a road full of restaurants dedicated to pork. But we figured since there were now three meat eaters, we had to visit. Plus I kind of wanted to see it. (I had lunch backup in my bag just in case.)

When you exit the highway toward Guavate, you end up on a narrow road that winds up and down through the hills. There are restaurants and bars the entire way, and they all specialize in one thing: whole roasted suckling pig, the kind you have to start cooking at midnight the previous day. The lechoneras are up all night, and the places open when the meat is done. And it’s every single place.

For a while there’s a restaurant every half-mile or so, but if you keep going you’ll get to Guavate, which is an ENTIRE TOWN made up of lechón restaurants. It was amazing.

We parked and wandered down the block to find an ATM. We grabbed Medallas and stood around gawking at the sights. Then we went into El Rancho Express, since Kris had read that they were one of the recommended stops. It turns out they just have a pre-made plate, so they decided to cross over to El Rancho Original instead, where they could pick out all the meat they wanted.

The guys went to stand in the food line, and Orsi and I went to get beers and grab a table. We took note of the giant SANGRIIIA sign on the building across the street, because we’d seen that same banner at every single place along the way. (It was even more amusing knowing it’s made by a company called Gasolina, and comes in a pouch like Capri-Sun.)

Matt and Kris arrived with a giant spread that included various kinds of pig and pig skin, turkey, blood sausage, rice and peas, and roasted yam. And Sangriiia, of course. (Sadly, not in a pouch.) I was thrilled, because the rice and peas and yam were really good and I didn’t have to get out my Suncake.

While we ate, we watched the entertainment in the covered area next to us. It was full of picnic tables, and had a big stage where a couple of old guys were singing and playing. We didn’t know exactly what he was singing about, but one of the guys on stage had the old ladies swooning. People were dancing and singing along. It was fantastic. Every restaurant seemed to have their own version of that, too.

After lunch, we got back in the car and headed back to the highway toward Ponce. We hadn’t visited the western half of Puerto Rico before, but the landscape was really familiar since we’d flown over it on the way to and from Vieques. It’s very rural, with rolling hills and a constant view of the ocean.

We exited in Ponce, because Kris had a few stops there on his list. He told us there was a place called Cafe Cafe and another called Ponce Ponce. We found one of them (I don’t even remember which), and went in for coffee and beer. The other place didn’t exist. I think he was making the whole thing up.

Ponce is an adorable little town. (It’s actually second-largest in PR, but the historic downtown is small.) It has the same narrow streets as San Juan, and gorgeous old buildings. The town centers around a large square that features the Parque de Bombas. I’d seen photos of it before, but it was still kind of shocking to see sitting there. It’s such a weird, awesome building.

There’s a museum inside, with this awesome smoking goat in the lobby. (Note the cop not wanting to be photographed in the background.)

We did a lap of the square, picked up some souvenirs, and then headed down a pedestrian side street toward the town market that Kris had read about. The shops along the street were all kind of shady-looking, like stuff that fell off the back of a truck. We found the market, but it was closed. We couldn’t tell if it was closed for the day (it was mid-afternoon) or for renovations, but it seemed like the latter. I’d really like to go back and see it at some point, because it looked awesome. Also, Ponce was really cute.

We walked back to the car and headed toward Rincón. The highway was pretty fast until we hit Mayaguez, which appeared to be a town entirely made up of about 250 car dealerships and the brewery that makes Medalla and its much-crappier cousin, Silver Key. It took forever, between the traffic and the stoplights, since it was rush hour time. We finally made it to the far side of town where the turnoff for Rincón was, and found that the road was closed.

So we got to sit in more traffic, and finally got to the alternate route. From there, it wasn’t far into town. From the second we saw it, I knew we were going to like Rincón.

Orsi had rented a condo for us that was right across the street from the main beach. We drove through the tiny downtown and found the condo complex about a half-mile away. It was indeed across the street from the Balneario de Rincón.

They were quicker into the condo and claimed the master bedroom, so we were stuck with the room with the double bed, and bunk bed. The bunk bed was at least queen-sized, and ended up being fine. It’s a miracle neither of us got a concussion, though.

We unpacked and sat out on the patio while the sun set over the beach. We noted that there was some music and activity at the building right next to the beach, so we decided we’d need to check that out later.

We then went back down to the car and headed into town. We stopped at the grocery store to get supplies for our stay there (stuff to make breakfast, mixers, and snacks). Of course it took us forever to shop because people kept wandering off. After that, we went into the little downtown. The main square was all decorated for Christmas, and was adorable.

We stopped into Rincón Beer Company, where we got a table out on the sidewalk. Unfortunately they didn’t have any of their own beers on tap at the moment, but they had a good selection from other breweries (plus cocktails, and a small food menu).

After a couple rounds there, it was time to get dinner. We decided on La Cambija, because it had really good reviews. I was a little wary because it was a seafood restaurant, but it turned out they could make a few things vegetarian. (If there’s a note about it on the menu, that’s always a good sign.) Their mojitos were good, and the food was excellent. Plus it was just down the block from our condo.

After dinner, we stopped into the little restaurant/bar next door because they had a sign advertising that they sold ice, and the icemaker in our freezer didn’t work. Of course it just made sense to get a beer while were there, so we ended up sitting at the bar talking to the super-nice girl who worked there for a long time. Her name was Stefania, and she was Colombian. (Her English was excellent, and she told us she liked having the excuse to practice.) A couple guys we assumed were local came in, and Kris overheard them saying something about Minnesota, so he asked. It turned out that one of them lived in Maple Grove part-time, so he ended up being mercilessly hassled over that. Before they left, they gave us advice on other places to go in town, but the gist of it was “wait til it’s really late, drink a lot, get in your car, and drive up some winding mountain roads til you find a club”. So that wasn’t going to happen.

We said bye to Stefania and walked over to see what the music was about at the beach bar. It turned out to be a tiny hut with a big patio space full of tables, where old people hung out drinking cheap beer and singing karaoke. It was fantastic.

We grabbed a beer, then went back to the condo to play dominoes on the patio.

Sunday morning, I got up and did the dishes while waiting for Matt to get up. Kris and Orsi wanted to go to the market in town, so I told them to go do that and I would hang out. I discovered that the coffeemaker was useless, so when Matt woke up, he and I walked into town to get coffee. It was really hot outside – much warmer than Key West.

We walked through the market and I wished we had more time to spend there. It was really nice.

We got coffee and walked back to the condo using the shortcut past the baseball fields. Kris and Orsi showed up downstairs, so we closed everything up and took the bags down to meet them. We got on the road back to San Juan.

We had some time to kill before our flight, so we went into Miramar to get lunch. Matt wanted to go to Soda, but we found it closed. There was a big street market going on there, too, so we walked through it and found Bartola right down the street. They had really awesome Mexican food, even though the band outside together with the music inside led to a giant cacophony every time the door opened onto the street.

Post-lunch, we headed to the airport. Kris and Orsi were staying another night in Old San Juan, but they wanted to drop the car off since it’s a pain to have in town. They dropped us off at the airport, and we headed to our uneventful flight back to Fort Lauderdale.

We arrived around 6, and had to take the shuttle to the hotel in order to get our car. It didn’t take too long, thankfully. We jumped on the highway and headed south, stopping only to grab sandwich makings at Publix in Key Largo. It was a long drive in the dark back to Key West, but we made really good time and arrived home shortly after 11pm. Flying out of FLL isn’t the ideal setup, but since Southwest is generally cheap it’s kind of a fair tradeoff.

Saturday, I got up and Kris was crabby because we’d forgotten half of the ingredients we needed for a proper breakfast. We decided to go into town, get more groceries, and stop at the coffeeshop/bakery we’d noticed the night before. Matt was still asleep, so we left him a note.

We spent way too much more time at the grocery store, and then he dropped Orsi and I off at the cute hipster coffee shop while he circled. They didn’t really have breakfast stuff, though – mostly just cupcakes – so we just grabbed coffee for everyone and went to the car, then went back to the condo where Kris complained about making breakfast, even though that was the plan all along. (He won’t let anyone help, either.)

Then it was finally beach time. What a glorious beach it was.

We had it nearly to ourselves, and spend a very long time just bobbing around in the water drinking beer or Sangriiia packets that Kris launched from the beach. There was a seagull hanging out on a buoy, so I had to take the time to swim out to it and try to punch him off of it. (He flew away before I got there. Jerk.)

Once we had depleted our beer supplies and finished swimming, we went back to the condo and hung out in the pool for a bit, then headed upstairs to change. After that, we jumped in the car and drove the few miles to the Rincón lighthouse.

There was a big park surrounding it, with great views of the surfing beaches in the area. It’s hard to see in the photos, but there were a ton of surfers out that day. Also, the beaches were gorgeous.

It’s kind of amazing that there’s a good swimming beach located that near surfing spots. Usually you find those things on opposite sides of an island.

From there, we drove up into the hills above Rincón. (Our Minnesotan pal had told us the bars were down that way, so we figured we’d drive around and see what we found. On top of a big hill, we found a bar/surf shop with a good view of the ocean. It was across the street from this road sign, the awesome symbol of Rincón. (There’s nothing interstate about that main road.)

We had mojitos and tostones, and hung out for a while. Then we got back in the car and headed into town. Matt and Kris went back to the brewery, and Orsi and I went to do some shopping in town. Most of the stores were already closed, but I found a really cute woven purse and a Rincón sign at a cute shop run by a lady who split time between Puerto Rico and Hawaii. I thought we had it pretty good, but damn.

We joined them for a beer, and then took the car back to park it at the condo. We were there with just enough time to grab some Medallas and head to the beach for sunset.

Kris joined the Medalla ad campaign:

And here it is post-sunset. I really love that beach.

From there, we walked down to the far end of the beach to a little shopping area called Sunset Village. There was a big restaurant there named The Harbor, where we got a table out on the patio near the bar. They appeared to have a nice waterfront/beach there, but it was hard to see at night.

I was excited that their vegetable mofongo was actually really good, as were their mojitos. Everyone else had seafood. A band started setting up near the entrance, and eventually began playing Puerto Rican music. After a couple songs, they launched into Sweet Child of Mine. Awesome.

Post-dinner, we decided we needed to go back to the old-guy karaoke bar at the beach, but Orsi and I decided that first we needed to stop and say bye to Stefania and have a drink at her bar before we did so. Of course one drink with Stefania turned into three drinks and shots made by her boyfriend the chef. Then we headed to the karaoke bar, where we drank crappy beer and danced, trying not to fall over in flipflops.

And then, it was well past time to head back to the condo and sleep, since we had to get back to San Juan the next day.

We had a very very early (pre-6AM) flight from Minneapolis to San Juan via Chicago, and given the dangers of flying in February in the Midwest, I started worrying about a week in advance. As the day neared, it became clear that we were in for a substantial amount of snow right around the time we’d be leaving for vacation, and I figured there was no way we’d ever make a 45-connection in Chicago, even we even managed to escape Minneapolis on Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon, the blizzard rolled in. Matt put his car in the garage in preparation for our trip, and I parked on the snow emergency route alongside our house, which meant I stood the best odds of getting my car out even in bad conditions. Usually Minneapolis waits until a storm is over before they declare snow emergency, but this time they were panicking in advance, too: they decided to start it at 9pm, which means my car had to move or get towed.

So let’s just forward to 8pm Thursday evening, when we and two neighbors spent an hour digging and pushing my car out of the intersection it was stuck in. We finally maneuvered it into a spot where it would be safe from towing til 8AM Saturday morning, but it was clear there was no way we were taking that to the airport. The snow was still coming down like crazy. We instead dug out the driveway as best we could, snowblowed the walks, and crossed our fingers before heading to bed. It never occurred to me that there was the possibility we wouldn’t even be able to make it to the airport in the morning.

I got up at 3AM Friday, put on my coat and boots, and went out to shovel the driveway again. I then came in and showered, finished packing bags, and we hauled everything out to Matt’s car in the garage. Thankfully, he was able to back it out onto the street, which had been cleared enough that it was driveable. I ran through the new snow on the sidewalks (it had been constant all night, and still hadn’t stopped), stashed the garage door opener and keys where our friends and family could find them (they were stuck with the job of trying to get my car free, and then shoveling), and hopped in the car to go to the airport. The roads were in terrible, icy shape, and it was actually a good thing it was so early in the morning, because nobody was out to crash in it. Matt drove very, very slowly, and we got to the airport on time. The flight was still scheduled on time, too!

We dumped all our winter gear in the car and went to the terminal. Pre-Chek was a breeze, and we stopped to get coffee and water for the flight. We boarded on time, but then we had to wait for de-icing. I occupied myself with the Skymall shopping list.

It was light by the time we de-iced, and we knew that we weren’t making the flight in Chicago unless they held it. Talking to the people around us, though, it sounded like many of us were headed to San Juan on the same flight, so that gave us hope that we’d make it.

Did you know the de-icing is orange? I’d never noticed that before.

We were indeed late to Chicago, but TripIt notified me right away that our second leg was delayed as well. They were clearly holding it for us. Matt and I were the first from the MSP flight to get there, and the gate people looked relieved that we were finally there. A whole bunch more people crowded on, and the flight ended up being entirely full.

It was a 5-hour flight, which is over my general limit for sitting still, but somehow it wasn’t that bad. (One of the reasons I prefer Delta is that you always lay over in Atlanta heading to the Caribbean, and that breaks up the time pretty well.) We had seatback TVs for entertainment, so we flipped around and I finally decided on Runner Runner, which killed a bunch of time. For the first two hours there was enough turbulence from storms that they couldn’t even get the carts out. They finally served food and drinks, so we got meal boxes and switched to the USA-Canada hockey game. And that’s when the inflight television cut out, because we were over the ocean. Sigh. (It’s probably for the best, since our team lost.)

Since they still had movies showing, I switched to Real Steel. I only made it half an hour before I had to turn it off and switch to the flight map. It was that bad.

We landed in San Juan only half an hour late. It had just rained there, but the sun came out as we landed, which I appreciate. We got our suitcases and grabbed a cab to Casa Blanca Hotel in Old San Juan. The lady at the desk told us they were working on something in the area so the power was out temporarily. They also had no elevator, but I knew that from the reviews. The porter brought our bags up for us, so that wasn’t really an issue (nor was the power, since we just wanted to head out again anyway). The hotel wasn’t anything fancy (the decor is nice), but it was a great price in a really excellent location in OSJ. God forbid you’d have to drive anywhere there, or even sit in the back of a cab in traffic.

It was late afternoon, so we decided to go get a beer at Old Harbor Brewery. The rain arrived there at the same time we did, but we weren’t terribly sad about sitting inside at the bar. We sampled their offerings and got tostones while we waited for the rain to let up. We ended up talking to one of the locals at the bar, who started exclaiming about how much he loved Prince when we told him we were from Minneapolis. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that someone has that association with my city, rather than the Mall of America, our mediocre pro sports teams, or a bunch of people living in igloos.

We decided to make another stop before dinner, mostly because we didn’t want to go to two dive bars in a row. I’d read really good things about El Farolito, so we walked over there, stopping to see some sights along the way.

It was a tiny place, with 6 seats at the bar and a balcony of questionable stability with a table on top. Matt and I sat at a chess board at the bar and ordered drinks. Then we started asking the bartender about the rums we hadn’t seen before, so he put together a tasting for us. I didn’t expect a really young guy to know much about them, but he absolutely did. We enjoyed the Brugal Anejo and Ron Barcelo quite a bit.

From there, we went off in search of dinner. I’d wanted to try Cafe Puerto Rico because they had some vegetarian versions of classic Puerto Rican food, but they were closed due to the lack of electricity in the area. (Thankfully, we’d seen that it had returned at our hotel.) Our bartender had recommended Cafe Berlin for vegetarian food, so we went with that instead. It had a monstrous menu, and was totally not what I’d expected at all. We got a seat on the patio, and ordered mojitos. The menu had tofu criollo, in addition to other vegetarian food. I was thrilled.

After our surprisingly good meal, it was time to head to El Batey, one of the greatest bars on earth. I had to use the restroom right away when we got there, so I took a picture so you can see the ambiance in there.

There were only a few people there when we arrived. Our bartender was Filipe, and he was something. He decided he was Matt’s best friend, and would come over and spend several minutes discussing films with him while other people waited for drinks. It was pretty entertaining.

We ordered Barrilitos, but somehow Filipe misheard and we ended up with a Medalla as well. We gave it to Bally.

While seated at the bar, I was also sitting inside a lamp that had a million business cards taped to it, forming a growing chandelier. Matt was wearing his Mac’s Club Deuce shirt (in honor of another excellent dive bar), and we found a Mac’s card taped inside the lamp. I verified that the pool room was not a dirt floor, as I’d remembered, just concrete. We also managed to locate our names on the wall from our previous visit. They’d been written over a bit with other graffiti, but they’re definitely still visible.

A group came in loudly, and I ended up talking to one of them who was next to me at the bar. They’d decided on an impromptu three-day trip to San Juan, which sounded like an excellent idea to me. The guy was drinking Dimple Pinch, which struck me as really strange… later we started to see it at every bar, and I’m still not sure what’s going on with that.

After a while, Matt went to the bathroom and the tab appeared in front of me. I didn’t take it personally; Filipe was kind of in a state. We paid up and headed back in the direction of our hotel, but weren’t quite ready for bed yet. We decided to stop into a too-brightly-lit bar called the Douglas Pub (which I’d coincidentally seen earlier and made fun of because it looked so crappy). I was ordering a rum and diet just as Matt pointed out the Fireball tap, so of course we had to partake in that too. And after that, it was definitely time to go across the street and up the many stairs to bed.

Saturday morning, we hauled our bags down to the lobby, checked out, and left them with the staff there. We headed down the street to La Mallorquina, since La Bombonera is currently closed for renovation. When in San Juan, you must have a mallorca for breakfast.

I had a mallorca con queso, and Matt had the standard jamon y queso. And, god, their coffee is fantastic. I don’t know why it’s so good, but it’s probably something to do with full-fat milk. Delicious.

After lunch, we did some more shopping and wandering in San Juan. It was raining on and off, but not much.

At some point I’ll remember where everything is in San Juan (OSJ is small, after all!), but I still can’t get it right. I at least know what general area I can find things in.

We headed up in the direction of El Morro to see La Iglesia de San Jose, because it’s the second-oldest church in the Americas. I know I’d see it before (I have photos of the statue of Columbus nearby), but I didn’t really know the history. Along the way, we encountered the customary cats hanging out on the street. I think this guy was annoyed that I woke him up for a photo.

The church is under renovation, so there’s a lot of scaffolding and you can’t go inside. Still, this time we knew what we were actually looking at.

I’ve been in El Morro a couple times, so we didn’t go in. We wandered around the giant park surrounding it, where tons of people were flying kites. The rain was now totally gone, and it was gorgeous outside.

We headed back through cat alley (there were at least 12 of them in there), walked through an awesome neighborhood, and came out along the city wall.

Seeing La Puerta (the city gate) never gets old. This walk at sunset is amazing.

We were near the Cathedral de San Juan, so we decided to actually go inside this time. I’d read that the remains of Ponce de Leon were in there, and I was set on finding them.

The cathedral is amazing, and in really good condition for a building that’s been in use for over 500 years.

We circled the outside, checking out the alcoves and many creepy shrines. (I can’t help it; religious stuff makes me nervous.) We found Ponce de Leon along the left side, near the back of the church:

Since we were across the street from Hotel El Convento, we decided to stop in for a drink. We found a very lovely courtyard full of tables, and had a seat at the bar. While we can’t afford to stay there, we can at least afford a mojito there. We sat and watched them setting up for a wedding that night. (I’d be shocked if they didn’t have weddings there every weekend.)

From there we headed back over near the city wall, because I also wanted to revisit Cappila del Cristo. I’d only recently learned the legend about it (that they used to race horses down Calle Cristo, and one rider couldn’t stop and went flying over the city wall at the end of the street), plus the gates were actually open this time.

The altar was amazing. This is to the right as you go into the chapel, behind gates.

The left side was photos and history, plus this impressive array of milagros:

After that, it was time to find some lunch. Because we’d walked past it earlier, we knew that Cafe Puerto Rico was still closed. We walked back down Calle Recinto Sur toward the middle of town to see what we’d find along the way. We finally decided on Lupi’s, because we were dying of hunger and knew they’d have something vegetarian. We got a table on the street, so we could people-watch while we dined.

After lunch, we walked down to where the cruise ships docked when they’re stopping in San Juan. That was boring, so we wandered back up in the direction of our hotel. We decided to stop and have a beer at the Jamaican restaurant there before going to get our suitcases. We hung out talking to the girl working at Blessed Cafe about other parts of Puerto Rico for a while, and then headed across the street to Casa Blanca. We got our bags and a taxi, and it was time to leave San Juan. SIGH.

The check-in process on our ship was really quick (it was 3pm, so we were fairly early), and we were on board in no time. They gave us glasses of champagne as we got on, and we decided to go directly to the cabin to check it out. As usual, we had carry-on bags and our suitcases would be delivered later.

We had cabin 7047, a veranda room on the port side near the forward elevators. Our cabin steward, Socorro, stopped by shortly after we arrived to introduce himself. I made sure to tell him it was Matt’s birthday that week. I’d also ordered the birthday package for him for our sailaway that day, so I expected to find champagne and a cake and such awaiting us, but it wasn’t there for some reason. I figured I’d wait and see if it showed up before telling Matt about it.

We’d sailed on the Celebrity Summit before, so we knew what to expect. The only big difference this time was that we had the beverage package; we’d gotten the basic drinks package for free with the booking (it covered anything up to $7, and if you ordered something more expensive you paid the entire amount, not the difference.) Based on my research, we’d decided to upgrade to the premium package, which covered everything up to $13. Plus if you went over, you only paid the difference. Based on our tab at the end of the last cruise, it was worth it.

There were also a few changes to some of the bars and public spaces since our last cruise, so I was excited to see that. But having sailed on the ship before, we didn’t have to devote our first day to exploring everything, like we usually do.

We headed up to the pool bar to get a drink. I ordered a mojito, and ended up with this, which ended up being a frozen margarita. At least it was pretty good.

We did some more wandering around the ship, and then headed back to the pool area when our drinks were empty. This time we went up and got seats at the Mast Bar overlooking the pool (and the entire port area). We marveled at how much better the drink menus had gotten… they were way more sophisticated, with less focus on ‘boat drinks’ and more on actual well-thought-out cocktails. And the best part was we had already prepaid for them, so we didn’t have to deal with that part at all.

After hanging out there a while we were starting to get hungry, so we tried the burger bar. There was a 10 minute wait for a veggie burger there, so we went into the buffet next door instead and got pizza. From there we went out to the bar at the back of the ship and learned that they had awesome Jamaican bartenders. Marlon quickly became our favorite.

We got drinks and took them down to the room to see if our bags had arrived yet. They had, so we unpacked and got our room in order. We hung out on the balcony for a bit as we started to sail away, and then went upstairs to Marlon’s bar again. It was already dark, since we sailed at 8:30, so there wasn’t too much to see from the deck.

For dinner we didn’t care much for dressing up for the dining room, so we went back to the buffet. Matt had sushi, and I had a giant salad and Indian food that was pretty decent. After that we went down to Michael’s Club, since it was one of the bars that had remodeled since our last trip. Then it was the cigar and scotch bar, and this time it was the craft beer bar (which also had scotch). That seemed pretty much perfect for us, and there were several things on the menu I’d never tried before. We had some beer, and hung out talking to an awesome couple we met from Pittsburgh. Also, we noticed that there were Canadians EVERYWHERE on the ship, and it made it especially easy to identify them because (in addition to their hilarious accents), they were all wearing hockey-related clothing. It was in the middle of the Olympics, so that at least made some sense.

We headed to the casino, where I went to play craps and Matt blackjack. I did well at craps for a bit, and then everything went badly. I took the rest of my chips and joined him at the blackjack table, where I got wiped out the rest of the way. Thankfully, he was at least doing well. When we were done playing, we went to grab a beer and take it up to the room.

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up and threw up like crazy. Hello, seasickness!

We got up at 7:15, which wasn’t that pleasant, but we had to be out of the room by 8am. Technically we were supposed to get off the ship at 8am (they send people off in groups depending on where they’re going afterward), but since our plans involved a cab to the airport for a 12:30 flight, we had plenty of time.

We went up to the buffet for one last gruel and Maxwell’s Foreclosure, and the place was absolutely packed, to the point we had trouble finding a table. I’ve never seen anything on a cruise ship so crowded, so I was amazed. After eating, we took our carryons down to the 4th deck, where we were supposed to exit. There was a line of people standing there, so we joined it, not really knowing what was going on. (I mean, they were pointed toward the exit.) After standing there a long time without moving, we decided to go to the spot we were originally supposed to meet before debarkation.

We got to the theater and I asked one of the staff about whether we should wait, or if we could get off. She said they were having trouble with the gangway, so we should join everyone in the theatre. We went in and got seats, and ended up waiting there for a very long time. I was glad we’d decided to leave the line, so we could at least sit down.

They finally announced that we could leave, so we headed off the ship and down to the building with all the luggage. The gangway had obviously worked at one point, because ours were the only suitcases left in our disembarkation group. We then took them over to the customs line, and proceeded to stand there FOREVER, because it was run by the most distractable lady on earth. At least it was fun watching the cute drug-sniffing dog running up and down the line.

Finally we were free of the cruise terminal. We got a cab to the airport and went to check in at Cape Air. They told us how to find the gates, took our bags, and sent us on our way with a couple hours to kill. We got coffee at Starbucks, and had a surprisingly decent lunch at Mango’s, which had the only vegetarian food in the terminal. We then went to hang out at Air Margaritaville for a bit, enjoying the airport’s free wifi and a Medalla.

Then it was time to catch our flight, so we headed back to the small-plane terminal. They called our flight time, and directed us down an escalator to the lower level. There we met up with two other couples, and then an agent led us out onto the tarmac. I love any day I get to walk on the tarmac!!

As expected, the plane was tiny. It had 4 rows of seats, but they only let us use three of them. Matt’s seat folded down, so that the front row could exit more easily. They took our carry-ons and stowed them in the nose and over the wings, and of course I forgot to grab my phone or camera. We strapped in, and our pilot (Captain Jim!) just turned around in his seat to tell us about the exits in case of emergency. It was awesome.

And then we were off to Vieques! We took off over the ocean, and hugged the coast of Puerto Rico all the way around the east end of the island. We could see El Yunque National Forest, and Fajardo, the port where the ferries to the islands depart. (We had considered the ferry, but it’s apparently unreliable, slow, and you have to get to Fajardo. Flying was much easier.) Within a few minutes, we could see Vieques, and then the airstrip we were landing on. Seeing the approach and landing out the front window of an airplane feels a lot like a video game. (While I’ve flown an airplane before, I’ve never landed one. I don’t even remember what it’s like.)

We climbed out onto the tarmac at VQS, which could not be more different from the airport in San Juan. It was tiny, with a single building and four circles for airplanes to park. (We were parked in the spot reserved for the W’s private jet – it’s the only resort on the island.) They handed us our carry-ons, and the pilot told us to grab our suitcases off the world’s smallest conveyor belt.

We went inside, and the conveyor belt was no joke – it was maybe 10′ across, with half outside and half inside. Awesome.

We had a Jeep reserved from Maritza’s Car Rental, which I’d chosen because they were the only one advertising airport pickup. The booth was there, but nobody was in attendance. (It had a sign saying it was closed 12-1, and it was after one.) I called them, and they said they were on their way over. In the meantime, a guy sitting there at the airport saw us looking at the tourist map, and came over to talk. It turns out he and his girlfriend were leaving after three days in Vieques, and he wanted to give us some advice. We appreciated that like crazy, because there is hardly anything about Vieques on the internet beyond the usual TripAdvisor stuff. No good maps, no restaurant menus, no great advice beyond which beaches to go to and “you need a Jeep to get anywhere”.

They gave us loads of advice on getting around, on beaches to visit (he verified the Jeep thing), about the BioBay, and even which restaurants had good vegetarian food, as they were also vegetarian. He showed us everything on the map, too, and we lamented that that awesome tourist map wasn’t online anywhere. (Vieques is small enough that they can draw almost every single business on the island on the map. Really.) He also told us what he’d been told: Vieques has 9,000 people and 3,000 horses, so watch out for them on the road. Our car showed up a few minutes later, so we thanked them profusely and headed out.

I was expecting a crappy beat-up Jeep, but what we got was fantastic. It was basically brand new! I was super-excited to drive a Jeep, too, because I never had before. We named it Captain Ron, following our longstanding ‘Captain’ tradition.

We’d decided to do a VRBO rental in Vieques, based on advice from other people and the fact that they really don’t have much in the way of hotels beyond the W (which was $600 a night, and really not our style). It was about 1:45 and we couldn’t check in at the house til 3, so we decided to drive into town to the grocery store before calling the owner to get directions.

Vieques has two towns – Isabel Segundo, where the ferry lands on the north side of the island – and Esperanza on the south side. They’re barely even towns, really… Isabel is larger and is maybe 10 square blocks. There’s one main road that runs across the top of the island, from the airport and the W, just past Isabel II. From there, there are three main roads that go north-south, all ending up in Esperanza. The entire eastern half of the island is protected nature preserve / former bombing range, and a lot of it is still closed due to the very real possibility of land mines. (The US military rented out Vieques and Culebra as bombing grounds up through the 1960s, which is why they’re still so undeveloped.)

We took the main road into Esperanza (passing a cockfighting facility along the way), looking for the grocery store the couple had recommended. He said that it looked sketchy, so we decided it was the bodega on the corner. We parked the Jeep, locked everything (we’d been warned), and went to the store. We ended up with an overfull basket, a bottle of rum, and some $3/bottle Kona beers, and a huge backup of people in line behind us while they run us up.

They didn’t have everything we wanted at the store, so we went down a couple blocks to the other grocery store we’d seen. That was the actual grocery store, we realized as we entered. We stocked up on more supplies for tacos, plenty of drink mixers, coffee, plantain chips, and other things we needed to stock up at the hacienda (our name for the rental house, based on the awesome photos). We grabbed a 6-pack of Medalla, too.

Once we were fully outfitted, I called the owner. My signal kept going in and out, and I barely had an internet connection, despite T-Mobile’s assurances of 4G LTE in all of Puerto Rico. I got his voicemail, so I left a message and we decided to drive on and see things until he called back. A little ways down the road, my phone rang, so I pulled over and grabbed it. It wouldn’t connect, of course. Finally, we found a spot where my phone worked, and I got the owner on the line. It turned out he was in Maryland at the time.

His directions to the house were something like this: “Go down the road until you see mom&pop store, and then there’s a two-story wooden building that looks like it’s falling down, but it’s actually a store. Turn there. Go by some mailboxes and turn there. Look for a house called ____ and it’s right past there. There’s a really steep driveway.” Then he told me where to find the key. We went over the directions again since that stuff was not on my tourist map (as far as I could tell), and then Matt and I set off to find it. Since I’m godawful at landmark-based directions (I like cardinal, thank you very much), I told Matt twice what he had told me, so we wouldn’t forget it.

We found the first grocery store, and then the falling-down building was unmistakeable (it would later become known as “the ramshackle”). We found the mailboxes, and the house he’d named, so we knew we were in the right place. It was at the top of a very tall hill, and the road up there was gorgeous.

We turned the only direction we could go from the house, and looked for a steep driveway. Down the road a little bit, we came to the top of a cliff. It wasn’t a road, it was what you see when you get to the top of the biggest hill on a rollercoaster, and can’t actually see the track below you. I flipped out. There was no way in hell I was taking a vehicle, or anything, down that gigantic steep hill. That kind of road would not even be legal on the mainland.

(This was only the top, and doesn’t do it justice. But hey, you can see the ocean and the bioluminescent bays from there!)

We sat there parked at the top of the hill, and decided we had no choice. He’d said it was a really steep driveway, after all. This was more of a road than a driveway, but it was also the steepest thing I’d ever seen. So we started off.

I rode the brake the whole way down, unsure whether to let up and tear down the hill to get it over with, or whether I’d hold on too long and we’d tumble onto the roof. I’ve never been so terrified driving before. We were leaning back as far as we could, because I was sure we were going to flip right over.

But we made it!! At the bottom was a whole big crowd of peacocks waiting for us. I was so upset about the hill that I didn’t even bother taking their picture. (Mostly it was the prospect of having to drive down that same hill every single day, even at night, while we were there. We’d never leave the house.)

What was not at the bottom of the hill was the house we were looking for. There was a dead end, so we turned around (which was a challenge). We looked around, and the house was definitely not there – I’d seen pictures online, and these were not it. We’d have to drive BACK UP the same damn hill.

Part of the way up, we saw a guy hanging out in his garage, so we stopped and asked if he had any idea where the place might be. He wasn’t sure, but thought maybe it was back up at the top by the ____ house. We hadn’t seen anything else up there, but we had to go back up there anyway. Unbelievably, we made it back up the hill. At that point, I absolutely knew for sure why people drove 4WD in Vieques.

We ended up back by the ____ house, our last known waypoint, and I found a spot where I could get a signal again. We called and talked to the owner, and he said we’d gone too far; the driveway was immediately past the ___ house. When he said that, we recalled the gap in the fence  at the end of the wall, and I knew that had to be it. I thanked him, and we turned back around.

By the time we turned, there was a horse walking out of the driveway to our hacienda. He was showing us the way, obviously. I nosed the Jeep into the fence-gap, and then we could see the house at the bottom of what was indeed a very steep driveway. But that driveway was nothing like the road we’d just driven down, so that made it seem easy. We parked the Jeep, dragged out our bags and groceries, and I went to retrieve the key.

Our hacienda was AMAZING.

There was a patio that wrapped around two sides of the house, and the one with the grill and coconut palms had a view of the nature preserve and the ocean. It was perfect.

There were geckos all over the place, too.

The place was gigantic, and decorated with African masks and furniture that had obviously been acquired over many years. There was a full kitchen (we were looking forward to cooking after a week), and a washer and dryer so we could do the laundry. I got on that right away, of course.

After so many days of constant motion, always having to make transportation plans and stick to schedules and cut short our time in places, I was really excited at the idea of just staying at the house for the rest of the day. It was exactly 3pm, we had all the groceries we needed, and we were alone on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. It was  perfect. We opened some beers and sat in deck chairs on the patio, watching birds in the trees. (I was on the lookout for more horses in the yard, too.)

The palm tree over our heads had a couple really big coconuts on it, but they were well out of our reach. Since the VRBO listing had mentioned picking your own coconuts, I was determined to make it happen. I knew we wouldn’t be able to open them without a machete, so I went poking around the laundry closet where things seemed to be stored. I found two machetes in there, so I brought one out and we started swinging at the coconut. It was still too far away to reach the branch holding it, though, so I went back to the utility closet and found an extendable painting pole.

We had to stand on a planter, and it took a good half-hour or so to make it happen, but we got that damn coconut off the tree. Then we took turns hacking at it til we got it open, and drained the juice out. (We managed to open it the rest of the way after that.)

Then Matt made cocktails with the coconut juice and Barrilito, and it was the greatest thing ever. (He named it the Caribella: Barrilito, lime, soursoup juice, simple syrup, and coconut water.) We sat on the patio for a very long time, just staring at the forest and the ocean beyond it. We had some plantain chips, and watched a huge team of ants carry a tiny piece of chip away at an alarming pace.

Round about dinnertime, we headed to the kitchen and made tostones and tacos with sofrito rice, beans, cheese, and huitlacoche. Matt made flank steak churrasco on the grill. We ate on the patio with a mosquito coil burning, but didn’t really see much evidence of bugs at all, which surprised me. There were super-loud frogs (particularly the Puerto Rican mascot, who yells COQUI!) and geckos running everywhere, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

While we were playing dominoes outside, I started to feel like I was getting a cold. OF COURSE. We decided to go inside and turn on the bedroom A/C and hang out. Matt turned on the TV to see if we could find the Gophers hockey game, since it was on one of the ESPN channels that night, and the place had satellite. Well, apparently they turn off the service when they’re not there, because all we got were a ton of free channels (which were mostly home shopping). Thankfully, DirecIV was doing a free preview promo, and one of the included channels was the NHL Network. So we got to watch some hockey after all.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping because of my cold and seasickness (oh no, it never goes away right away!), but I still got up at 9:15 feeling much better than I had on the ship. I went to make coffee, and we had breakfast on the patio. I was so happy to have decent Puerto Rican coffee, too.

We showered and got geared up for the beach, which required more work than you might think: we needed towels, cooler, beer, lots of water, some snacks, sunscreen, cold medicine and kleenex, and beach chairs (which we found in the closet at the hacienda). We piled all those things in the Jeep and headed toward Blue Beach, the one the people at the airport had liked the best.

I noticed when I turned the Jeep hard to the left that the steering wheel kind of caught, and I had trouble steering. I figured maybe that was just a Jeep thing, but I wasn’t sure. Driving that big bouncy thing around with vertigo was pretty entertaining, too.

The turnoff for the nature preserve was a few miles down the road toward Esperanza. From there it’s a few miles on a potholed, washboard road covered in horse poop, because there are wild horses wandering around everywhere. It’s fantastic.

There are a few beaches along the way, but we wanted to go to the one that was known for having signs about unexploded bombs. There was a mysterious detour along the way, near some mysterious gates with multiple ‘no trespassing’ signs. We got to the beach access road, and drove until we found a little parking area that had the fewest cars (there are 13 beach access spots, and apparently 11-13 have gazebos; they were the most crowded. We went to 7, right by the road closure.) There was a sign there warning us to stay on travelled paths, because otherwise we might be blown up by 1950s bombs. SERIOUSLY.

We’d been told by the people at the airport that theft was a problem at the beaches, with all those untended cars sitting around. The solution was to take everything with you, and just leave the windows of the car open so they didn’t get broken.

So, yeah, check out just how crowded Blue Beach was.

There weren’t any shady spots to be had, so we set up our beach chairs and cooler and covered ourselves in SPF 50. We cracked some beers and just hung out looking at the ocean. There was an island that was fairly close to shore, and there were signs all over it warning people to not go onto the island because of unexploded ordnance. (Pictured in the header above.) Snorkel boats were bringing people to swim at the reef right next to it, though.

We went to swim for a long time, which mainly consisted of bobbing around in the water. The temperature was perfect. After that we sat in our beach chairs again, and decided to cut open the mysterious fruit I’d picked up at the bodega the previous day. It turned out to be the world’s largest yellow avocado, so we ate that with a bag of plantain chips.

A guy named Brandon (who Matt termed the “one-man brodown”) showed up with three women, and they picked a spot far too close to us, since we could hear all the immense douchiness Brandon was broadcasting around the beach. We decided that was a good opportunity for us to go get lunch, so we packed up our stuff, threw it in the Jeep, and headed toward Esperanza. We met these horses along the way:

The town was about five miles or so from the entrance to the nature preserve, on the south side of the island. It was right in the middle of the lunch hour, so the tiny town was crowded. There were a bunch of food trucks and some trinket tents set up in the parking lot at the pier, and a few open-air restaurants facing the malecon. We drove slowly through town checking out our options, and had to go down a few blocks to find parking. We ended up parked next to Lazy Jack’s, a combination hippie restaurant and hostel. (I’d decided from their ad on the tourist map that I didn’t like it, but I really have no idea why.)

We wanted to have lunch at El Blok, a new Jose Enrique restaurant that was also illustrated on the map. It was about three blocks down the malecon, so we headed that direction. We rounded the corner to find the spot that El Blok would be, once construction was finished. It wasn’t even close. (Don’t ever change, Puerto Rico.)

We turned around and decided on Duffy’s (another place I’d judged as a crappy bro-bar based on their tiny ad on the map, but that wasn’t true at all; I don’t think that’s really possible in Esperanza). We got a seat, and were greeted by an awesome server. Their menu said they had the island’s largest selection of craft beers, and that was no joke; there were some selections from the Old Harbor Brewery that we’d visited in San Juan, and a beer fridge full of craft beer from all over the place. I ordered an Abita Turbodog and a veggie burger; Matt had a Stone IPA and a pastele with pork. (Pasteles are traditional Christmas food in Puerto Rico, but the server said they had the guy who made them chained up in the back because they were so good. The tostones were amazing, too.)

After his beer, Matt ordered the house special, the Parcherita, which was a passionfruit margarita with a salt and demerara sugar rim. I just tried his, since I had to navigate a Jeep on the world’s narrowest roads. Our server said people loved them so much that they’d had them as the cocktail at their weddings in Vieques. I couldn’t argue with that, because it was delicious.

By that point, I’d started to realize just how much Esperanza reminded me of Negril, just much tinier. It was really laid-back, everybody was friendly, there were locals drifting in and out of bars, and everywhere you looked there was an amazing view. Even better than Negril, it was clearly gay-friendly… there were rainbow flags everywhere. I was suddenly very, very happy to be there.

We wanted to stay all day, but we had more beaches to visit. We headed to the Jeep and made some phone calls, both to the house’s owner who was checking in, and to make reservations for the BioBay tour on Monday night. Esperanza was one of the few places on the island where we reliably had a phone signal, if not internet connectivity. The owner said the house had wifi and that we just needed to get the password off the router, but that it was also very common for the phone company to “accidentally” cut the lines for DSL, and it would take forever for them to repair it. I told him we’d check and let him know.

The Jeep was still having that weird steering issue every time I made a tight turn (like a u-turn, which I did a lot in Vieques), so I was going to call the car rental place to ask them about it. Matt suggested we just drive over there, since it was only a few miles away. Vieques is indeed tiny! We headed over there, along one of the roads that ran north-south across the island. The road was very windy and forested. We saw a couple places along the way that we wanted to stop – one was an awesome-looking bar with a corrugated aluminum roof, and one was the place we were planning to have dinner later.

We got to Maritza’s, and I stopped into the office to describe the steering issue with the Jeep. They summoned the mechanic, and he took it for a spin (literally) in the parking lot. He said it was just low tires, so they filled them up and we were on our way again. Everyone there was super-friendly, too.

On the way back, we decided to stop into Tin Box (the corrugated-roof place) for a drink. The parking lot was fairly empty, but it appeared to be open. We parked and as we walked in, a older lady working there barked “WE’RE CLOSED!” I asked when they’d be open, and she said “Tuesday”. As we left, there were a few people walking up in obviously wedding-related clothing, so we were pretty sure it was closed for a private event. (That would be the one crabby person we talked to on Vieques.) We got back on the road and headed to Red Beach/Caracas (every beach in Vieques has two names – a color, and a local name).

It was down the same road as Blue Beach, inside the nature preserve. It was “crowded” when we got there, in that there were probably 50 people on the entire beach. A lot of them appeared to be packing up to go, though, since for some reason morning is beach-time. There was a large group of hippie-looking people partying at the far end of the beach, and also there was a nun. A BEACH NUN. I was so excited.

We also saw Brazilian Derek Jeter strutting up and down the beach in his Speedo. He kept going in the water to splash his crotch. I have no idea, but it was pretty entertaining to watch. We hung out and had some beers, then went to swim until about 5:30.

This is my absolute favorite time of day on the beach, when the sun starts to get low:

When we’d been in the water long enough to get cold, it was time to head out. We very nearly had the entire beach to ourselves at that point, too. We dried off at the car, put clothes on over our bathing suits, and headed back toward Esperanza for dinner. When you’re on an island, you don’t have to be that classy. (I did tell Matt I thought we were under-dressed, but he disagreed.)

Next Course was on the road near Maritza’s, and I was glad we’d driven that way before, since we’d have to drive it in the dark. Between the narrow, curvy roads and the lack of street lighting, I was pretty wary of having to do that.

The place had a steep driveway going down to a hairpin turn to a parking lot, which had a line of four or five Jeeps that were basically identical to ours, all backed in to the spots. We did the same, laughing because the one next to ours was even the same exact color. The place wasn’t too busy yet, but it was small enough that reservations would definitely be required later in the evening.

They gave us a spot on the balcony, overlooking the line of Jeeps, a valley in the middle of the island, and the coast of Puerto Rico in the distance. It was hard to complain about that.

Their menu was excellent, both food and cocktails. It was sort of California-style Caribbean cuisine, with lots of local ingredients. I had broiled watermelon with goat cheese and radish greens, and Matt had oysters Rockefeller.

Then I ordered a wild mushroom pizza, and he got butter-poached lobster with crab risotto and fennel cream. We didn’t want dessert, but when the menu arrived, we noticed that one of the options was to buy the kitchen beers for a dollar apiece. Our server said there were four people working back there, so that seemed like a pretty solid investment for four bucks. They deserved it.

The place was pretty much full by the time we left, and Matt was right – there was a wide array of dress there, though people did tend towards fancier. (I was wearing a dress, at least.) When we got to the Jeep, I understood why everyone had backed in – the parking lot was full, and there were cars parked along the wall across from us. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get the Jeep out of there, but after a few well-executed manuevers we escaped.

The drive back was as harrying as I’d expected. I was driving slow enough to have cars stacked up behind us, but I didn’t care. It was hard to navigate by landmarks at night, too, but luckily the road in Destino had some streetlights. We found the ramshackle, and decided to drive up to Colmado Mambo, the not-as-shady-looking bodega, for Barrilito and a few other things. As we passed the road to our neighborhood, there was a car sitting there with running lights but without its headlights on.

I pulled up in a spot out front, and Matt said he’d run in. I looked over at another vehicle parked there, and saw a bunch of faces looking at me. It was super-creepy, to the point where I was conviced we were going to be robbed. I decided to prepare for it, by hiding the only thing we could not lose: Bally Basketball. I put him under Matt’s seat and then played with my phone, not looking at them, til Matt FINALLY emerged from the store. It seemed to take forever.

He said that nobody in the store could be bothered to do anything, and that though there were a bunch of cars out front, there was no one in the store. I pulled out of the spot, passed the creepy van, and went to make a U-turn in the street just past the parking lot. Just as I did that, someone laid on the horn and freaked me out. I didn’t think they were honking at us (since we weren’t in anyone’s way), but then I remembered the headlight-less car waiting by our hacienda and decided that we were most definitely going to be murdered.

I was trying to figure out what to do if we got there and the car was still waiting, because the police station was most definitely behind us, and ahead was a whole bunch of marshy, empty area and the ocean. We were totally dead, and someone was going to steal Bally. I was so freaked out by the whole thing that I missed the turn by the ramshackle, and  the car wasn’t even there anymore. Somehow we had CHEATED DEATH.

I didn’t tell Matt about this non-murder-plot til we were back in the house showering, because it was too embarrassing. He agreed that the people in the van were definitely shiftless and creepy, though!!

Our hacienda hadn’t been hard to find in the dark, so that made me feel better about driving around there, since our BioBay tour wasn’t until 10pm the next night.

We hauled our leftovers and other things into the house, did dishes from the previous night, and I started laundry. Then we went to play Moby Dick, the nerdiest card game ever, on the patio. It calls for a “measure of grog” to pass back and forth as an indication of whose turn it is, and Matt had conveniently purchased an actual half-gill measure at Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua. Our nerdiness was absolute.

After our game, a moth flew up onto the patio and started flying all over the place like it was crazy. We decided it was horny, and headed inside before it attacked us anymore. While we were bringing our things inside, we discovered a little coqui that had taken up residence between the slats of the chair to spend the night. So cute!

Matt played an Indonesian drum in the house for a while (because why not?) and we went to bed around midnight. I was smart this time and took dramamine, which meant I slept far better. I still had my cold, but there was something about being on an island that made me barely even notice.

When I got up to make coffee, I noticed a couple chickens running around the yard, so I fed them some torn-up bread. Patio chickens!! I wanted to keep them.

We got our stuff piled into the Jeep again, and headed to find another beach. Our destination this time was Navio, because it was one of the most secluded, and our hacienda’s owner said there were tidal caves at one end.

According to our tourist map, we had to take the road that went past Sun Bay, just outside Esperanza. We’d already driven by there a couple times, and I’d noticed that the gate on the road into the park (apparently it’s a campground) seemed to always be closed. The exit gate was open, and there were cars in the parking lot, so we figured that must be the thing to do. We drove in through the exit, and headed down the beach road.

Sun Bay had a gigantic beach and actual facilities, so I’m guessing it probably got fairly crowded on the weekends. When we drove past, though, there were only a few cars parked there. The road quickly turned from potholed asphalt to even-more-potholed dirt, and we followed the signs pointing toward the beaches and the bioluminesent bay.

We passed Media Luna beach, and then came to a fork in the road. The left fork led to the BioBay, and the right to Navio. The road was tiny, with no room for cars to pass. We didn’t exactly know what we’d do if we encountered a car coming towards us, because it was thick, jungly forest on both sides of the road. The potholes were terrible, too, and got progressively worse. I wasn’t even sure our Jeep was going to make it, between driving in and out of potholes and the couple of mud pits we had to pass. Had there been a spot to turn around, we would’ve done so, but there wasn’t.

We finally got to the end of the road, where there was sort of a cul-de-sac and some parking spots for Navio beach. We found a little clearing with a shady palm tree and set up our chairs, using the tree as an ottoman.

Navio was worth the journey. It was a perfect beach.

Pretty crowded, right?

I did a little beachcombing, and found some fan coral and a little sand dollar.

There were indeed caves at the end of the beach, but the tide was pretty high at that point. People were snorkelling by this reef.

We hung out under our palm tree for a couple hours, relaxing and watching the ocean. After that, we decided to go back to Sun Bay to swim, because the waves at Navio seemed pretty rough. Plus I really wanted to see the other beach, because I liked all the huge palm trees there.

The drive back wasn’t quite as nervewracking, since we knew what to expect. I decided to make a video so everyone could experience what it’s like driving on the road to Navio. Matt pretended he was on Top Gear.

We parked at Sun Bay, and picked a gigantic palm tree to sit under. How does Vieques have so many gorgeous beaches?? And how were they practically empty?

Bally had some adventures on the beach. First he sat in his own palm tree:

Then he found a cairn:

Then he wore a piece of coconut as a hat.

There was one other couple on this entire beach. Seriously.

We went and swam for a long time. There was a bit of sea grass right by the beach, but once you swam over it, the rest was sandy. We decided to get some exercise, and swam out to the rope and back.

Near the shore, I found a pufferfish swimming right at the surface. I chased him in Matt’s direction so he could see it, too. Sadly, he wasn’t freaked out enough to actually puff up.

Once we started getting cold, we got out of the water. I wandered around finding treasures on the beach for a while.

This weird fruit was growing on a tree nearby. A few had fallen off, and looked kind of frightening laying there rotting.

We were getting hungry for lunch, so we packed up the Jeep and headed out. I was glad we’d driven through there during the day, since we had to meet the BioBay tour group in the parking lot at Sun Bay later, and that closed gate would’ve been confusing.

There were a ton of horses hanging out in the campground area. They’re pretty skittish, and don’t like people coming too close.

We parked the Jeep on a side street in Esperanza. This guy was wandering around town:

It was a bit past lunchtime on Monday, and Esperanza was much quieter than the previous day.

We decided to try Lazy Jack’s for lunch, because we knew they had vegetarian options there. They also had delicious signature drinks.

The place had a hostel in back, and there were young people coming and going from it. There was a girl sitting at the bar waiting for the mail delivery, and our server appeared to be staying at the hostel as well. She took our order and then disappeared for a long time, and we later saw her wandering down the street with someone else staying there. The bartenders seemed to be the only actual employees there.

We noticed a series of vans driving up and down the street, and realized those were the Vieques bus system. They had signs in the windows listing their stops, which were mostly Isabel II and Esperanza, the W, and the beaches.

After lunch, we decided to go back to Duffy’s for a beer. We’d really liked the place, and wanted to stop in again on our last day there. Here it is with the patio, facing the malecon:

Here’s the malecon facing west. That’s ‘mainland’ Puerto Rico in the distance:

We got a seat at the bar at Duffy’s, where I had to contemplate this creepy painting:

Hostel guests were wandering in and out of there, too. (Esperanza is a lot like Negril, in very tiny form.) Matt decided he was only drinking beers named after sea creatures, so he had a Leviathan and a Lost Coast Great White. We hung out there for a couple of drinks, then asked the bartender if we could get a bottle of Schneider/Brooklyn Weiss to take back to the house. He accidentally opened it, so he gave us that one for free and grabbed another one to go.

We headed back to the hacienda to hang out on the patio for a while, and work on our bottle of Barrilito and shower. We emptied our suitcases and repacked them with clean clothes and souvenirs. Later on, we made dinner and ate outside, then played dominoes until it was time to get ready for the BioBay tour.

We left the house around 9:40, and I wasn’t thrilled about driving around in the dark again. A car tailgated me the whole way to Sun Bay with its brights on, and when it passed Matt noticed that it was a cop. We turned into the exit again, and headed toward the parking lot where we saw a bunch of identical Jeeps. There were a bunch of people there waiting already. Then a few giant white vans pulled up, and a bunch more people piled out. (Apparently Abe’s will come pick you up if you don’t have a car.)

The BioBay was the main reason I’d originally wanted to come to Vieques, because there aren’t very many of them in the world. There’s apparently one tour company that has transparent kayaks, but we went with Abe’s because the people at the airport said they were great.

There were way more people than I’d expected, especially for a Monday night. They counted 36 total, which meant 18 two-person kayaks. We all signed in and paid, and then they gave us some instructions for the tour. They gave each group a number so that we could count off while we were out in the bay, since it would be hard to see. Then we all piled in the vans, and they set off down the same road we’d taken to Navio earlier that day.

I ended up talking to the lady next to me, and discovered that she was Minnesotan, too. They’d come over on the ferry from Fajardo, and were spending a couple weeks in Vieques. We of course got to discussing the blizzard, and her daughter told us how they’d blown a local’s mind on the ferry by telling him about ice fishing. Hilarious.

Since the tour guides were obviously quite familiar with the potholed back roads, they drove much, much faster than we did in the Jeep. I’m shocked that none of us hit our heads on the ceiling. Matt and I were cracking up because we knew what to expect, and those who were having the experience for the first time looked a little panicked about it. We arrived at the launch spot at the bay, and the guides started unloading kayaks and life jackets from a truck there. It was really dark (we’d been super-lucky and ended up there on a moonless night, which is the ideal time to go), and the only light was from the guides’ headlamps.

Matt and I were team #2, so we got in our kayak right away. They told us to paddle out and grab a spot by a pontoon that was floating in the bay, to wait for everyone to get into the water. We gathered there and the guides explained that the bay provides perfect conditions for dinoflagellates that glow when they’re disturbed. We all sat there splashing our hands in the water, watching them light up. It kind of looked like blue sparks that left a trail after every movement.

We paddled in a group over to see the narrow opening from the bay to the sea, and paddling made them glow even brighter. It was too dark to really see much, or to have a sense of distance. (We kayak quite a bit, but doing so at night is really disconcerting!) The guides wore flashing lights, so we were able to follow them around that way. They brought us over to see the mangroves, and then gave us time to just paddle around by ourselves for 20 minutes or so. Matt and I spent most of that time smacking the water with our paddles to make it glow, or with me staring up at the stars, which were incredible too.

The only downside to the BioBay tour is that you can’t take photos… there’s really no way to capture that without a really powerful camera. I guess that means you’ll have to go see it for yourself, which you absolutely should. It was amazing. Also, it’s pretty amusing to go on a tour that requires meeting in a dark parking lot in a deserted spot.

We were on the water for about an hour total. They were really efficient about loading the boats back up, and we were back to the parking lot around 11:45 or so. We said bye to our fellow Minnesotans, thanked the tour guides for a great trip, and headed back to our hacienda for the night.

We got up around 8 Tuesday morning, and I went to make coffee. Somehow I managed to put the machine together wrong, and we ended up with coffee everywhere. I cleaned that up, and the second time, it worked. We had our last patio breakfast overlooking the ocean, hauled our stuff out to the Jeep, locked up the hacienda and hid the keys. It seemed like we had only been there for a day, and I wanted to stay a lot longer.

Matt was kind enough to take a picture of the ramshackle so we could remember it always. Next time we’ll probably actually go inside.

We drove into Isabel II to do some souvenir-shopping, but the town was packed and we couldn’t find parking after circling for a while. We decided that wasn’t a big deal, so we headed over to see Mosquito Pier and the ceiba tree, both of which are on the north side of the island near the airport.

On the way, we stopped to fill up the Jeep at one of Vieques’ two gas stations. They’re across the street from one another, and you have to wait in line forever to use them, plus you have to pre-pay. (That was another valuable tip from the couple we met at the airport.) While we’re on the subject, another fun fact we’d learned about Vieques: there’s a horse taxi. Like, a guy shows up on a horse with a couple other horses in tow, and you ride them from one place to the other. REALLY.

We didn’t really know the story with the ceiba tree, but it was on the tourist map. Apparently it’s 375 years old! It’s in a park very near mosquito pier.

As usual, there were horses hanging out in the area. They’re seriously everywhere.

This is my favorite sign. “Ceiba, beach, more beach.” It’s very appropriate for Vieques.

We drove out onto Mosquito Pier for the view. Here’s a majestic shot of Cap’n Ron the Jeep with Puerto Rico in the distance:

And another of Puerto Rico, this time with no Jeep. I tried to convince Matt we could probably swim there.

This is the west end of Vieques. That’s the only area we didn’t really cover (apart from the large sections where you’re not allowed to go lest you explode.)

Looking back down the pier. The W resort is somewhere over on the left side here (so is the airport).

We found a fossilized tree stump there, too.

Then our time in Vieques was up, and we had to go to the airport. (Sigh.) There was no one at the car rental desk again, so they told me to leave the Jeep in the parking lot and hide the keys. (I like the way things work there.) We rolled our bags inside, checked in, and then went down to the gate area. It had seats for probably 20 people at most. The agent had told us there were two flights at the same time, and we’d be on the second. (I wondered what they were going to do about the fact that there were more than six people waiting.)

One plane loaded and took off, and then they led us out to ours. Here’s the airport! I believe it’s actually smaller than the one in Kona.

Once again, we were on the W’s private landing spot. What does it cost to fly Air W? Anyway? I can’t imagine.

Matt and I had the same seats as our previous flight, in row two. We strapped in, said hi to the pilots, and were off.

Here’s a view of the east side of the island, looking toward Isabel II.

This is Mosquito Pier from above. I still can’t get over how tiny Vieques is.

Rather than going around Puerto Rico this time, we went directly over it. This is the area near Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, south of Fajardo.

We flew around the edge of El Yunque National Forest, and I tried to pick out the fire tower we’d climbed on our last trip. I couldn’t find it in there, though.

We came in over San Juan and turned to follow the approach directly over the long causeway lined with flags. It was fantastic seeing that from the tiny plane.

Landing at such a huge airport seemed really strange. I love seeing the runway like this.

We got our carry-ons (Bally got to fly in the nose of the plane this time), then went into the baggage claim and picked up our suitcases. We had to take them upstairs in the elevator to the main part of the terminal, and bring them to the USDA inspection area before we could check them. There was a line out the door for that, of course.

We checked in with United, then wandered around the airport to check out our food options. They were severely limited, so we ended up at Air Margaritaville. At least they had sports on a million TVs. We had lunch and a couple margaritas, then headed to the plane.

There were no issues with our flight back to Chicago; we even arrived early, so we had plenty of time to make our connection. They boarded that one a little late, and we were all in our seats on the plane and ready to go when the flight attendant announced that our pilots had just landed. Um, what?

We arrived in Minneapolis much later than expected. Thanks, United!

We got an early start Friday morning. Like, 3am early. Since it was the middle of winter, I was dressed in my finest convertible clothing: lightweight hoodie, pants with capri-straps, and wool socks under Keen water shoes. We left our jackets at home, of course!

Our cab arrived at 3:45, which put us at the airport before check-in opened at 4am. There was a long line, but they were efficient. We were able to board our flight right away, and I fell asleep right after take-off. I woke to the beverage cart, and did some knitting on the way to Atlanta.

We arrived in the ATL early (around 8:45am), and watched the ground crew dealing with an overturned baggage cart on the tarmac. We had brunch at the Sam Adams Brewpub, and got on our flight to San Juan a little after 11:00. Our awesome captain, Steve, announced that we had several returning vets from Iraq, which got them a round of applause and free drinks.

It was overcast til we reached the Bahamas, and then it was all ocean and islands and me dying of excitement. After which I fell asleep again, and napped til Turks and Caicos. Really, how often can you say that?

Our plane also had the back-of-seat display. Matt watched ESPN and played video games and trivia (with other people on the plane!), while I contented myself with my knitting and the map that shows you things like altitude, distance to San Juan, and air speed, in both English and Spanish.

We landed early again, got our bags, and hopped in a cab to the Sheraton Old San Juan. We dropped our bags off in the room and took off to see the city. Matt had never been there, and I was very excited to show him around!

I’m not sure how it’s possible to forget how gorgeous San Juan is.

We walked down toward El Morro and the city gate, following the long path around the outside of the island. The feral cats were everywhere, being cute.

I have several pictures of Isla De Cabras from our last visit, just because it’s amazing. What I learned from a very informative plaque is that it used to be a leper colony, too.

San Juan was decorated for Christmas. It was completely incongruous. We kept forgetting about the upcoming holidays!

We wandered up to La Barrachina for dinner, because we needed to visit the place that claims to have invented the pina colada.

I don’t even care if they invented them or not: they were fantastic. As was my mofongo with vegetables.

After dinner, we went to check out El Batey. We knew it was a favorite local dive, known for having the best jukebox on earth. It did not disappoint.

The bartender, Felipe, introduced us to the local rum: Ron de Barrilotos. You can drink it up or on the rocks, but at El Batey, it’s served in small plastic Dixie cups. We met Nicky and her cousin at the bar. Nicky had lived in New England for a long time, but her cousin seemed to not speak much English. He gave Matt a cigar, and the business card of the guy who sold them. Nicky also got us to write our names on the newly-repainted wall, so hopefully they’ll still be there next time we go!

We stayed far too late, of course, because El Batey was our newest favorite bar in the entire universe. Really. And then we made the decision to stop into Senor Frogs, because it was right by our hotel, and of course we had to. Plus they had food.

Two yards and two shots? A terrible idea, and yet that’s just how you do at Senor Frogs. I set myself up for a pretty epic hangover!

Saturday morning, we had to check out by 10am. That hurt a little! The perfect cure for a hangover, it turns out, is La Bombonera. We expected to have to wait in line at the most popular breakfast spot in San Juan, but we got a table right away!

After breakfast, we headed out to tour San Juan. We climbed up to San Sebastian and walked across the northern side of Old San Juan (essentially recreating the path I’d taken with Wendy and Stephanie on my first trip there).

We bought tickets to see El Morro; they’re only $3!

This is the view from the ladies’ room at El Morro. You could do worse. (That’s the leper colony in the background!)

It was insanely windy, and I’d already realized that I’d forgotten clips to put my hair up. Cue an entire week of me wearing my sunglasses on top of my head!

Above is the view through the troop barracks; below is the staircase they used to haul cannons up and down! Notice the spots to stop and rest every eight steps or so. If you’re hungover and it’s humid as hell, you don’t even need a cannon to make you want to rest on each platform.

From El Morro, we walked back into Old San Juan and decided to find a spot to sit, have a beer, and finish our Christmas cards. We were supposed to have worked on them on the plane, but I completely forgot. Really, what’s more cruel that mailing Xmas cards to people in Minnesota from the tropics? Sorry, guys.

This guy (called ‘chango’ in Spanish) sat and yelled at us loudly. He’s awesome.

After dropping off our cards at the post office, we walked over to Lupi’s for lunch. I’d heard in more than one place that it was closed, so I was thrilled that that was not the case. It was the same old bar… a dimly-lit Mexican restaurant with the naked lady machine on the bar. We had margaritas and plantain nachos, just like last time, and watched sports on TV.

Then it was time to go see about gettin’ on a boat! We picked up our bags at the hotel and hopped a cab to the cruise port.

We were pretty early for check-in (having learned the value of getting on the ship early), and it was an extremely quick process. We were on board the Celebrity Summit being handed glasses of champagne and ushered to cabin 6097 in no time.

Our cabin was very similar to the ones we’d had on Costa. Enough room for two people, with a nice balcony. And there was more champagne waiting for us, of course. We unpacked our bags, checked out the view from the balcony, and then set out to tour the ship, from the top down.

The ship had really nice pools… in that respect, it was nicer than Costa. No bocce, though! From the deck, we could see the yacht we’d passed on the way there: it’s called the Al Mirqab, owned by the prime minister of Qatar. Big pimpin’.

The lifeboat drills weren’t til the next day, so we were free to wander. We became acquainted with a hot Irish bartender at the pool bar, and then met the awesome Russian bartender at the coffee bar near the game room. We’d be seeing plenty of them over the next week.

Round about leaving time, we brought our champagne up to the deck for the celebration. There was a band playing by the pool, and a parade of boats covered in Christmas lights sailed past our ship in the port. We stood and watched as the ship passed Old San Juan and headed out to sea, then went back to the pool bar for some cocktails. Matt taught the Jamaican bartender how to make Johnny Jump-ups, and we had a long talk with a loud guy from Texas.

After a while, we decided it was time to check out the casino. We found spots at the blackjack table (which had a $6 minimum, not bad). For the first time in quite a while, I ended up winning – not much, I think I had $80 on my original $60, so I decided to leave ahead. I went to get a Rob Roy, and when I came back, Matt was still winning. We both did surprisingly well that night!

We got up at 8am and headed to breakfast unwashed, as the buffet closed at 8:30. It was insanely crowded, and I was a little sad to have my final gruel (and Echteboter) of the trip. We then went to shower, and gathered with the rest of our group in Revelations at 9:30. We were off the ship by 10.

A porter asked if he could help with our bags, so we said yes. Most people were insisting on hauling their own, but we made the right choice: after barely having to flash our passports at customs, he led us right to the front of the very long taxi line. WIN.

While we were sitting and waiting to get off the ship, we’d had a bright idea: why not rent a car for the rest of the trip, and go see more of Puerto Rico? I’m not sure why it hadn’t occurred to us before. The cab took us to Thrifty near the airport, and we picked up a car (that we promptly named El Dispo), threw our giant bags in the back, and were on our way to El Yunque National Rainforest.

It was awesome to see some of the small towns outside of San Juan. We missed the turnoff for El Yunque the first time (we could barely even find it with GPS turned on on our phones), but we still managed to get there in half an hour or so. Admission was only $3! We stopped at the visitor center to get a map and find out more about it.

We toured the displays and got a map with directions from an old guy at the front desk. Then we went on the short hike near the visitor center.

Wherever breadfruits had fallen and smashed on the ground, these gigantic snails were enjoying the buffet:

From the visitor center, we drove up the mountain to find La Coca Falls. El Dispo did surprisingly well on the steep hills.

Our next stop was Yokahu Tower, for the overlook. We had to climb a million stairs to get to the top, but the view was amazing.

On one side, we could see the cloud forest (the area of the rainforest that’s almost always in the clouds, and therefore has a completely different ecosystem):

In the other direction, we could see over the top of the rainforest canopy to the ocean, and a beach lined with resorts.

After climbing back down from the tower, we drove up the mountain even further to the hiking trail that leads to La Mina Falls.

The map showed that the trail was .75 miles long, 1.5 miles roundtrip, and that it was ‘somewhat difficult’. That didn’t worry me too much, considering I’ve hiked on ice in the mountains, and on the Sliding Sands trail on top of Haleakala. Still, everyone that was emerging from the trail looked like they were going to die. Along the way, two people even wished us good luck. Yikes!

The trail was definitely difficult, but not insane. It was paved for much of the way, but it would’ve been really hard without hiking shoes. The humidity played a big factor, too. It was worth the effort to see La Mina:

We sat around at the falls for a while, then headed back. The return trip wasn’t bad til the very end, when we had to climb back up to the parking lot. We still weren’t as worn out as most people looked, though!

After that, it was time for lunch. We drove up to Yuquiqu Delights, a little restaurant/picnic area even higher up on the mountain. The girl working there was awesome, and she was telling people all about how she moved there from New York with her husband. How you go from there to a cafe on a mountain in a rainforest… I don’t know, but I’m a fan. Since we have similar ambitions and all.

I’d be happy eating tostones and beans and rice every day. Matt probably feels the same about his empanadas and amarillos.

We headed back down the mountain, stopping on an overlook where we were able to pick up cell reception so I could call my parents and inform them that we were back in the US. It’s always good to hear that nothing very exciting is happening back home.

From there, we drove back toward San Juan. We made a few wrong turns on the way, even ending up at the airport, but we eventually found Isla Verde, Ocean Park, and Condado. They reminded me of… well, most coastal communities in the US. Fort Lauderdale or Myrtle Beach.

Long before we’d left for vacation, Matt had expressed an interest in visiting one of Wilo Benet‘s restaurants in Puerto Rico. We’d kind of written it off because they were far from Old San Juan, so imagine our surprise when we drove right past both Picayo and Varita. And they were at the Conrad Casino, which we figured had to have been named after Matt, just misspelled. We parked and went inside.

The Conrad has a little beach, and the lobby is gorgeous. We walked out onto the patio to see the ocean side, and noticed that they had hammocks everywhere. (I kind of want to stay there now!) We went upstairs to Pikayo, but it was closed. Varita was kind of empty-looking, so we decided to go hang out til Pikayo was open at 6pm. The main problem was that we had no idea what time it was, because both of our phones had died. We figured we could wander around Condado for a while, and eventually they’d be open.

We walked down a couple of blocks to a park with a beach, which had an outdoor bar next door. Perfect! We ordered a couple caipirinhas just as a pink limo pulled up, and out piled a wedding party. All the girls were dressed in neon dresses in different shades, with matching Chuck Taylors. The groomsmen had neon cummerbunds and shoelaces. We watched them take pictures on the beach, and it was a sight to behold.

From there, we wandered back to the Conrad and went to the front desk to ask the time. The guy working there told us it was 6pm exactly, so we were in luck. We stopped to browse at the gift store at the Conrad, and met a very loud, very drunk man from New Jersey, who entertained us for a while. We then went back up to Pikayo, and were the first people in the doors. We grabbed chairs at the bar.

I had a mojito made with cilantro and tequila, and we tried their version of rum punch, which had cinnamon syrup and bitters. We also ordered a couple appetizers, and ended up with a bonus order of tuna lollipops because he’d put in the order wrong. On TV, there was some kind of runway show with terrifying models. We learned the history of the place from the bartender, who went from chilly to friendly within a round of drinks. We’d have loved to have dinner there, but we were nowhere near hungry enough. Not to mention the fact we were severely underdressed.

The only downside to renting a car in Puerto Rico was the idea of driving it in Old San Juan. Traffic is crazy there, the streets are narrow and cobblestone, and we didn’t know the parking rules. Before we left, I tracked down a public parking ramp within a couple blocks of our hotel, and we made that our target: drive straight there, park, and don’t think about any more driving in town.

It didn’t exactly work out that way. A couple of the streets we needed to turn on were closed, and they were having some kind of festival near the port. We sat in crawlingly-slow traffic forever, but at least the people-watching was excellent. We ended up having to drive right by the festival, and then were finally able to head up the hill toward the parking garage. We sat on one street for 15 minutes due to a traffic jam behind a parallel parker. INSANE.

Finally, we found the ramp, but the door was closed, and there was no indication about how to get in there. We decided to circle and maybe we’d get lucky and find a spot, so we headed around the block and there it was!! A street parking spot! Directly across from the actual entrance to the parking garage, of course. We emptied the car and hauled our bags to the Howard Johnson Plaza de Las Armas.

I wasn’t expecting much of the HoJo, but the reviews were good, it was the only hotel under $200, and we were only going to be sleeping there one night. The guy at the front desk was fantastic, and he assured us that it was fine to leave the car parked on the street overnight. He pointed us to the tiny, ancient elevator that required instructions, because it had two sliding doors that had to be closed completely, or it wouldn’t move. Also, it went approximately .5 floors an hour, and was so tiny that the two of us could barely get in their with our giant suitcases and carry-ons.

Our room was actually very nice. It was clean and had a balcony overlooking Plaza de las Armas and The Best Souvenir Shop in San Juan, where another Christmas festival was in full swing. They even had a giant neon Christmas tree, and bands were playing.

We charged our phones, repacked our suitcases for the flight the next day, stopped at a supermarket for water, and headed to La Barrachina for another of their legendary pina coladas. The old bartender was fantastically opinionated: he went off on a rant about how the crazy weather changes were indicative of the fact that the world was going to end in 2012. He had made plans for that event, too: he was going to take his sons to a whorehouse, and his daughter to a convent so there’d be someone to pray for the family.

Then it was time to go find dinner. Quite possibly the saddest moment of vacation was when we left La Barrachina and noticed that the ship we’d just disembarked was heading back out to see with a new set of passengers. SIGH. We wandered around in Old San Juan til we came across the Blessed Cafe. We’d walked past it several times, and noticed the reggae blaring. The sign about Jamaican patties drew us in.

Their menu had 5 kinds of rum punch, which was immensely confusing. I ordered callaloo, but they were out. I asked the server (the owner’s wife) if they had anything else vegetarian, and she said just red beans and rice. I was totally happy with that, but she kept apologizing for not having anything else. When she brought it out, the rice was molded in a heart shape, and there was enough for two meals. She had nothing to apologize about!

After dinner, we did some more wandering in Old San Juan. We heard music coming from a spanish restaurant near El Convento, so we went in. I got a margarita that was so strong I couldn’t even finish it. We sat in the courtyard, and watched the band set up for the evening. Once Matt was finished with his drink, it was time to return to El Batey!

There was a different bartender with awesome tattoos this time, but he had basically the same attitude as the first. We had some Cuba Libres with Barrilitos (you can tell it gets you cred with the bartender just by ordering that brand as a non-Sanjuanero) and played the jukebox. My set ended with “No Woman, No Cry”, which made a bunch of people sing along. Also, our bartender uttered my favorite phrase of the entire trip: “Why pay for sex, why pay for water? Those are two things that should be fucking free.”

We wanted to stay there forever, but of course we still had things to see in San Juan the next day. We bid farewell to our new favorite bar, and headed back to the hotel.

We got up to check out at 10am. Leaving the room, we met another couple from Delaware who was standing and waiting for the elevator. They said they’d been there quite a while.

We’d have taken the stairs, but there was no way we were getting those monstrous suitcases down from the 3rd floor. When the elevator finally arrived, the four of us packed our bags inside like a Tetris game, and the tiny lady squeezed in with them while the rest of us took the stairs. We beat her by a lot.

We rolled the bags to the car, stopped at Starbucks, and then headed toward San Cristobal. It seemed a lot hotter than it’d been the last time we were in San Juan during the day. I was sweating my ass off, and all the hill-climbing didn’t help.

We paid our $3 admission and set off on a tour of San Cristobal. First up was the dungeon, which proved that people at all times have been pretty much the same (the graffiti says ‘shit’):

The views from the top were amazing. The above photo is looking east, toward Condado (that’s the capitol building with the dome). Below is the view to the west, with La Perla, the cemetery, and El Morro.

We saw the oldest guardhouse in San Juan, well below the current fort:

These are the tres banderas:

I was so hot that sweat was soaking the fronts of my pants below my knees. Also, I filled up the 4gb card on my camera, and of course the spare one was in the car. I had to go back through hundreds of photos and delete the duplicates! It’s not like I was going to stop taking photos.

We stopped for lunch at a little food court that advertised pina coladas in yards. We chose to have a Sol instead, and went to the Caribbean food counter in the back. I ordered vegetable mofongo and tostones. Matt got pastelon (plantain and beef pie) with cassava marinated in garlic and onion. It also came with about 6 pounds of rice and peas.

His came up right away, but the lady told me mine would take a little bit because they had to make it special. A little bit seemed to last 2 hours, but I finally got my food. It was enough for a week.

We took the tostones to go, because we had to hurry at that point. We did some last-minute souvenir shopping (including the Best Souvenir Shop in San Juan), then got the car and headed back to Thrifty Rent-A-Car at the airport. We only got lost once!

We shuttled to the airport, and found the check-in area so packed that we couldn’t roll our suitcases around. We walked up and down and couldn’t find the Delta counter at all. Finally, we found it in the back, and were overjoyed to see that there was barely a line. The check-in people told us we had to go through USDA inspection first, which seemed to consist of a scanner that may or may not have detected anything, and a man putting stickers on bags. When we got back, Matt sent his bag off, and then mine came up 9 pounds overweight. Of course.

The cost for a 59-pound bag? $90. What the hell, Delta? The other option was to check a third bag for $25, so we opted for that. The lady at the counter was actually very friendly, and helped us drag the bags over to a place where we could do the big switch. Matt still had his big leather carry-on, so we wrapped everything as well as possible (I was very nervous about putting glass rum bottles in that bag, but that was most of the weight), paid the extra money, and were on our way to security. They sent us through the ‘professional traveler’ line, probably because we only had one carry-on at that point. The best part was when they took my giant package of Go Ahead out and asked me what it was. If Go Ahead is contraband, I don’t want to go on living.

We stopped at the duty free shop for two bottles of Ron de Barrilitos (three star, of course – the bartenders at El Batey had taught us well), and got a free rum carrier that would serve as Matt’s carry-on bag. How perfect is that, really? We then saw a sign for an airport bar’s happy hour, so we took advantage of $3 caipirinhas and sports on TV. We both called home to say we were on our way, and then it was time to board the plane for Detroit.

Around the time we hit the continental US, there was all this frantic activity on the plane. Apparently an old lady up front was having a medical emergency, and the flight attendants were preparing for an emergency landing just in case. Thankfully, there was a nurse on the plane, and he was able to get the lady stabilized so we could continue. We landed in Detroit without incident, and an ambulance met her at the gate. Thanks, nameless nurse guy! You’re awesome.

We had dinner in the Detroit airport and learned that our flight was delayed like crazy coming from Philadelphia. The east coast had been experiencing horrible snowstorms, and they were still having trouble with that. We finally managed to board an hour and half late, and arrived in Minneapolis around midnight. Because it was so late, we told my parents to not bother picking us up, and got a cab instead.

Personally, I can’t believe we made it to work the next day.

Here are the spoils from our trip!!

We got up at 10 and had breakfast at our usual table, which was against the window so we could see the ocean. There were birds diving into the water, fishing, so we stood and watched them for a long time.

We sat out on the deck reading in the sun until it started to rain, then went to play canasta in the card room. There was a big group of old people from Long Island in there, arguing loudly. Since it was close enough to noon, we decided to have some drinks. Wendy set out on a mission to consume everything on the cocktail menu. It was substantial, so we all pitched in.

As we were eating lunch, we started to see land. We went up to the top deck to watch the approach to Puerto Rico, and then ran to our cabin to grab our things and line up for our first stop in San Juan. It was very exciting, and we were prepared.

san juan, puerto rico

We got off the boat around 4:30, after standing in line for almost half an hour. They were handing out ponchos as we left, even though it had stopped raining. In the customs building (where we expected to have to show our passports or something, but no), we were handed free samples of Bacardi, and a million flyers for local services.

We got our bearings and set off up the hill to San Cristobal. We couldn’t actually go into the fort, because there was a long line of army trucks exiting, but we walked around the back of it to overlook the ocean. It was gorgeous. I took approximately 10,000 photos.

san cristobal

We walked along Boulevard Del Valle toward El Morro, following my map. I loved the colors of the buildings, and the overlook from the city wall.

off boulevard del valle

mercado street

We got to El Morro just as San Felipe castle was closing, but that was fine; we wanted to cover as much ground as possible before it got dark. We took seats on some rocks near the castle and watched the sun set over the ocean.

Grateful for the fact that domestic rates still applied in Puerto Rico, I called Matt. I missed him a lot. Also, I give props to Wendy and Stephanie, who had to hear about how much I missed him at least a million times over the course of that week. They were very nice about it.

We headed back toward old San Juan, stopping to see the city gate and the cathedral. There were wild cats wandering everywhere.

plazuela de rogativa

the moon and san juan cathedral

Once it got dark, we decided to find dinner. There were a couple recommendations in our guide, so we walked to both of them and found them closed. We wandered all over the place looking, and were kind of dying of hunger. Before stopping, we ran into a liquor store and I picked up a couple bottles of rum to bring home.

We decided on a place called Lupi’s, which had Mexican food and a sports-bar atmosphere. We had amazing margaritas and tostones (on the menu as ‘plantain nachos’). For dinner, I had enchiladas, and I asked the bartender what the best rum in Puerto Rico was. He said it was Don Q, and made me the best Cuba Libre ever. After eating, we scooted down the bar to play Naked Ladies (you may know this as ‘Erotic Photo Hunt’ on Megatouch machines). We couldn’t have been more excited to find it in a bar in the Caribbean, and the dudes sitting along the wall behind us were quite amused.

After dinner, we headed to the destination toward which we’re inexplicably drawn: Señor Frog’s. Wendy had never been there, after all.

They had a slightly different drink policy than other Señor Frog’s: instead of having a pre-set selection of drinks in yard glasses, you could get anything you wanted. Premium liquors ran $17.50 a yard. It was like Christmas!! We took full advantage; I had a Cuba Libre with Diet Coke, Stephanie had a Long Island, and Wendy had a scary-looking fruity thing. We had Frog Legs shots, then something blue. Behind the bar, they were having contests for free shots. It was typical Señor Frog’s, which is to say: awesome.

Debating whether to order another round, Wendy announced, “hey, we’re not driving! Captain Giuseppe is!” We ordered, then asked our server if it was ok to bring drinks outside in San Juan. She told us sure, that anything goes! I told her I loved her. On the way out, though, the doorman told us no, we had to drink them inside. We sat near the entrance finishing our yards as the DJ played Sexyback. We loved Puerto Rico a lot.

no black men in the water.

We headed back toward the ship, stopping at a mailbox to drop off postcards. I may have been somewhat drunk, as I kept asking Wendy if we’d mailed our postcards yet, even though we’d just done so. When we got near the dock, Stephanie said, “what’s that thing floating in the water?” I yelled, “THERE’S A BLACK MAN IN THE WATER???” I may never live that down.

We boarded the ship, and had to show our passports to the security guards. I was nervous because I had bottles of liquor in my bag, and they’re supposed to take them and keep them for us until we returned to the US. They didn’t say a thing while xraying our bags, though, and they were amused by our collection of yard glasses. We staggered to our cabin, and didn’t even hear the boat’s giant whistle leaving port.