Puerto Rico Trip Report

Well, aside from the whole trip starting out with my missing bags, the Puerto Rico trip turned out to be a huge success. We got to stay the entire trip down there for 4 nights and 5 glorious days in the beautiful 30 degree heat of San Juan Puerto Rico.

The hotel we stayed at was defiantly upper class, very fancy and no young kids were seen running about that's for sure. There were even signs posted everywhere about a dress code. I had to bend some of those dress codes as I was very limited in my clothing. The San Juan Hotel and Casino located on Isla Verde just minutes from the airport itself was a great place to relax and enjoy our trip. We were right on the beach, the hotel had many shops and restaurants, even a Starbucks right in the lobby, and 3 separate pools outside. I would never have been able to afford it except for work picking up the tab, it cost the company $350 USD per night!

Our first day we traveled into Old San Juan, which was about a 20 minute drive away. After waiting nearly 40 minutes for a bus to come, we opted to take a taxi and split the fare with 3 college girls who were going into Old San Juan as well. Unfortunately this is not one of those stories that branches off with me saying that I took the 3 Florida State College girls back to my room later for drinks and some Canadian hospitality. Haha, they were a fun bunch of girls and we chatted them up all the way into town. They were on their "reading break" and by the looks of their sunburns; they were getting lots of "reading" done.

At this point I had not purchased any replacement clothes and was borrowing a pair of shorts, socks and shoes of the other pilot Jim. Jim is a bit bigger than me, so my belt was required to keep his shorts from just sliding down haha. We had a good time once we got into town. We went straight to Senior Frogs for a couple of drinks and a light lunch. Senor Frogs is a very famous chain of bar/restaurants in the more exotic vacation destinations with many in Mexico and the Caribbean. I found out when reading the menu, that the bar/club that I had been to during my week long trip in Cabo San Lucas (El Squid Roe) was part of this whole chain.

We then walked around and checked out the town, very historic with old houses, small alleys, cobblestone roads and many monuments. The biggest thing about Old San Juan is the huge naval fortifications that surrounded the area. A very impressive structure that was hundreds of years old that helped protect San Juan's shipping harbors. I got a few pictures of the area and I'll post them all up in a photo gallery soon.

After having a couple more beers we headed to the bus station to go back into town. Low and behold we met up with same 3 girls as they were heading back at the same time too. The bus was quite the experience, it was very very crowded and that didn't stop people from continuing to cram at EVERY stop. Just one of those experiences!

The beer of choice for this entire trip was a Puerto Rican beer called "Medalla". It is actually a light beer, which is all they produce, but it does not taste like a light beer. It was very good, low in calories, and cheap cheap cheap! We were having a few of these "cervesa's mas finas" each night - nothing like a cold beer in the 25 degree warm night air of a Caribbean island. I even went as far as to bring back a 12 pack of this beer home. I will be consuming these on my days off which are approaching quickly.

I did manage to buy some new clothes to tide me over for the rest of the trip at the hotel gift shop (touristy Puerto Rico clothes haha) and I found a pair of shorts, actually a pretty good pair of shorts, at a Walgreens down the street from the hotel. I also managed to buy some socks, underwear and other essentials for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the trip was spent sampling many little bars near the hotel, some on the beach, some on top of the hotels, another one right around the corner, all of which provided tasty cold Puerto Rican libations. I spent a bunch of time out on the beach too just relaxing, even getting a little bit of a tan. I did lather up quite a bit with the sunscreen as a precaution from previous warm destination sunburn memories, so my tan is not everything it could have been. But it was great to just sit out on the beach reading a magazine, watching all the beautiful scenery and people on the beach and in the water. Especially after having just gotten over a horrible cold a few days prior, this trip was exactly what I needed.

We did have one run in with a "Puerto Rican Lady of the Night" as we took a shortcut through an alley to go to one of the beach bars. She was yelling at us from across the street asking us if we wanted to have an orgy. It then progressed for the next 5 mins as she tried to chat us up. It was another "experience" talking to "Christine", needless to say we did not take the same route out of the bar back to the hotel.

I was very impressed with Puerto Rico and everything it had to offer. You can quickly find some seedy areas of town, but that's just like any city, I'm quickly reminded of ending up in the wrong areas of town in LA a couple weeks ago! The Caribbean is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I'm not big into all the water activities, but the views, scenery, lifestyle, weather – it just can't be beat. I believe this will become a vacation destination for me in the future. I still really want to go and visit St Martin as it has all the great Caribbean features, plus that very famous airport which provides some crazy views of landing and departing aircraft right over one of the beaches.

I'll try and post up a photo gallery soon, there are not a lot of pictures, but a couple of them capture Old San Juan well. As mentioned in my previous post, I did in fact write this blog entry in the back of the jet, I'm currently 56 minutes from Casper Wyoming on our way to Santa Ana California (by the way, that's the freaking OC!). Cruising at 43,000 ft with the sun warming me from the left side of the aircraft this clear sky morning, this truly is the way to travel.