Puerto Rico was definitely something I needed. I was pretty couped up in my apartment and I'm really glad I jumped on the ticket when I had the money. All-in-all, the trip was a success, minus some driving frustrations and minor annoyances with a person or two. (and here are
ALL of the pictures! thanks iPhone)
Puerto Rico is a lot safer than others make it out to be. Being a territory of the US, it seems intuitive for one to think that it's safer than other Latin American countries, but many people just stereotype and don't think much beyond what they think they here. Even when we were driving through and around Rincón, Mayagüez, Ponce, Fajardo, the US Caribbean National Forest, and even 95% of San Juan, the people were warm and helpful to anyone who needed some assistance. They seem to start most conversations in English with me, assuming my gringoness breathes monolingualism, but once I respond in Spanish, they continue in Spanish and seem to be very supportive and thankful that someone took the time to learn their island's language. Some of them asked me how I learned it so well, as if they had never heard someone (as white as I) speaking to them in Spanish.
The first three days I stayed at Camelia's house, a girl I had made contact with a week before on couchsurfing. She is a native and speaks very little English, so it was good to start of talking with her for a while. We didn't really hang out at all, just at the end of the days and the mornings, and it was nice having a whole basement of a pretty big house to myself. She lives in Guaynabo, a suburb of San Juan and 15 minutes from downtown.
The birds, bugs and scuffling I heard at night through the open windows made me feel like I was in a jungle all night. Also, the damn rooster next door crowed from midnight-1am all the nights I was there, which was hella weird. My days in San Juan were mostly dedicated to Old San Juan, visiting the restaurants, shops, castles and what not. I was pretty much done after day 1, but really made an effort to cover EVERYTHING the next 2 days, which I am confident that I did. It is a great little city with brillantly colored buildings, all wall-to-wall tight, almost leaning, and cobblestone streets stretching thoughout 90% of the district. It's funny because there is Old San Juan, then a ridge, then a neighborhood called La Perla, then the ocean. The only place travellers are advised not to go is La Perla, and that is exactly where my hookup went to score some green for me. Even the little baggies have "L P" on them and a little lookout tower. Aaaand the bud was más o menos, but definitely acceptable :-)
After San Juan, I headed to the west coast. Rincón is a little surf town on the west coast of the island, boasting many beaches to surf and some to snorkel, as well. I did both, mostly the latter, as my whicked sunburn (thanks to my Irish descent) wouldn't allow me to paddle much on the surfboard. But, it's all good... I prefer riding the waves on my belly! The waves reached a max of about 10 ft, but most were about 4-7 ft, which is definitely ideal for beginners to intermediate, even though there were some vets rippin' it out there. The Rincón Inn is the cheapest place to stay (that we travellers came to a concensus on after discussing our extensive google searches) on the island. $25/night included a decent bunk bed with clean sheets and a towel, plus a comfy living room and kitchen shared by the other 10 people on the floor. I really recommend it! Two of the three nights in Rincón we ended up going to a college town about 15 minutes south, Mayagüez, which was alright. It was a Monday and Tuesday night, so I wasn't expecting much, but the buildings were great and the bar scene looked like it had potential. Andrés, our Colombian couchsurfing friend who goes to the Univ of PR-Mayagüez, was a super nice/chill guy that took 8 gringos to the bars and a Puerto Rican heritage festival; Kudos to him!
From Rincón, I picked up a traveller, Frauke, a German student who was studying in New York and decided to take a trip within a trip to Puerto Rico. It was good to have someone there with me, even though my homebodyness really came through in the last day or two... I was getting irritated to easily, but at least I knew it and tried to calm down. But regardless, we drove through Ponce, apparently the cleanest town in Puerto Rico, got a guided tour of the History of Ponce Museum, walked around, took pictures, and then continued through the center of the country. We were just west of El Yunque, the rainforest, and the roads were windy, step, and just CRAZY! The residents there literally have canoes attached to their houses during the rainy season in case a flash flood were to occur... um, wow, that's ridiculous. It's beautiful up there, but that is a sidenote of daily life that I would like to not have to deal with.
We procedeed through to US Caribbean National Forest, which reminded me of Hawai'i of course, to Fajardo, a coastal town on the NW tip of the island. Fajardo seemed very industrial and not inviting to tourists, but it offers ferries to a couple other islands off the coast of Puerto Rico. We ended up taking one of these ferries to La Culebra, the second biggest island, to stay at the campsite located there. Fifteen hundred people live on the island, so there are actually resources there, which was something I really didn't expect.
We arrived around 9pm, got some Chinese food and went to Playa Flamenco where the camp ground was located. Randomly, we ended up running into a 16 person group from a small school in New Hampshire that were on an Outdoor Club Excursion for Spring break. We sat in a circle on the beach, took pulls of the rum bottle, and I ended up using the umbrella to sleep on the beach, which was quite lovely due to the fine sand and protection from sun at the crack of dawn. The next day all ate at Mamacita's, a restaurant on La Culebra, and took the midday ferry back. I really enjoyed the group, but Frauke and I had to part them because we both had flights to catch on Friday.
Now, when we got back to San Juan, since we had both already spent more than enough time their, we really didn't know what to do. We ended up walking around Old San Juan, buying some green (weirdly it was from the same guy I had bought from a week before) and rolling a pack of spliffs for the night. The last few hours we were on the beach on the Condado where all the family type tourists are during the daytime, but we both had from about 2:30-4:30am to chill out there by ourselves, after which I dropped Frauke off at the airport for her early flight. I pretty much just took a nap, putted around the area, mailed some things, and took one last dip in the Caribbean before I dropped the car off. My flight was delayed, which forced me to missed my connecting flight and stayover in Charlotte, so that sucked, but at least I had some sort of bed.... I was running on fumes :-/
The island itself is not so hard to navigate around once out of San Juan, but the lack of (or very poor placement of) signs to and from very important places make it pretty much a bitch to drive around. Most of the drives weren't over 2 hours from city to city (if I didn't take the wrong highway), so it makes most frustrations tolerable. But something ridiculosu like that face that I changed 4 highways, crossed 3 different little bodies of water, and did way too many loopty loops just to get to the airport (which is 10 minutes from downtown) can start to eat at you after a while. The Puerto Ricans themselves are straight up honkers: for someone going slow, not paying attention, sticking out in a lane, seeing a friend on side of the road, or even just to amplify a honk they just heard. HEY: if everyone honks all the time, it DOESN'T WORK! There were also more than a few intersections in which the lights where just not working at all, and were talking a 4 lane arterial connecting to another 4 lane arterial, where each road's drivers take unsychronized stabs at trying to cross when they think they can.
This lack of organization just make it a clusterfuck, which made me constantly wonder if my insurance was full or just liability. Whatever though, I'm getting all of the deposit back :-)
There were soooooooooo many iguanas. On average they were about a meter long, something that my mom says was a rare site to see 20 years ago when we lived there.
I overheard someone talking about an overpopulation problem, and I am very sad to say that I say over 30 iguanas dead on the side of roads and highways to support this statement. They don't bask on the street, but are merely tempted by the abundance of garbage that the Puerto Ricans throw on the side of the road throughout most of the country; it's not everywhere or piled up or anything, but it's noticable. It sucked seeing all the dead iguanas, but the ones that I saw alive were amazing, especially at the Castillo San Critóbal in San Juan.... they were everywhere! Black, grey, green, brown and tan, you name it.
The food was excellent. My favorite was their beans, which tasted almost the same at all 6 restaurants I ate them at, and the lechón, the roasted pork with crispy skin and aroma that would even make a vegetarian's mouth water. The "traditional" Puerto Rican meal were these two things acompanied with a healthy portion of white rice and mofongo.
Now, mofongo was different eveery time I had it, but basically it is plantains chopped a fried in oil, then mashed together and shaped to whatever the cook desires, possibly a spice is added, and then it is fried again. I had a couple versions that were sweet almost like a yogurt, and some that were just like a bland paste that tempted me to use it as grits to blend of the plate of flavor together. Either way, it was acceptable and appropriate with everything else. The fruit selection is great as I would expect in any tropical zone, and I bought those little finger bananas, papayas and mangos during my venture.
The Spanish was really fun to listen to. After reading about dialectal variation in my Spanish phonology class, it was cool to actually hear Caribbean Spanish in real life contexts. If I were to walk by a few lower or middle class speakers just having an everyday conversation, it was a little difficult to pick up things, but when I communicated with them, it was very doable. Even Andrés, the Colombian who speaks a similar Caribbean dialect of Spanish, as well, said he had problems with the locals sometimes. Almost all /s/ were dropped in syllable final positions ("los dos buhos" --> /loh doh buhoh/, or "es que estamos especiales" --> /e ke eh-ta-moh e-pe-sia-leh/), were either replaced with a aspiration of /h/ or just completely dropped altogher. A majority of the /r/ in syllable and even in syllable initial positions became /l/ (ayeL, mujeL, amoL, pueLto (x)ico (a velar and almost uvular sound), all verbs in infinitive form, etc...).
It was also interesting listening to the radio. I loved this phrase: "tú pidiendo, yo poniendo, pa' ka!" (you asking, me playing, right here!).... it just sounded so intense that I loved hearing it! I also remember one instance where it was the radio announcer's birthday and the callers were telling him Happy Birthday. One caller said "¿Cuántos años tiene?" (how old are you) and his response was "Soy treinta y ocho... ¡Que pasanme!" (I'm 38, what's happening to me!) This structure is completely a translation from English, something that I would presume a Spanish 101 student would make, but probably not a student in 102. It was so odd to hear that! It was also common to hear full paragraphs of Spanish with English words inserted every sentence of two.
It would be a great environment for learners of the language because of the knowledge that nearly all Puerto Ricans have of English and their willingness to participate in a communicative activity rather than shove you off because you're Spanish is not-so-good. I really enjoyed their language attitudes, and I cannot remember a time that an encounter (in Spanish or English) did not end with a smile and/or chuckle on both of our faces. It was fabulous, and I hope when I return to the Caribbean, the other islands have this same cooperative spirit. In all, Puerto Rico was just rad!
*By the way, the title of this post is dedicated to my recently gained ability to create the trilled /r/ in Spanish! I googled it, asked my phonology teacher, and was around enough Spanish to finally roll my /r/ after 8 years speaking it! To all you who have trouble, it's not impossible!
