Travel Tuesday: San Juan, Puerto Rico

El Morro in Old San Juan. This image is symbolic of the many doors we must pass through in life. yes, i just made that up.

A few years ago I went on a fairly spontaneous and and random spring break trip, which in fact has been my only official spring break trip I've ever taken during the decade that I've been in school. Strange. Anyway, it was a random group of people and a random trip. We stayed at the timeshare of a friends family in Dorado, which is a short drive to San Juan.

The view from our room...and no, I did not take this photo (Cy did). i do not have panoramic skills.

We stayed at the Hyatt Hacienda del Mar, which I recommend. We were there a few years ago so things could certainly be different. However, like I said, we went over spring break and the place was not over crowded at all. There was usually room in the hot tubs and the beach was never too crowded, we were always able to find lounge chairs and it was beautiful. Every day we would swim a few miles out to see and then try and not get killed by the current and waves, which tried to smash you into a coral breaker. We're smart.

I think our trip was particularly enjoyable because we were lucky enough to have two friends who were fluent in Spanish with us, which meant we could ask locals for places to eat. Other times we just drove around randomly.

my biffle Trevor on the left. if you're in Puerto Rico you probably don't want him driving your car. also, that dude in the background looks like a Puerto Rican leprechaun. t'was a rare sighting, indeed!

At one point we were lost in downtown San Juan using what I call "intuitive driving" to guide us where we needed to go. My friend Trevor was driving while his cousin Cy and myself instructed him as to where we "felt" he should go. These directions were based entirely on feeling, as none of us had ever even seen a map of San Juan. At one point we were driving in a neighborhood where we really probably shouldn't have been and all sorts of people were yelling and waving at us. Trevor thought they were being super friendly and smiled and waved back, even peeping the horn a few times. After several minutes of this we realized we were driving the wrong way down a one way street. Oops.

Anyway, I figure we must be psychic, because we ended up parking 3 cars away from the people who we had gotten separated from.

can you believe this is a real picture? i think it looks more like a painting. yeah, i guess i would live here.

The best thing about Puerto Rico (you know aside from the amazing weather and beaches) was the food. I'm primarily a vegetarian but I do eat some fish and the fish I had in Puerto Rico was by far and away the best ever. Also, I learned about mofungos, which are mashed plantains and are totally awesome - they're much like mashed potatoes but with more zest. Nom nom, go get some.

i am an expert photographer of magical forest scenes and waterfalls.

When we weren't hanging out at the beach we were checking out the rainforest (funny how you can just drive to the rainforest?). We also went on this amazing kayak adventure in a bio-luminescent bay. We had glass bottom kayaks and when you looked down and saw all the plankton it looked like you were going warp speed through space. In photos it looks like glowing orbs, and I think that's because of the exposure needed to take a photo at night, because in reality it looks like a thousand sparkling diamonds. It was an amazing experience, one that you can only do a few places in the world. Unfortunately, it left my shorts really wet and we were driving directly to the airport to drop off our bags. So went I stepped out of the car wearing only a t-shirt and bikini bottoms at the airport curb I think I might have almost caused an accident. Oops, again.

All in all I really recommend Puerto Rico. We were just a bunch of clueless nerdy kids and we managed to have a good time and not get ourselves killed, which I consider an accomplishment. If you get a few people together hotel rates are very reasonable and if you book in advance, so are plane tickets.