and then we went to Puerto Rico......

Once we got home from Oceanside, we had a handful of days before Stick and I left home again.

I just never know when Stick is going to come home from work and ask me crazy questions like, "So......do you want to go to Puerto Rico with me?"

I will admit that Puerto Rico has never been on my bucket list, but I'm not one to turn down trips to tropical islands in December (or ever, really).

Stick was going to receive a national award on behalf of his company for their I-15 job and I tagged along just for fun. Why did they decide to award the award in Puerto Rico?  I have no idea.  Maybe the people in charge wanted to go somewhere warm that didn't require a passport?

It was a really quick trip, we practically spent more time flying than we spent there, but it was still super fun.  Except for the flying part.  My legs are just too long to fly comfortably.  And we flew there on the red eye. So miserable!  We got to Atlanta for a layover and I thought possibly I might die from lack of sleep. But, yay, we survived.

Now just for explanation, Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth or territory.  Which makes it US-like, but not really.  I haven't been somewhere so Ecuadorean since I left Ecuador a long, long time ago. For example, the airport, while fairly modern, was pretty shabby and run down.

And holy hotness, once we stepped outside, the humidity was unreal.  I'm pretty sure my hair poofed into an instant afro. We rented a car and headed to our resort, on the east side of the island.

According to Wikipedia:
The maximum length of the main island from east to west is 180 km (110 mi), and the maximum width from north to south is 65 km (40 mi).[75] Puerto Rico is the smallest of the Greater Antilles.

Do you see the blue dot? That's where we were.

Now supposedly Puerto Rico has two languages, English and Spanish, but Spanish dominates.  A good time to get out my rusty Spanish skills! Si, si, hablo espanol!

It was fun to drive across the island and see the sights. We saw lots of cement houses (hola Ecuador), lots of run down neighborhoods and so, so, so many Burger Kings, Walgreens and Subways. No joke, we drove down one road for about 20 miles and I think we counted 11 Burger Kings. Eventually we decided to stop at one because we were starving and apparently Whoppers are the Puerto Rican national food.

We quickly figured out that English wasn't going to be an option in Burger King. I stepped forward and ordered our whoppers in Spanish.  The surly teenage girl taking our order asked me something back and she talked so fast and mumbly that I couldn't understand what she had asked. At this point she turned to the manager and said pointing to me, "Does she speak Spanish?" I told her that I did (in Spanish) but I didn't understand her question.  The manager also told her that I spoke Spanish but she needed to talk more slowly.  Eventually we got our food all ordered, whew!  The food was exactly like it is in America, but all the sizes were smaller.

Then we headed for the resort, the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Beach Resort & Spa. (Try saying that ten times quick!)

The water was deliciously warm (sorry Oceanside) and the sand was unbelievably soft and the color of brown sugar.

Coconuts everywhere. All along the beach and floating along in the waves.

Day two was sunny and warm. We spent the whole day lounging on the beach.I mostly just soaked in the sun and read a book. I got up occasionally to get in the water to cool down.  Stick tried body surfing and boogie boarding.  Pretty much heaven.

That night Stick had to go to his awards banquet. I went for a quick swim in the pool, but swimming by yourself isn't that fun!

Day three, we took a walk along the beach before we had to check out.

Swimming coconut.

The beach is covered with all kinds of weird fibers and grasses. I'm not really sure what they're from but I'm guessing the palm trees or coconuts.

Some kind of weird nut thing found all over the beach too.

Inside the tropical forest bordering the beach.

At night right before it got dark the forest really came alive, you could hear birds squawking, and the little coqui frogs chirping like crazy.

It seemed so unrealistically loud that we almost wondered if it was fake.

It wasn't.

Can you see the tree growing out of the coconut?

Can you see the little lizard?

Here he is, all nice and blurry.

Weird snail on a tree with a flat sideways shell.

Last view before checkout.

After we checked out we drove up a hill and went to lunch.

Our resort is below, the line of white buildings lining the beach.

Wind blown selfies.

Authentic Puerto Rican lunch sans whopper.

Then, since we had some time to kill, we drove to the Yunque Rain Forest. You can see on the map above, that it's not far from our resort.

It was pretty neat. It's kind of like a rain forest mountain.  As soon as the road started elevating, it started raining and it was misty and green and wet everywhere. On all sides of the road huge groups of giant bamboo were growing.

Rain forest selfie.

There was also giant ferns growing everywhere, see in the picture below in the bottom left corner.  Man, I wish I could grow a giant fern at home.

And then, sadly it was all over. We had to head to the airport.  On the way, we drove to the west side of the island, which is apparently the tourist side.  We saw lots of neat colonial buildings, lot of upscale shopping, cobble stone roads and a lot of touristy type people. And let's not forget the man walking down the street holding a large iguana with hot pink fabric wrapped around it's neck.

We got semi-lost trying to get to a gas station before we turned in the rental car causing me to have a mini panic attack. (Arriving late to an airport is probably number one on my list of things that cause me mega stress.) But we did see a rainbow during the "we are confused by these roads" stage, so there's that.

Despite the road confusion, we arrived with plenty of time and before we knew it we were in the air and headed back home.

Our last minutes of vacation.

In the SLC airport trying to reconcile ourselves to the fact that it's a blizzard outside and possibly the shorts and sandals were not going to cut it.

And it was a blizzard and our car was covered in snow, and the roads were solid ice.

But still, there's no place like home.

2 Comments

undefined:

Que bonita. Yo quirro voy a la Puerto Rico.

undefined:

Um, I think I hate you. Sorry.

Also one time my friend and I literally ran from our car into the airport, through the airport, and onto the plane, never stopping. We were a tad late. We heard them call our names overhead. Ah, good times.

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