Day 13 Old San Juan

I am using the hotels computer so I can't post much new, but we spent the day walking San Juan...again. Has A good Cevichi. We're heading home tomorrow

Day 12 Fajardo to Old San Juan

We arrived back at the Milano Hotel and just walked around town and had a quite uneventful dinner. I don't know where. I don't have much to report.

Day 11 Fajardo

Today we spent the morning in the rain forest at El Yunque National Park. It’s the only rain forest that’s part of the U. S. National Forest system. It goes from just about sea level to 3,700 feet. We spent a couple of hours walking the trails and found it a totally different environment in which to spend time. The variety of trees and bushes is amazing. It was well worth the trip, but after climbing the mountains for a few hours we thought a half a day was plenty. I could easily go back and spend time there.

After El Yunque we stopped at the food quioscos at Luquillo Beach (mile marker 34 on route 3). It has 80 or so food stands that serve mostly Puerto Rican food, but more recently several others have opened that serve different foods such as Peruvian, Italian, American, and Thai. We stopped at a little joint called El Jefe Burger Shack. I had a half pound burger stuffed with braised short rib meat. It was absolutely incredible. They grind their own burgers and pat them out only after they are ordered. The burger was accompanied by hand cut fries. Not only that, they had two dollar Heinekens. Sylvia had a small burger with delicious fried onion rings. I could spend a week there just sampling the foods. It’s a must stop for anyone visiting the northeastern part of Puerto Rico. The rest of the day was spent back at to hotel feeling stuffed. Tomorrow back to Old San Juan for two nights.

Day 10 Patillas to Fajardo

Late last night a family of four arrived from Texas and they had a teenage daughter that fell in love with the little dog. They were planning on staying at the hotel for several days and we were sure they would become attached to the little pain in the ass. This morning we took a last walk on the beach with the dog, and as we were checking out we saw the dog and the girl playing in the sand. I know that family is going to have trouble telling their daughter that she couldn’t take that cute little dog home. We left Patillias with a much better than expected feeling about that dog. In fact, it was a good feeling.

We drove up the coast to Fajardo heading for the Fajardo Inn, but before checking in, we stopped for lunch at a fish shack at a marina in Las Croabas and had more fish, octopus, lobster, and mofongo. The Fajardo Inn is a medium sized resort hotel…just the kind of place that I don’t enjoy. The reason we’re here is to go to the El Yunque National Rain Forest so I suppose I can deal with this place for a few days. There’s not much to do or see in the area so we hung out at the hotel and enjoyed the pool. At night we sat at the rooftop bar and took in the ocean view.

Day 9 Patillas

The morning started off well enough with a brisk walk up the beach after breakfast. When we got up the beach as far as we wanted to go it started to rain, and that was the way it was for pretty much the rest of the day. The only break in the weather we got was around noon when we took a ride up the coast and over the mountains to a few beach towns up towards Fajardo. The mountains are right next to the ocean and the drive there is spectacular. We stopped for lunch at a mountain top restaurant (El Nuevo Horizonte) that overlooked an endless ocean and miles and miles up and down the beach. We had octopus salad, fried calamari and fried pork. It was much more than we wanted, but it was sooo good. We only ate about half the pork, the rest of which we took back to the hotel for our new found friend (see picture). This little puppy, who is much smaller than she looks in the picture, was living on our porch when we arrived yesterday. She was extremely skittish and at first we couldn’t get close to her…the pork cured that. She would follow us everywhere and sneak up and nip the back of our legs. She was really cute, but last night she decided to start barking at the trees or something and I just went outside and politely (sort of) asked her to stop, and she did…women never listened to me before. She really is a fun dog. According to one of the workmen here, people drive by and turn their unwanted puppies loose at the hotel. He said a lot of the guests take them to the vets to get their shots and return home with them. When we first arrived we saw a young couple carrying around a small dog that they we taking back to the states. It sure is tempting, but we’ll be leaving in the morning dog-less.

For dinner we were not hungry, so we stayed at the hotel and sat on the veranda and drank wine instead. Although I did have s bowl of Pigeon Pea soup and Sylvia had a piece of chocolate cake. Tomorrow we’re going up to the northeast coast town of Fajardo.

Day 8 Rincon to Patillas

I’m sitting here writing yesterday’s post while watching the sun come up over the water. The picture was taken from exactly where I’m sitting. I think we picked a nice spot to spend a couple of nights.

Yesterday we left Rincon fairly early and drove south along the coast through the towns of Yauco, Ponce, and Guayama on our way to Patillas. It was only 135 miles but it took all of six hours because we stayed on mostly old roads, plus the police were diverting all of the major highway traffic through the little town of Yauco. Turns out that one of the highway overhead lights needed to be repaired and it wasn’t even in the line of traffic AND they closed both sides of a four lane divided highway!! After we got back on the highway, we saw how long the line of cars was on the other side – folks were making U-turns and heading back in the wrong direction plus just backing up on the shoulder and up the ramps. I never saw anything quite like it.
It wasn’t as nearly a pretty drive as we had hoped for, but we did manage to find a neat beach restaurant for lunch in Salinas. I had eaten seafood twice a day for the past seven days so I was starving for some meat. Damn if the menu had forty seafood dishes and only one meat dish (Carne Frito with Mofongo) and Sylvia ordered it. Damn--red fish for me again.

We arrived at the Caribe Playa Inn in Patilla around four o’clock and were more than satisfied with the location. It’s a small 25 room inn and all the rooms are within 30 feet of the ocean. There are two reefs within 30 feet of the shoreline. We spent the next few hours before dinner by sitting and watching pelicans work the small schools of fish in the little lagoon. The Inn had a little restaurant (see picture again), but the check-in person said that you had to put your food order in at least one hour before you arrived for dinner. We placed our order at six so we could eat at eight, and I ordered spaghetti and meatballs. It was both the worst and best spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever eaten. Sylvia had Ceviche and cod cakes. It was a nice evening in a nice place.

Day 7 Rincon

This is our last day in Rincon so we just hung around the area, walked several beaches and watched the surfers. A lunch stop back at the Ship Wreck Bar and Grill was definitely a smart thing to do. I ordered an absolutely fantastic fish taco. If anyone ever gets to Rincon, I would urge them to get a fish taco at the Ship Wreck. It’s really, really good. After driving around a bit, we spent the rest of the day at the Lazy Parrot. We finally had diner at the hotel’s restaurant, Smilin’ Joe’s. I had Shrimp Pad Thai and Sylvia ordered Chicken rolled and stuffed with pineapple and yucca mofongo. Everything was pretty good. Afterwards we had a last drink at the Rum Shack. Tomorrow we’re driving to the Southeast coast and probably spending a few days at Patillas. There’s no particular reason to stop there, it’s just a place to stay while we see what’s on that coast.

Day 6 Rincon

Today we decided to drive the northwest coastline. We didn’t see much of anything until we got above Aguadilla where there were beautiful beaches all the way to Isabella. The coast is fairly rugged with frequent rock outcroppings. It’s remarkable that no matter where you go you can find an isolated beach that you can have to yourself…at least during the week. After passing through Isabella, we decided to drive up the mountains to San Sebastian which is a great drive if you’re the passenger. It’s not so great for the driver nor is it for the driver/passenger relationship. On the way back we stopped at a roadside place and had some terrific empanadas. We got back to the Lazy Parrot by late afternoon and just stayed put. We spent the rest of the day chatting with a few of the Rum Shack patrons, all of whom had been coming to the Rincon area for at least the past few years. It seems as though people just keep coming back and a lot never leave. I can understand why. Anyhow, we split an order of fish tacos for dinner and listened to surfing stories. It was an uneventful day…very pleasant.

Day 5 Rincon

I hated to leave the Rum Shack for even a few hours, but we did. Fortunately we left early in the day so I figured we could get back in time to get my proper seat. We drove south along the coast to the salt flats at Cabo Rojo on the extreme southwestern part of Puerto Rico. We drove down a dirt road a mile or two trying to get to the lighthouse, but a car just ahead of us got stuck and slipped off the side of the road. So we turned around and on the way back to Rincon, we stopped at a waterfront restaurant we spotted on the way down called El Bohio in the small beach town of Joyuda. I had another whole grilled red fish with butter, onions and garlic but this time they replaced the eyeballs with olives (nice touch). Sylvia had a conch salad with the biggest pieces of conch I’ve ever seen. Both were excellent. Afterwards the waiter threw the leftover fish over the side of the deck to a school of tarpons that were actually begging for food. It was a pretty good stop. Heading back to the hotel we had to make a pit stop and the Ship Wreck Bar and Grill at the Rincon Marina was perfectly located. However, the guy we sat next to was knowledgeable in just about everything in existence, so we left after one drink. We got back to the Lazy Parrot by late afternoon only to discover that someone had taken my seat at the Rum Shack. Bummed, I went back to the room and pouted. I don’t know why Sylvia was smirking? It wasn’t funny. It took awhile, but that inconsiderate jerk finally vacated my seat and I scooted on down and took up my post--I actually can’t scoot anymore. We had that big lunch so we skipped dinner except to split an order of Shrimp Spring Rolls as we watched the remnants of the surfing crowd parade in and out. Again, we didn’t last long and I reluctantly gave up my post and went to bed.