March 28, 2006

• Puerto Rico

  Currently Playing
  
  San Juan

  I never understand commercials where they show a
  guy giving his wife a new car (wrapped with a big red ribbon for
  show).  I think if I were the wife, I’d be kinda pissed that my
  husband spent so much money without consulting me.  So along those
  lines I asked June, “What would you think if I just took you away on a
  surprise vacation some weekend?”  I was expecting her to do a cost
  analysis.  But her eyes lit up, and she asked, “REALLY???”

  Over the next few days I checked our schedules, and our weekends were
  pretty booked.  I did some rearranging and wrote “Semi-Surprise
  Vacation — DO NOT BOOK” on our calendar.  I couldn’t keep
  the date a secret, but I could hide the location and activities. 
  In the meantime, I told June to pack warm and buy a swimsuit.  =)

  Fast forward a few weeks later.  Even after we arrived at the
  airport, I kept the pre-printed boarding passes from her.  Because
  of a holdup at security, we rushed to the gate, and she didn’t learn
  our destination until the pilot announced it!  Our first day was
  spent in Old San Juan, where we found an honest shop:

  

  Actually all of the buildings in Old San Juan are painted this way:

  

  I had always wanted to play the board game Puerto Rico in Puerto Rico,
  but it takes a long time to setup the board and is not much fun with
  two people.  So instead I bought the simplified card game version,
  San Juan.  So here we are at the SJ Suites hotel:

  

  The next day we drove down to El Yunque, America’s only national rainforest.  Based on reviews at TripAdvisor.com, I booked a room at the Casa Cubuy Ecolodge.  The view from our room:

  

  The best part?  Almost no mosquitoes!  Because the coqui
  frogs eat them.  It was only a 5-minute hike down to a private
  trail which crossed a river with boulders and a waterfall.

  

  Also staying at Casa Cubuy was another couple we roped into playing San
  Juan with us.  The husband works for a national security
  something-or-other, so I can’t show his face in the picture.

  

  Probably the coolest part was kayaking into a bioluminescent bay at
  night.  It was too dark for pictures, but the water lit up when
  you disturbed it.  They said it was because of a certain type of
  dinoflagellate that only lives in a few places in the world. 
  Unfortunately, the coqui frogs don’t live here, so the mosquitos ate us
  alive.  June counted 31 bites on her left arm alone.    Moral of the story: bring bug spray.

  But in spite of this, June rates Puerto Rico two arms up!

  

  • 11:54 pm
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