Puerto Rico: December 7th through 10th

Posted by: Scott | December 23, 2006

Puerto Rico: December 7th through 10th

So this is kind of a belated post. I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t had a chance to make a detailed post.

Instead of flying home to Tampa for the weekend of December 7th I decided to fly Houston –> San Juan to visit my friend in the Coast Guard. Its a grueling four hour flight (my usually flights are only an hour and a half).

I arrived in Puerto Rico at 10 PM on Thursday December 7th. It was kind of chili when I left Houston so the 85 degree humid weather was kind of a shock. I called Danny and he didn’t pick up. He was suppose to be out front picking me up from the airport. He called me back a few minutes later and informed me that he wouldn’t be picking me up, the coast guard wasn’t going to let him out of his duty for an hour to get me. He instructed me to “take a cab to San Juan”. I was slightly panicked because 1) I thought I was in San Juan 2) He wasn’t coming to get me and it was late at night.

After discussing this further with him I decided taking a cab to a city (with no specific location to drop me) was not very smart and I made the decision to find a hotel somewhere near the hotel (because it seemed relatively safe around there). I found a taxi cab stand and asked for the cheapest *safe* hotel around. I was instructed to call “Coral by the Sea” and see if they had availability. At the same time I heard a guy asking with a British accent the same thing. I introduced myself and next thing I knew Howard and I were heading to the hotel. The hotel wasn’t very luxurious (considering it was $76/night):

After checking in Howard told me to meet him downstairs in 15 minutes: we were going out on the town. I was happy he wanted to go out once I reached my room, it was crappy. It wasn’t as bad as some I’ve been it but it was definitely up there.

Howard also invited a Japanese guy who arrived at the hotel a little after we did. The three of us went down the street (Isla Grande Ave) to a place called “CocoBongo”. Howard was returning from the Asian Games in Qatar in the Middle East. He lived on an island in the British Virgin Islands and ran a rather famous bar called Willie Ts. The Japanese guy was also on his way to the British Virgin Islands to meet Richard Branson on his private island. CocoBongo was a blast and I really enjoyed watching all the expensive motorcycles ride by.

The next morning I worked from my hotel room in the morning and Danny picked me up around noon. We took a drive east of San Juan and I quickly realized how pretty Puerto Rico is.

On Friday we stayed in San Juan. We saw El Morro, which is an old castle right near the Coast Guard Station in San Juan.

We went out that night to a place called Coaches. It was definitely a local join… Danny and I were the only white guys in the place. I enjoyed the live music and cheap drinks (thanks to Danny and his friend Tebow knowing a waitress). The next morning we rolled out bright and early en-route to Aguadilla on the northwest side of the Island. There is a Coast Guard Air Station there in Borinquen. We had rented out a 3 bedroom house for $60/night.

On the way across the island we made a stop in Arrecibo to see the world’s largest radio telescope. Its been in a few movies including James Bond and Contact. Too be honest it was cool for about 5 minutes and then I was bored and ready to leave.

On the way up to the telescope they had this series of signs. I posted a picture of one such sign above. Each sign said something in English and Spanish and then had a 7up logo on the bottom. Danny kept reading each sign in full and saying ‘7up’ very enthusiastically at the end. It was pretty funny at first until hours later when he was still summing up everything statement he said with ‘7up’. Anyway…

The rest of the day we spent driving and ‘getting lost’. We went off in search of a really nice beach (near our home in Borinquen) and we found just what we were looking for in Jobos. There were a bunch of surfers out in the cove and the coastline was really picturesque.

We went to the Aguadilla mall looking for souvenirs at one point. It was like a really ghetto regular mall. Considering how underdeveloped the entire region was I was quite impressed that such a mall even existed. We had dinner and retreated to our home in the air-station for the evening. Just driving around and exploring the countryside was pretty exciting and interesting.

The next morning we got up really early and went out to the beach right near where we slept. It was very isolated and kind of hard to get to. If I ever return this is where I will go to relax. We also drove out to a lookout place where we had spotted an amazing view the day before.

After exploring a little more we returned to San Juan. We got to take a coast guard boat out for a little while. It was quite an experience because I don’t think I’ve ever been out in a boat in such huge waves. We had some fun taking the boat to the extreme… the guys really showed me a good time.