Since buying my ticket to Puerto Rico, I have had that West Side Story song stuck in my head, and I have to say that, in retrospect, I hope it didn't subconsciously taint my experience...
Traveling is traveling. So of course, I loved it. Unfortunately, however, Puerto Rico had a couple things stacked against making it the ideal trip: 1) It was rainy season, and 2) Up until the moment of departure, Hurricane Tomas had been threatening to show us why. Not that this is the fault of the Island; it was more our own fault for choosing November than it was Puerto Rico's for being located in hurricane territory, but we hadn't realized how much of the activities really depended on not even necessarily beach weather, but just good, non-rain, weather.
The other item stacked against it (again not the island's fault) is that my itchy travel feet usually require that the trip be outside of the country in which I am becoming restless. I was hoping that Puerto Rico, though technically American soil, would be foreign-enough, with its Spanish language, island atmosphere and old colonial style city. It turns out that there were just enough fast food chains, of every type, to make it hard to forget that I was not in any one of the 50 United States...
Old San Juan |
As per my usual, a trip to the grocery store also afforded me much pleasure. I bought all kinds of things that, though housed in the same type of mega, multi-aisled, traditional American supermarket, you cannot readily find in the mainland U.S., of which, tropical fruit was high on the list. I bought mini bananas (do these have a proper name?) and a papaya which, turns out, is too big for one person to eat in a single setting.
I also loved the different plant life: birds of paradise, ginseng flowers, palm trees... all those helped to feel like I had left one world to join another. For this reason, the island's rainforest, El Yunque, was at the top of this list. It did not disappoint.
El Yunque |
Mallorca sweet bread |
Seafood Mofongo |
Casa Bacardi |
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