Flying into Puerto Rico and old San Juan.

Photos of old San Juan

We arrived in Puerto Rico at midnight, after traveling all day from Denver. First we flew to Fort Lauderdale for a connecting flight. The journey from Colorado was smooth and peaceful, and when we got to Florida and stepped outside of the airport terminal, the warm tropical breezes welcomed us and caressed our faces. It felt great, despite the noise, smoke and bustle of all of the airport traffic swarming around us.

We had to switch not only airplanes, but airlines too. While we were waiting to check onto our second flight, a Middle-Eastern woman, wrapped up in sheets, cut into the line directly behind me, and ahead of a stylish but weary looking African woman. The Arabic woman was adamantly rude, and she insisted that we all had to be nice to her and let her have her way. The other woman was irritated, and protested a bit, but she was too tired to put up a fight about it and just rolled her eyes with resignation and disgust. I was tired too, and so I didn’t really want to get involved. But I had my camera ready in case they got into a cat-fight about it. I was hoping they might.

After we finally checked in to our connecting flight, and paid a whole bunch of extra money for the pleasure of bringing baggage on board, we found a little cafeteria in the airport where I got some kind of a fried wrap that was stuffed full of greasy canned spinach. I love spinach, but when you can it and then deep-fry it, it’s not quite as good. While I forced it down, a poor little dog yapped relentlessly. It was crammed into some overly made-up woman’s handbag. The woman kept kicking and shaking the bag in an attempt to quiet the dog, who of course only barked more when she did that.

Then, we had to go back through airport security. I hate going through airport security. I wince when a bunch of strangers with blue plastic gloves on rummage through my personal belongings, and I loathe putting my stuff in those filthy bins that have held peoples’ dirty stinky shoes and god knows what else. There were plenty of security officers, but less than half of them were actually doing anything other than loitering around, yucking it up with each other about how great it is to get paid for not working, while a bunch of bleary eyed, hapless travelers had to wait in a long line to get through the couple of lanes that were open.

And I’ll never understand why I can’t bring a six-ounce tube of toothpaste on board the airplane, but I can bring two three-ounce tubes. Can someone explain that to me in a way that makes sense? Thanks.

So, by the time we got on the connecting flight to San Juan after the long layover, we felt like refugees. We boarded a plane with the most impossibly small seats I’ve ever seen on a passenger jet. I took one look and groaned out loud “are you kidding!?” I looked closer and saw that most of the seats were filthy, gray vinyl with grubby black stains around the headrests and tired cracks and raw spots all over them. I prayed that their airline mechanics cared more about doing a good job than their cleaning crew did.

We survived that flight, despite my escalating fear that I would suffer a pulmonary embolism from being crammed into the tiny space. The stewardess brought me a couple of cans of warm beer, which helped me tolerate the ordeal. Warm beer makes just about anything better. The man sitting next to me in the aisle seat coped with the situation by playing Sudoku non-stop. I’m sorry, but that game just doesn’t look like fun to me. But it did get me to thinking: I naively envisioned that I could create Sudoku puzzles by simply scribbling a bunch of numbers in boxes and then removing some of the numbers. “Geez,” I thought; “why isn’t everyone doing this??” Then I actually turned my brain on and realized that writing the damn puzzles would basically be as hard as solving them, or harder. Oh well, another one of my brilliant schemes down the drain before it ever got off the ground.

So instead, I attempted to play Capture-the-Flag on my fold-up computer, but I was so awkwardly folded up into the seat that I could barely manipulate the mouse and clicker. Did you ever play Capture-the-Flag? I absolutely loved playing that game at summer camp back in Ohio when I was a kid. I also loved playing dodge ball in gym class, and I will always have a warm spot in my heart for those rubbery red utility balls.

On the flight, I ended up playing peek-a-boo with a four-year-old Puerto Rican girl who was sitting across the aisle from us. She was hiding under an airplane blanket, from which she peered out and stared at us until we abruptly looked back at her, and then she would giggle and quickly retreat into her fuzzy cave, and the process would repeat. What a cutie.

When we finally arrived in Puerto Rico late that night, I was delighted to find that the island had electricity and running water, apparently all over. Whew. However, I was mildly alarmed to find that we were completely surrounded by Puerto Ricans. I mean, they were everywhere, chattering away urgently and endlessly in that gibberish that they call “Espanol.”

My concerns began to allay somewhat when I noticed that many of the local women were pretty darn sexy, much more alluring than most of the Mexican women that populate my hometown in Colorado. Most of those spicy Puerto Rican girls favor tight jeans and painfully high, difficult looking heels, which they seem to wear anywhere for any occasion, whether it’s church on Sunday morning or the grocery store for a loaf of bread with the kids in tow, so that they can display their meticulously pedicured toes to everybody along the way. And that was just at the baggage carousel while waiting for our luggage. That’s a fun word, isn’t it? Luggage. Ahhhh.

The shuttle bus that took us to get the rental car looked shiny and new on the outside when we boarded, but it rattled and bounced like crazy once it got going. I thought some of my fillings might come loose. Because we arrived during the witching hours, I had wanted to stay at the sole hotel which was right inside the airport terminal. It got mixed reviews online, but most of them said it was tolerable after a long day of traveling. If we had stayed there, we could have walked straight to the room for cocktails and relaxation instead of having to deal with the logistics of renting a car and then driving downtown in the middle of a strange city in the middle of the night.

However, my plan wasn‘t romantic enough for my sweetheart, so she got on the internet and found a private rental townhouse that she liked, in the heart of the city. I had to agree that it looked just as cute as can be in the promotional photos, with its colorful tile and peaceful garden, so we agreed to reserve it despite my qualms about trying to find it and get in so late, because I sometimes get grumpy when I’m tired and things don’t go smoothly. The place would be unattended when we arrived and there would be a lockbox on the door, which I had a bad feeling about. When we were a mere two days from arriving and we had not heard from the property manager regarding the directions to the townhouse, my sweetheart had enough misgivings of her own to cancel the booking and get a reverse on the reservation charges from her credit card company. Miraculously, she then found a nice room at a big chain hotel that was located right near old town San Juan, which is where we wanted to be in the morning anyway. I was much happier when that came together, because I knew the place was really going to exist and be there with living people inside when we showed up during the dead of night.

So, we finally got a little Japanese rental car after a seemingly endless series of paperwork and computer-pecking, and we tossed our stuff in the back and headed off into the dark mystery of San Juan. We found our way into the heart of the city and to my relief we arrived at the hotel, which was quite nice, except that they charged extra for parking on the grounds, to my annoyance. So we found a place to park on the street around the corner, which seemed safe enough, despite the fact that every house on the street had bars on every window. But there were nicer cars than ours parked on the street, so I didn’t feel too concerned. Once we finally got settled into our room, we were too excited to sleep just yet, even though it was way past our bedtimes. So we decided to venture back out to get some booze and mixers. The hotel concierge directed us to a 24 hour mart that was around the block a bit. She said to go down and around and then hook back around on Hoare Street, which is pronounced just like it looks and so was easy to remember for both of us.

We negotiated the narrow side streets and found the mart without mishap. A few young Puerto Rican hipsters who seemed to take their style cues from Johnny Depp were hanging around outside, and I was relieved when they didn’t mug us and stuff us into the trunk of a ‘66 Chevy Impala or something like that. They barely looked up from their cigarettes to take notice of my blatant gringo-ness.

Inside the store, I paid the most I have ever paid in my life for an off-the-shelf six pack of beer, a common brand that is available anywhere on the mainland for half as much. Oh well, you only live once, and it was my birthday. Happily, they had jugs of orange juice which were more reasonably priced and of course I got the biggest one of those for the morning.

We made our way back to the hotel via Hoare Street, where I looked for, but didn’t see any of them. In our room, there was a stern warning printed on the window frame telling us not to open it. I opened it anyway so that some of that balmy tropical air could come in. It felt good. Our room was on the twelfth floor, so we had an expansive view of the city around us. I poured some cocktails and then dialed in Conan O’Brian on the television. He made me guffaw and chortle right out loud with his zany shenanigans. It wasn’t long before we fell into a deep sleep, despite our eagerness to see everything on the entire island.

Next Page: exploring Old San Juan

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