Puerto Rico 2009

Day 1

From coqui to cockadoodledoo, Puerto Rico is full of sounds. We arrived about 11PM and got our rental car upgraded to a 4 door Wrangler with a pop-off top and hit the hay.

Day 2

What time is it? Half past who gives a s#!t. I found myself humming "if you're happy and you know it" while bouncing up and down on a downed palm tree half submerged in sand (the tree) looking out on crashing blue waves (gringo)... For lunch, budweisers and tortilla chips sitting under a palm tree on the beach. I guess in PR you can arrive at a bar with beers you've been drinking on the drive over (maybe from another bar) and the bartender doesn't mind. And if the CD player isn't playing your Willie Nelson CD you can back your car up to the bar, which is open air, and play it from there. I think tomorrow morning I'll go look into buying a house and canceling my return flight.

Day 3

It rained pretty good last night so I'm glad I put the top back on the jeep. Holly usually says its mean when I pretend to blast birds with an imaginary 12 guague but this morning when I set my sights on that f@!#ing rooster she was nodding in approval.

Day 4

We toured a few beaches and set down at sandy beach which was, amongst other things, sandy. A lot of the beaches have reefs and some are rocky so a sandy beach is ideal for surfing tomorrow since I'm not that good. I made myself a percussion section out of coconuts and bamboo. We walked for lunch and some beer at a bar on the beach, then we went to another beach, and then another bar. Stopped breifly at home to change and went to a bar/restaraunt, you guessed it, on the beach.

Day 5

Did some relaxing on the balcony this morning and picked up some supplies, including Brian's surfboard and a rental. Then we went driving to a bunch of the local beaches checking out the surf, but most spots were too big and sloppy and sharp and shallow. Those aren't surfing words or anything, just regular words. Anyway, we ended up finding a really nice little spot with realitively small waves which were breaking really nicely and we paddled out. Some punk-ass local fool with a serious too-cool-for-school attitude was all like "bla bla bla, you're gonna die if you surf there, sea urchins and rocks and coral..." which admitedly worried me slightly since what do I know, but Holly seemed to think it was ok, Brian (her dad) recommended the place and there were other people out there, so we headed out. Turns out the surf was great though it was kinda shallow in places with branch coral but we did fine falling flat and survived to tell the tale. I got some of my best rides ever and I'm pretty sure the locals are getting worried I might be the next hot shot in town... unlikely.

Day 6

We stayed in last night so we could get up early to go surfing. We thought we'd go to a beach north of Aguadilla called Jobos which is about a half hour, forty minutes away. It took us a little longer than expected as we ended up stuck downtown in Aguada and Aguadilla instead of on the main road and we may have taken a wrong turn or two along the way. Finally found the place but the water was too rough and choppy so we headed back to Aguadilla where we saw some people surfing. There was one good break there near the shore and it was crowded but we stayed for a while, didn't really catch many waves though. Its tough when there's lots of people on one wave because I don't have the confidence to navigate through a mess of floating boards and bodies. Later we returned home watched people surf the big waves at Maria's and chilled on the beach. Word is there's going to be really big waves on thursday and friday, should be fun to watch these guys an gals (serious surfers) ride. I know when I go home I'm gonna be the tannest guy around, but here I still feel like a porcelain doll. Maybe the best part about surfing all the time is how tan and ripped you get, not so much sitting in front of a computer indoors all day clickity clack using your stupid brain. Dinner at El Flamboyan which has such good food.

Day 7

We tried to have a lazy day today, no driving all over the island, just stay in Rincon and take it easy. Chilled and read my dad's book in the morning then headed to the beach around noon (hot sun). We found a spot under some palms and set up camp. Today I really am survivorman, let me tell you... That crap about cracking open a coconut the other day was nothing compared to this. The other day I got that coconut off the ground and it was tiny and I think it was somewhat soft from being in the lawn. The milk was brown and all I really had to do to get it open was drill it a bit with my multitool. I realized that the real deal coconuts are way up in the tree and still greenish. Problem is how the hell to get them down and then how the hell to get them open. I saw a bunch on the beach that had been chopped open with a machete, course I didn't have my machete with me, just my trusty multitool. But I learned a bit about the anatomy of a coconut from these leavings of beachgoers past, most notably the fact that the actual nut, what you find at your local grocery, is only a relatively small portion of the entire fruit located at the bottom of the coconut body. This is really key since cutting through the protective covering with a multitool blade is nothing short of a total f!@#ing pain in the ass and you're much better off if you know to start at the bottom and not the top. But now the bigger obstacle, how to get one down from like 35, 40 feet up in the top of the palm tree. Multitool!

I found a really long stick, like 25 feet, I wonder if it had been used for something similar before because it was just so perfect. It tapered from a little wider than the width of the bat part of a baseball bat at the bottom to about the width of the handle at the tip, and pretty straight. There were some short trees around which could have been reached with the stick, but all the fruits were gone from those, you do the math. There was a climbable tree at the base of the palm which got me up another 15 or so feet to where I could prod the coconuts with the stick which I did but they're stubborn little bastards and they don't come off easy. I don't think all the prodding in the world could get one of these guys off unless it was already ready to fall. I needed to somehow hook around the stem and be able to yank it off. There was an old piece of chain link fence nearby and I was able to get some pretty strong wire off of that with my multitool and use it to create a nice little hook at the end of the stick. Now I'm getting somewhere, I can hook around the stem but when I yank, the wire hook unfurls. I reinforced the hook a bit and tried again, this time not pulling so hard all at once but rather twisting and yanking and finally, success. I popped off a nice sized ripe one which landed in the sand about one foot from sunbathing Holly's head... ha ha, just kidding, she was down the beach a bit.

So I climbed down the tree and began slicing away with my multitool blade, bit by bit through the rough outer layer till I got to the rock hard nut inside. I used the multitool pick to drill little holes and then the can opener to pry open a big enough hole to drink from. Ahhh... such sweet nectar and that much more enjoyable having risked life and limb to obtain it, against all odds etc. If this had been a true survival situation, bla bla bla, you know how it goes. Ok, time for beer.

Day 8

Birds of prey are circling above making that sound you always hear the moment you realize you're lost in the desert in Arizona.

We surfed most of the day or just hung out on the beach. In the evening we went to this fancy pants restaurant with a name I won't mention. We got a drink and sat on the terrace to watch the sunset which was super relaxing. But I think mozart was playing softly in the background and everybody was rich and white and there may have been a fluffy white cat eating fancy feast out of a crystal chalice and I felt like I should be speaking in a british accent and saying "rather" and "old sport" a lot... Either that or start belching loudly and asking if there was a limit to how much of the complimentary chips and guac one person could have and if we could take some to go even if we didn't have a room. Or maybe start taking obvious pictures of the guests giving a little chuckle each time while whispering loudly to holly who would play along by shhhhhing me and pretending to act embarrassed. But all joking aside, the guac was good and the drinks were good and the chairs were very comfy. I can't speak for the food since I forgot to bring my magical bottomless money satchel and we decided to go elsewhere. We had dinner at Bungers which was pretty yummy and and as is usually the case with surfing days, we retired rather early.

Day 9

Man, the waves were huge today, probably the biggest waves I've ever seen. I've never been anywhere with waves like this. We had plans to go down to the southwest tip of the island, Cabo Rojo and Boqueron. There's a nature preserve there and a cool lighthouse. On our way out we stopped at Steps and walked down to Tres Palmas because the waves were so huge. There were a bunch of people way out there surfing, there were even boats and jet skis ferrying and towing people to the big swells which is a sure sign that the conditions are right. But even if I were a higher caliber surfer I don't know if I would have wanted to be out there. The waves were breaking in what looked to me to be somewhat of a chaotic fashion, here, there, left, right, big chunks all at once. I saw a bunch of guys get totally pounded and it looked painful. There was one kid walking on the side of the road with his board in two halves, one under each arm. I saw a handfull of decent rides but compared to the number of people out there, the odds weren't great and seeing as I'm not a high caliber surfer, we headed on our way.

The island of Puerto Rico is roughly a hundred miles east to west and like 35 miles north to south, rectangular in shape with some bumps and points here and there. We're staying in Rincon which is on the west coast and pretty close to the northern tip. Today we went to the southwestern tip which isn't too far as the crow flies but it took us like an hour and a half. The traffic f*@#ing sucks aroung Mayaguez like being stuck on 114 in Danvers hitting light after light except much worse and for much longer. I guess the stripmall feeling is why I compare it to 114. Anyways, I'll spare you so I can put it out of my mind. We got to Boqueron and relaxed on a nice swimming beach for a couple hours. Thickly settled with palm trees leading up to a nice flat beach, no waves. It was ok, kinda uninteresting it felt a bit manicured. I think we both got too much sun because we were feeling spent and totally fried, like when you just want to be in the shade an whenever the sun touches you you try to hide from it. Not exactly a plesant sensation albeit a welcome one compared to the sensation of being at work behind a computer screen in a climate controled building in Boston on a Friday afternoon in March.

We grabbed a late lunch at this weird little resort, spa, bar spot in the salt flats, it was ok, our waiter operated in slow motion. Then we headed down a pot holed dirt road (glad to have a jeep) to the lighthouse area where we found what has to be the hidden gem of the area. There was this pristine alcove half moon beach with calm, warm water and stunning views of the lighthouse on one side and a limestone cliff face on the other. The bay opened to the sea, 500 miles straight shot to Caracas. The beach was padded from the salt flats behind it by a buffer of various low-branch tropical trees and we were wishing we had found this spot earlier in the day and skipped the other one.

We chilled for a bit on the beach and then walked up to the lighthouse which offered great views of the land and sea surrounding it. Kinda scary limestone cliffs which looked like they may topple down at any second, especially if you were standing on them. There was a guy with a maintenence truck at the lighthouse who let us in and took us all the way up to the top, right to where the light itself was spinning around, I hope our standing in front of the light didn't cause any ships to be dashed to bits on the rocks. We thanked the man and headed back down to the car and while walking noticed that the wooded area was literally crawling with big hermit crabs in various shells, so many you could hear the mass movement from the trail, crazy. What a day.