Puerto Rico - Day 7: May 4th

Fully rested after a couple days in Isla Verde, we called a cab and headed toward the eastern city of Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Fajardo is the gateway city to two small islands off the eastern coast of the mainland. Vieques, and Culebra. For a mear $2.25, and an hour and a half ferry ride we will arrive on the small island of Vieques for 3 nights and four days of beach, kayaking, and nature. This will prove for me to be the nicest place to visit so far on the trip. It may not be a very exciting place to live, but the island of Vieques was a great place to visit for a couple days. Since the island is so small, they have no real form of taxi service on the island. What they do have are Publicos. Publicos are just like taxis, only instead of a taxi company, these are cars owned by the drivers. You catch them at the main parts of the island, they cost around $3 a person per ride, and they bring you to other points of interest on the island. It's almost impossible to get a Publico driver to stop anywhere off their route. None the less, we were able to track one down once we got off the ferry, and had him drive us across the island to the town of Esperanza where would we be checking in to the Trade Winds Guest House.

Puerto Rico - Day 5: May 2nd

Getting tired of being in the touristy part of the city, we decided to take a cab back to the suburbs and to the area of Isla Verde, and to the Hotel Villa Del Sol for the next couple of nights. It was the perfect opportunity for us to have another drinking night since the hotel had a bar and pool table in the lobby. What started off as a couple drinks and a couple games of pool ended up in a $117 bar tab, and me getting pushed in to a swimming pool with all my clothes on. For some reason, people just enjoy talking to me when I've had a couple of drinks. I met an older guy who reminded Selena and I of Tommy Chong, only white. He offered to meet us in the hotel lobby the next morning and show us around the area, and I agreed. As you can probably guess, I didn't wake up at the right time the next morning, couldn't really remember talking to the guy, and didn't end up leaving the hotel room until noon. The whole day ended up being a catch up on rest day. We ordered some pizza, turned up the air conditioning, and laid in bed all day.

Puerto Rico - Photos

Pictures From Top To Bottom: Me at Fort San Felipe Del Morro Keeping a look-out. Me walking down the streets of Old San Juan. Me with a group of cannonballs from Fort San Felipe Del Morro. Selena in Old San Juan. Me with a Pina Colada at Barrachina. The rest are scenery pictures I took with my camera phone of Fort San Felipe Del Morrow and Santa Maria Magdalena De Pazzis Cemetery.

Puerto Rico - Day 4: May 1st

Five miles. We walked almost five miles in all today. We walked EVERYWHERE around Old San Juan. We started out taking a tour of Fort San Felipe Del Morro. What seemed like 1,000 stairs later we walked across the huge lawn and over to the Santa Maria Magdalena De Pazzis Cemetery. From there we took a walk to the Fort San Cristobal, across town to the bus depot, and back up the hill towards our hotel making sure to stop at the birthplace of the Pina Colada, Barrachina Restaurant. I found out about this place while watching the Puerto Rico episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. He was right in everything he said. Although the Pina Coladas we got were good, the way they make them now is sad. They basically have three slurpee machines at the bar with Pina Colada mix inside them. They take a glass, add some rum, then add the Pina Colada slushy. It's all pre-made. I made sure to sit in the same seat he did when he was there, and take a picture.

Puerto Rico - Photos

Pictures From Top To Bottom: Pictures of both Selena and I at the beginning of the walk around Fort San Felipe Del Morro. The rest are pictures I took on my camera phone of the scenery around the Fort San Felipe Del Morro.

Puerto Rico - Day 3: April 30th

No matter where you are, or what you drank the night before, hangovers suck. What sucks more than a hangover you may ask? Packing your bags and checking out of a hotel while you are hungover. The thing we realized early on, and came to enjoy is that checkout time in most Puerto Rican hotels is 12 noon. Using every minute we could to our advantage, we checked out of the hotel at noon, and made our way down the street to a sushi restaurant for some breakfast. After some pretty damn good sushi, and Selena breaking a water glass, we got on a bus and headed towards Old San Juan. Old San Juan was a pretty cool city, but very touristy. The cruise ships parked at the docks made finding a hotel room that first night a little more difficult for us. After walking around and around for a while we decided to take a break and stop for a drink. The only thing around us was a Senior Frogs Club, so we stopped in. Fuck that place. It smells like vomit, the drinks are overpriced, and the clientele are frat boys and drunk middle-aged white people on vacation with carnival cruise lines. We couldn't take it. I drank as fast as I could and walked down to a tourist information office to pick up a local magazine with hotel listings. We finally found the Hotel Milano, and were able to check in to a small air conditioned room with no windows. That night we got out of the room when it was a little cooler in the evening and took a waterfront walk around the Fort San Felipe Del Morro.

Puerto Rico - Day 2: April 29th

Today was the first morning, and the first day of our vacation in Puerto Rico. We spent it in an area of San Juan called Candado, at a hotel called the Diamond Palace Hotel . The hotel itself really isn't that fancy. We learned that when we first arrived the night before when we tried to take the elevator up to the rooftop restaurant, and it wouldn't take us there. It had a small older casino in the lobby where most games didn't work, and a small empty bar with an 18 year old bartender paying more attention to wresting on the television instead of people wanting drinks. We managed to get out of our room around noonish, and took our first walk through the neighborhood to try to find some food. Our first meal of vacation didn't end up being very Puerto Rican at all. Two veggie wraps. I made sure to make up for the meal by drinking the epitome of Puerto Rican drinks. Medalla Light. This is only sold in Puerto Rico, is the most popular beer in Puerto Rico, and is one of the best beers I have ever had. I will be having a lot more of these in the future. After our breakfast we checked out a couple local beaches and made it back to our hotel for some swimming and relaxation before the weather got colder. One thing that swimming will do is make you hungry, and after a couple hours of swimming and laying around the pool, we were ready to eat. We decided to hit up a Mexican food restaurant down the street were we had some of the best margaritas, and I had one of the best veggie burritos I have ever had. It was $2 Jose Cuervo shots there, so needless to say, we got drunk. Really drunk. That night I ended up talking religion with a guy named Rodney from Boston I met at the hotel for a couple hours, had a guy try to rope me in to moving there and playing bass in his Santana cover band Europa, and had to babysit a very drunken Selena at a casino. Not awesome.