Hello, welcome back to another addition to my travel blog family! I know a lot of you enjoyed reading about my Maui adventures so I’m excited to share with each of you my experience in San Juan, Puerto Rico this past weekend! Unlike my Maui blog series however, this will only be in two parts. Seeing as I only have about four days worth of content to share that seems more than doable! So I guess without further ado, let’s get into it!
PROLOGUE
I feel it’s important to outline the situation that led us to Puerto Rico in the first place. Some of you may know, others may be sad you didn’t know, but a few weeks ago Southwest Airlines was offering a three day deal where in if you booked either a round trip flight or two one way flights & used them both by November 18th, then for the entire month of January & February they would give you an unlimited companion pass to use within those two months. My entire family got in on the deal & book themselves flights. The strategy on this end was finding a flight on the cheaper side that would give us a weekend get away but also wouldn’t break the bank. We initially planned on flying to New York City for a weekend, I have many a friend that lives up there, I love the city, & hadn’t been since June of 2019. That was until we found the same priced tickets as NYC but to Puerto Rico. We went with Puerto Rico…naturally…as here you are reading a blog all about traveling to Puerto Rico…
DAY ONE
Our flight to SJU didn’t leave Nashville until around 4:30 PM, we had a lay over in Fort Lauderdale that didn’t require us to deplane & then we were off to San Juan. At least that was the initial plan. Upon arrival at Fort Lauderdale, having attained all of the new passengers we needed for the next leg of our trip we were all forced to disembark the airplane due to a malfunction of the plane’s air conditioning unit. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal until Evan reminded me that the AC unit on an airplane is also a part of the system used to filter out the air. We are still in a pandemic after all. We ended up sitting at a completely different gate in FL for around an hour & a half before they found us a new plane & we began to re-board. Man, was that a shit show. The gate agent requested that those of us board who had been on the previous flight from Nashville first which apparently to majority of the people who boarded in Fort Lauderdale, wasn’t fair. They made their feelings about the fairness of this all very well known as well, many attempting to butt into the line of Nashville folks or just outright board before us. Of course this then caused further delay.
After a two hour flight over the Carribean eased by a copy of Cruella previously downloaded from Disney+, we landed in San Juan. The island is requiring proof of vaccination for entry, which we uploaded before hand & were given a QR code to use after baggage claim. Right across from the terminal we picked up our rental car, a mid-sized SUV. We planned to go up into the rainforest & such. Key word; planned, we’ll get to that in the next blog. The rental agency let us pick any mid-sized SUV we wanted on the lot for the same price so naturally we picked the nicest one they had.
About two days prior to our trip the Government of Puerto Rico installed a midnight curfew. It meant from the hours of 12 AM to 5 AM nothing could be open with the exception of all night services & to-go food options, cuz, you know, you can’t catch or transmit CoVid after midnight… We hadn’t arrived in San Juan until about 11:15 local time & by the time we got the rental & were headed towards our hotel in Old San Juan, it was rapidly approaching midnight.
We drove straight to our hotel, Evan searching for open food places on his phone the entire time with no luck. The roads of Old San Juan are narrow, they’re also paved in cobblestone & are often steep at times. Driving on them feels a little like horseback riding in the mountains. Our hotel, Hotel El Convento, luckily was one of the few places en Viejo San Juan to have parking. It was valet across the street at the Catedral Basilica de San Juan Bautista but I guess in spite of the convents change in usage, it still held ties to the catholic church.
As I hinted at in the above paragraph, the Hotel El Convento is a boutique hotel built inside a former convent. Thought the nuns have long since self, the sanctity & beauty of the space still remains. It is a five story, one square block building wrapped around a courtyard that also serves as a bar/restaurant. Each room features a Juliet style balcony & maintains much of the original Spanish style charm.
Upon arrival we asked the front desk attendant where to get food seeing as it was now the midnight hour. He basically told us we were S.O.L. unless we wanted to get our car out of valet & drive to a gas station. We also were in desperate need of water. (Post Maria you’re not supposed to drink from the tap in PR. Urban places are apparently safer than others though.) Still wide awake & starving, we dropped our bags in the room & went out to explore.
The hotel attendant wasn’t wrong, everything was closed. That is, except a little bar that was still teeming with life. We entered hesitant, yet hopeful. I asked the bartended with my fingers crossed whether or not they were serving food AND THEY WERE!!!!!! SUCCESS!!! VICTORY!!!! They didn’t have bottles of water though so we ordered the next best thing, beer. In addition to the two beers we got buffalo wings & truffle fries. The bar was alive with patrons, mostly locals, who were dancing, singing along to the “Best of Frank Sinatra” album playing & generally disregarding the quarantine. As lovely as the bar was I’m not going to divulge the name, I ain’t no snitch.
With full bellies & continued dehydration we returned to the hotel room where we bunkered down for a short night of sleep.
DAY TWO
We woke up around 6:45 AM despite having only gone to bed about four hours prior. Parched at this point we pulled the car out of valet & made our way to the nearest gas station where we stocked up on the largest bottles of water we could find & a Celsius or two. By the way, the Fruity Cereal Kit-Kats smack. #BreakfastOfChampions
I had booked a dive through a local dive shop called Scuba Dogs. They do many dives around the island but one of the ones not too far from Viejo San Juan was in what used to be the world’s largest natural swimming pool, Escambrón Marine Park. During the 30s & 40s the marine park was part of a socialite beach club attached to the long abandoned Normandie Hotel. The marine park, or pool, was created when a giant concrete walkway was installed around the perimeter. The wall underneath the walkway featured slates that allowed fish to enter & exit the bay at their leisure, but kept the “sea monsters” at bay…no pun intended. Since the demise of the Normandie Hotel the marine park was converted into a nature sanctuary. The seawall was demolished & now the bay & the surrounding areas play host to many species of marine life, large & small.
My dive was with a local dive master named Paco. I had booked two dives around the park with him that started at 8 AM & after brief introductions & dive planning we set out. Our first dive was out past the edge of the bay in the surrounding reef. One of the other dive masters in the area often brings stale bread for the fish so they’ve now picked up the habit of approaching all divers with the hope of a free meal. We spent majority of the dive surrounded by a school of hungry fish made up of Yellowtail Snapper, Blue Atlantic Tang, & Sergeant Majors. At a certain point a small group of Jack joined. I was advised at this point to tuck my hands because anything outlying that they see extending from your palms, including your fingers, they perceive as food. On our way back into the bay we found a few Trunkfish, Clown Wrasse, & two massive French Angels!
The dives themselves weren’t very deep, I think we maxed out around 30 feet, but that made the consumption of oxygen move much slower. Our second dive, which was inside the bay & around the destroyed wall, was around an hour, our first, around 50 minutes. During the second dive we went around checking the fish houses & taino reefs they’d placed around the inside of the park. I must have encroached upon the territory of an Ocean Triggerfish because they were not happy with me. Upon entering the first of the fish houses, while looking for Arrow Crabs, I felt a little nip on my arm through the wetsuit. I turned around to find a flared out triggerfish darting all around me, trying to nip at anything it could get at on me. It didn’t stop this display even when we’d left the shelter & chased us to the next one finally relenting after we got out of eye shot of it.
Further around the bay we found several Trumpetfish, a Scorpionfish, a couple of Grey Angelfish, a Sea Turtle, & even a Caribbean Reef Octopus! Paco uses his guided dives as an excuse for nature conservation, which I happily joined in on picking up any bottles or scrap we found along the way.
Post dive we met the above pictured iguana, but at this point I was absolutely starving. Evan has spent his morning snorkeling & swimming in the bay so he too was feeling the effects of hunger. Never one to skimp on my food research when it comes to travel, I had already found several options for lunch but we both agreed we were feeling local seafood. I had found a restaurant about fifteen minutes down the road called Que PezCa’o. Tucked in the bay by the maritime police depot, Que PezCa’o is surrounded on all sides by the boats of local fishermen. An outdoor eating situation in it of itself, it appeared to be a local favorite. We ordered Fried Grouper Strips, a Ceviche Mofongo, & a Taco Trio (two Ceviche, one Snapper, they were out of Octopus.) The food was incredible! Truly some of the best ceviche I’ve ever had!
After lunch we were feeling a tad sleepy & I, as usually, had a hankering for something sweet. We made our way into San Juan to Kasalta, a local cafe! Here we order two Guayaba y Queso Pastelillos, a Flan con Cinco Leches, & two Café con Hielo which we took back to the hotel & ate poolside on the fifth floor overlooking the bay & all of Viejo San Juan.
After pastelillos on the rooftop we decided to check out some of the bars near by. We found one that came highly recommended called La Factoria. During the day this craft cocktail bar only has their front bar open but on weekends the back two rooms serve as a dance space. I ordered a Peligroso (Barrilito Rum, Averna, Campari, Dry Spice Infusion, & Lime) & Evan ordered a Lavender Mule (Ketel One, Ginger Tea, Lavender, & Citrus.) Both were delicious & we sipped them sitting in an open window watching the old town walk go by.
After drinks we went back to the hotel for a bit where, after a while, we changed into clothing we could get wet in. We pulled the car out of valet & began our hour & a half drive over to Fajardo on the east coast of the island.
Why venture to Fajardo you ask? We’d booked a tour! Well, kind of a tour. We had booked a kayaking trip through the waters of the bioluminescent bay! By the time we got there it was dark, we arranged ourselves within our tour group & were given a safety briefing before being escorted to our kayaks. The kayaks were all linked together in the middle of a shallow bay, you had to wade out a bit to get them. Once we were in our kayaks, which had glow rings on either end of them, we were instructed to paddle single file up a channel through a mangrove forest. The forest waterway was pitch black but the moon was nearly full & illuminated the bare spots of water fairly well. All around us the “coqui” frogs were calling back & forth & the further we got up the channel the more the water began to sparkle.
The bioluminescence was different from the pictures I’d seen in the past; less solid washes of light & more like sparks flying off of whatever gave them kinetic energy. When we reached the lagoon at the end of the channel we bunched up into a group & passed around a tarp to block out the light. Once the light was properly blocked we were instructed to splash around in the water. It’s truly a magical experience even just going for the late night kayak ride. By the way, our tour company was called Eco Adventures!
Once we’d paddled back up the channel & had dried off the search for food began all over again. By the time we’d finished the tour completely it was 10:45 & we still had to make it all the way back to San Juan. We stopped several places along the way hoping to find food but all of them were closed. We finally ended up at a 24/7 grocery store by the San Juan Airport where we grabbed a bunch of pre-made sandwiches & sushi for dinner.
We went to bed that night exhausted but having had a blast of a day!
END OF PART ONE