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Well, that tittle sounds worst then what it really is. I actually have yet to make it to El Yunque. In fact I’m approximately 2 miles away. I probably should have learned by now that cheaper isn’t always better.

Estela helped me get a bus to go to “El Yunque” (it’s a rain forest in Puerto Rico) and I had two options. One guy offered to take me there for $40. There was another guy who had a group of people and was going that way. He said he would do it for $3. Without getting the details, I went with the $3 deal. I mean one guy is saying $40 and another is saying $3, what would you do?

It took about 40 or so minutes … To be honest, I wasn’t really sure how long it took because I was actually dozing off! Someone had to wake me when my stop came up. The driver just tells me to take a road and follow it straight up the mountain. Well, I start walking and the neighborhood is a little shady from the get go. As I walked farther, the sidewalks became more narrow and poluted with trash and dried weeds. It seemed as if this path wasn’t walked much.

I finally got to a point where the sidewalk on stopped both sides. Around that point I passed a section of the path where a snake had shed their skin. And this snake looked HUGE! And as if it was scripted, it started to rain!

I took this all as a sign that I saw enough of the rain forest today! I walked back to the road where the driver dropped me off and I walked across the street to a souvenir shop. It was there where the lady told me that there are no taxi’s in this area!! That’s gonna complicate things when I try to head back to Rio Piedras!

Right now I’m in a restaurant called Don Pepe’s. Apparently, it used to be owned by Mexicans. Anyway, I ordered this arepa … It’s good, but it’s not like the ones on Queens Blvd in Jackson Heights! After I ate about half of it, I decided to take a pic of it.

A Puerto Rican Arepa

I’m back from the cruise but not back home yet! I am staying in Puerto Rico until tomorrow (December 30th) afternoon.

There is so much to say about the cruise. There were a lot if hiccups along the way but it was a great time and it was good to see family again. The last time I saw everyone was under different circumstances … It was a grandmother’s funeral.

Anyway, I’m not going to say much about the last week right now but will be periodically posting stories and pics about the experience.

Yesterday we got off the boat around 11:00. My mom — who never got her luggage — went to a hotel with my aunt while others tried to find a tour guide to check out the city. We ended up finding a guy that dropped some of us off at the hotel where my mom is at so we could go to a near by beach (pictured below) while the rest took the tour. It worked out perfectly because the bus was big enough to hold all the luggage so we didn’t have to cart it around. I ended up deciding to not take the tour and stopped off at the beach. My mom was there, I had yet to checkout the beaches in PR and I was supposed to meet up with my couch surfer host soon.

We hung out at the beach for a while and then decided to get Puerto Rican food. Sadly the timing was a little off and the tour bus got back to the hotel just as we put our order in. We waited for a good 25 minutes before it was ready. I ordered arroz com pollo and jugo de acerola and it all worth the wait.

Soon afterwards, I met up with Estela, my couch surfing host, and her aun Mariat. We had more Puerto Rican and talk a lot about her experiences and why she thought Puerto Rico was like no other place on earth! Hah!

When it got later, we dropped Maria off and Estela showed me around Loíza. She is really nice and more then helpful. Apparently, it is really packed there on Sunday nights. I had a “arcapulia” (I know I’m spelling that wrong!!) which I liked and danced merengue since I would have embarassed her and myself if we danced salsa!!

Oh, and also we stopped at this place for a meeting called Open House. It’s not really a church meeting, bit more of a diaologe about religion and social matters. There was an interesting vibe there and I liked it.

Well, today Im off to the rainforest. It’ll be a self guided tour, but let’s hope and pray that I make it out well! Haha, not even sure how im gettibg back but everything will be fine.

Well, she got on a transfer flight but the ship leaves at 10 PM tonight and she won’t get in until after 11. The plan us to meet us at the next port, which will be Saint Thomas.

I went back to the airport to try and pick up her bags … The United people were no help at all. They have no way of scanning the bags, so all the unclailmed bags are lined up along a wall.

I didn’t find my mom’s bag but did find my cousin who was in a similar position. And also, in the baggage line with us was none other than the Dad from the hit TV show, “That’s so Raven”. I know this because I was FORCED to watch a “That’s so Raven” marathon while I was at my cousin Ruth and Naomi’s house for 1 thanksgiving! I was too stars-struck to talk to the guy. And I’m sure he probably isn’t to proud about it either so I just took a picture.

Those who know me, know I can be a bit absent minded at times (to say the least). And it really doesn’t run in the family, but my mom definitely did something that U would be more likely to do.

She thought that the ‘6′ in 6 o’clock departure time one her ticket was actually an 8 ! She showed up at the airport 2 hours early to find that the plane just left! She’s waiting on standby right now, she HAS to make this flight!!! At least she has aging eyes to blame for her mistake. As for me, I usually don’t have an excuse at all!

Yesterday, I tagged along with José while he had some errands to run. We ended up going near the police station, station and afterwards Parque Central de San Juan (yeah, it means Central Park of San Juan).

José had an appointment and I ended up walking around this huge bridge structure which I think they El Parque Lineal de Puerto Rico. At first, I just thought it was a bridge that us next to a forest that people could run on, so I just started walking with the goal of getting to the other side.

Farther down I saw a mother and son looking into the woods at something. I then looked as well and saw this black bird the size of a peigon that had this bright red head. It was making it’s nest in what used to be a styrafoam(sp?) water cooler! I figured it was with a picture on my 8 gig memory card so I leaned over the bridge to frame the shot. Something caught my eye and I jumped back in a startled state. There sat this HUGE lizard in a tree branch litterally 2 feet from my head! I couldn’t belive it!! I started to pay more attention and saw that they were EVERY WHERE!! I was more excited than that little kid and took a bunch of pics of the lizards. It was just weird to see them in a natural setting like that. In addition to the lizards I saw various types of birds and this weird crab like thing that kinda grossed me out!

When I got back, José was still working out and I decided to walk around the other sections of the park. In one particular section there was a group of maybe 10 kids under a tree. One of them looked like he just got off the set of Lord of the Rings. He had the long hair and everything. Then I saw him pick up a shield and I almost lost it. As it turns out, it was a group of LARPers. LARPing stands for Live Action Role Playing and it’s where you dress up in medival attaire and battle with swords and spells. These kids had archers as well! I took a picture not to make fun, but just out of disbelief! To be honest, back in the day I used to play swords with my bros and it kinda looked fun. Bit it’s much easier to point and laugh!!

The next stop we made was to pick up Piquo from his grooming appointment. Piquo is the dog of one of José’s friends. We actually ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the day. His two friends were named Enique and Glori, and they were cool people. They introduced me to their culture, music and ideas on . We also talked about the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese and some how I ended up teaching them two brazilian slang words: piriguete and pirireca. If you don’t know what those mean, it’s probably better that way, hah!

We hung out at the pool fir a while and then went back to Glori’s condo and listened to all this music. It was not only music from Puerto Rico, but music from Argentina, and Spain as well. I wish I remembered the artists names! In the end we threw in Meatloaf in concert but he ended up talking more than signing so he got the boot and Shakira took his spot.

Later one we had some more Puerto Rican food … It was a pork dish, with rice, fried plantanes (I forget the Spanish name) and more mofungo. I could have had another plate just with the rice! It was sooo good!

By the time we got back, it was close to 11 and I was SOOO tired. I think the sun down here messes with me. But at the same time whenever I am in this climate both my skin and my hair seem more healthy. I don’t need to use lotion here and my hair becomes more soft. Maybe it’s all that extra vitamin D that the sun has been giving out I’m generous amounts! Anyway, I know there is MUCH more to Puerto Rico than San Juan, but I feel like I got a good look at the *real* San Juan.

*** More pictures to come! I’ve been typing all theses up from my phone and can’t upload all the pic I took on my Cannon camera.

Hope it didn't say do not enter!

Yesterday I was at “El Morrro”, which translates to to “the hill” in Spanish. It was one of the fortresses the Spainards bult to protect the island from incoming attackers. Obviously, something went wrong because now Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

Having just visited Spain, I could see the the similarities in architecture and construction. It was different to the ones I we saw. In Spain in that “El Morro” is part if a large wall that perimeters the whole northwest tip of old San Juan. It’s pretty impressive and I would recomend visiting El Morro if you ever are in the area.

Anyway, my original plan was to walk along the oustise perimeter of the fort. From the map, it looks like you can do the later but in reality it just stops at some point. There was this sign that I’m assuming said don’t enter but I could read anything! Maybe the battered and illegible condition of the sign *could* have been an inidication of what it used to say but I went ahead and disreguarded it.

It was there where I was reminded of one of the firat Brazilian Films I’ve seen. The film is called “Terra Estrangeira” and I believe it was directed by Walter Salles. There is a scene with this old ship that the two characters were reflecting upon. During the scene a song was playing in the background. In fact, it turned out being somewhat of a theme of the movie. The name of the song is called “Vapor Barato”. There are two versions of the song that I could find, one was by Gal Costa and Zeca Baleiro, and O Rappa did a reaggaish version.

Anyway, while I was in the “restricted” a ship much like the one in the movie sailed by. I know this will sound weird, but it was kinda a surreal moment.

Well, it has been a successul fisrt day here, but of course it wasn’t without it’s hiccups! When I arrived here this morning, I was unsure of where I was going to stay! I blame much of this on my procrastination though.

As I was saying before, I decided to use the Couch Surfing website for this trip. I of course decided to go that route a little more than 2 weeks before the trip, and even after that I didn’t start making “surf” requests until a week and a half before I had to leave. I found one guy who said he could do it, but I never heard back from him.

Litterally, 2 days before the trip, my soon to become new friend Jose said he should be able to host me. I wasn’t 100% sure if he could do it, but after he got out of work he gave me a call. He went out of his way to drive me to the airport where I had my bag stowed in storage and he showed me around Isla Verde and his neighborhood (which I forget the name … Coronado?).

Afterwards, we went to an Argentine place which had a “Criullo” menu as well … which is authentic Puerto Rican food. I had the arroz com pollo criullo style and a side dish which is called mafonga. Mafonga is mashed plantains which can be stuffed with chicken of beef. It was all really good!!

Some of the highlights of the day were sleeping in the airport, taking 2 hours to go 20 miles via public transit, seeing “El Morro” and walking along sidr the massive waves, getting attacked by peigons, dodging peigon crap only to have another of his buddeis to crap on my leg, finding a place to stay for the night, bumping to Reaggeton in Jose’s car, eating authentic puerto rican food. All in all, a food day, but peigons beware for I will have my revenge!!

I’m waiting for the bus to go to old San Juan. It’s 20 minutes away from the airport and I’ve been waiting for at least that long. I *could* take a cab, but $20 one way does seem a bit rediculous to me.

It’s almost 80 degrees out here and in the background there are those Christmas oldies are playing in the background. Growing up in New England I’m used to only hearing these songs when it’s freezing outside. It’s hard to even process such songs when I’m staring at this view:

I will have to admit, I do feel a little ignorant about Puerto Rico. I mean I know it somehow became part of the USA throughout the progression of history, but that’s about it!! Usually, I like to research at least a little bit of the country before I arrive and this time I didn’t even do that!!

While I was waiting to get my bags this morning, a woman — who was practically shouting — asked her husband if he had any American money because she wanted to buy a drink from the coke machine. After I heard that, I felt a little less ignorant. Now if I can figiure out what this gibberish language people speak here I’ll be all set!!

A few of my friends have this inside joke about the guys with the dreds that have them wrapped up in those oversized wave caps/apple hats. In Portuguese, they nicknamed them “moronduns” (eu sei que eu acabei de dar uma rata!!). One time while taking the china town bus to NYC, There was a “morondun” on board with us. Before boarding, this particular guy lit up a joint while everyone was in line (yeah, the Chinatown bus can get a little crazy at times). Anyway, my friends spent half the trip making fun of him by taking pictures of this makeshift moronduns they created with a scarf.

I came across one while eating breakfast –which I tried odering in portanhlol (when you try to speak Spanish but mix Portuguese with it) — a picture just to prove that eles existem em Puerto Rico também (they exist in PR too!)