Culture

Saturday night was the opening event of the month-long Festival Casals de Puerto Rico.

We were invited to join Dagmar and husband Phillipe for the concert. Originally from France the couple has been in Puerto Rico three years, and Phillipe runs a cigar factory. De Anne first met Dagmar at an afternoon ladies event several weeks ago. Polish composer and conductor, 3 time Grammy winner, Krzysztof Penderecki (yes, I never heard of him either) directed the symphony orchestra, two choirs - adult and children's, plus 6 opera soloists.

 De Anne was thrilled by the performance and I stayed awake, so the evening was a success.

Sunrise

Not all sunrises are equal. the white chairs on the right mark the Ritz Carlton beach area.
 (click to enlarge)

Island tour

Wednesday and Thursday was a road trip to see the rest of the island. Our first driving adventure!

Let's set the stage. Puerto Rico has more cars per square mile than anywhere else in the world. It also has more potholes than anywhere else I have been, but the fun does not stop there - the potholes are deep too. Stop signs are just a suggestion. On mountain roads local drivers use the middle of the road to avoid the crumbling road edges and overhanging trees and bamboo. They will politely veer off about a foot for you. This causes my usually taciturn wife to emit a small shriek adding to my white knuckle condition.

On the south coast the GPS became unreliable. It put me into a school parking lot and at several hair-pin turns announced turns into the brush. Lucky for me I don't fool that easy. Without rhyme or reason small roads led into four lane highways that gave out after a few miles and then back to twisty small roads again.

On the east side of the island some order was restored. We stopped at the largest marina in the Caribbean for a dockside lunch. The marina was huge with very wide fixed concrete docks. It soon became obvious why. Arriving boaters drove their car into one of 15 covered bays(picture below). At each bay was a large two wheel cart. Once you unload your car into the cart a dockboy, driving a golf cart hooks up you cart, then you and crew climb aboard the 4 to 6 passenger golf cart and are whisked out the docks to unload directly on to your boat. How upscale is that?

Thursday was a little better on the major highway on the north side of the island; however at one point I got behind a flat bed truck and was worried about his load. It was a full grown horse balancing on the bed of the truck with no rails or tie downs in sight. Maybe the horse has done this before - it was standing with its legs slightly spread out.

I finally worked up the courage to try mofongo, the unofficial national dish of Puerto Rico. Mashed plantains smothered in a garlicky sauce with pork. I could not finish the huge portion I was given.

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The restaurant had a major added attraction - on a beach with the reef just a 100 yards off the sand. The large Atlantic rollers breaking on the rocks were spectacular.

We now are at peace having seen more of the island, jointly agreeing we could not improve on our current location and vowing to leave the driving to others,

Aquaman

After almost a week overlooking Isla Verde beach we are becoming familiar with our surroundings.

Every day about 7:30 am a man in a wet suit, with a straw hat on, and carrying a kayak paddle, wades out just past the breaking waves and stands in the water for the next 5 or 6 hours. While it is possible there is a valid explanation for this behavior, I can't think of one and so I chalk it up to mental problems. He is peaceful and bothers no one so we just keep an eye out for who we have dubbed as Aquaman.

 Aquaman (click to enlarge)

Just before the storm a rainbow:

Full moon rising:

Tomorrow we rent a car and head to the mountains.

Vertical distance

Our new place is actually farther away from the ocean, but only if you account for the vertical distance. We are now in the top floor of a six floor condo building in a nice 1 bedroom/1 bath unit.

We are paying the electric bill for the month, so (forsaking AC) all windows and doors are wide open to the sea breeze. The only problem with this so far, happened when I was seasoning our steak for dinner. I sprinkled the pepper like always and had not factored in the wind whipping through. The pepper went sideways. It is a cross I will bear.

Our new bedroom, then the view from the bedroom balcony.

plazas

We have not yet tired of touring Old San Juan. Tuesday's trek took us past several plazas.

Across from the Capitol building - St. John the Baptist, and no, that is not his middle finger extended.

Continuing along the water is this military lamb - an odd combination. 

There is even a park for pigeons. Note the cubbyholes in the wall.

The central plaza.

Many streets are paved with blue glazed bricks. This street has naturally occurring speed bumps.

Finally! sustenance at a place named Blue Burger. I will not belabor the obvious, but will note it was excellent!

bus rides

Being the frugal types, De Anne and I avail ourselves of public transportation as much as possible when traveling. This has included sharing a door-less minivan with chickens up to trains where the only wildlife was fleas (overnight Rome to Paris train).

 San Juan has a less than adequate bus system, although to be fair we hear it was much better a few years ago before Puerto Rico began defaulting on debt. The fare is 75 cents for young people like De Anne and us old farts over 60 pay 35 cents. Our "pratice" runs have been single leg jaunts into Old San Juan; however, yesterday we planned to attend a luncheon with the San Juan Newcomers club out in the suburbs.

We both devoted hours of planning the various buses, schedules, and routes necessary to make the 11:00 am event time. De Anne felt we needed to ride 2 buses to the subway station, get off at the third stop and take another bus. I argued for a route that only required 3 buses. De Anne and I seldom argue about anything other than transportation.

 We arrived at the first bus stop just off our street at 8:45 am. A local man asked where we were heading and hearing our destination said "Oh no, you do not want this bus". at that moment his cell phone rang and he held up a finger pausing our conversation. Concurrent to that the bus hove into view. We boarded, secure in the knowledge that a local did not think we should be on that bus.

As the bus continued it's journey a couple tourists quizzed the driver how to get to the mall. We listened intently since our path was past the mall. The driver stopped the bus, climbed out, disappeared behind the bus, then reappeared and told the mall-seekers to follow him. De Anne jumped up motioning me to follow. We all boarded a small jitney bus stopped behind the main bus. still no clue as to what we doing or where we were going. All I could contemplate was the line from the play, A Street Car Named Desire - "I rely on the kindness of strangers".

 The Jitney bus dropped us at the subway station, and walked our little group over to another bus stop and turned us over to another driver on another bus. By this time conversation identified one man in our make-shift group as a former Indianapolis resident who had renovated a home in Woodruff place. It is a small world.

 The bus driver, previously informed of our desired stop, called out to us and pointed the way. Having allowed 2 hours travel time we arrived with an hour and twenty minutes to spare. We passed a pleasant hour at La Ceiba, panaderia y reposteria (bakery and cake shop) with a glass of juice and a cup of incredibly strong coffee.

At the appointed hour we joined the group of about 50 people at the luncheon and enjoyed a long, leisurely meal.

Just to keep things interesting we took different buses home, but suffice to say 2 buses over 45 minutes were all that we required. All our planning, discussion and disagreement was meaningless. The old saying - “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” is so true.