Wowzers. My vacation in Puerto Rico has been incredible. I feel as I have done enough in ten days to fill a hundred. To make up for a lack of communication I will give a brief day by day run-down.
Tuesday – Dec. 27th: I landed at San Juan’s international airport and was picked up by my cousin David. He took me to a restaurant called El Hamburguito (the little hamburger) and I enjoyed the best hamburger I’d had in a long, long time. The view of the coast line wasn’t bad either. After driving through and around Viejo San Juan we met up with my Aunt Mimi at Chili’s where we ran quite the bar tab and caught up and talked shit and joked and just had a good time. Also, I had Boston Crab Cakes. Isn’t that ridiculous? More ridiculous was my attempt to watch some Ewan McGregor film afterwards. Ghostwriter? Ghost Rider? I don’t know.
Wednesday – Dec. 28th: My aunt took me to meet up with my Uncle Hilton and I enjoyed a traditional Puerto Rican mofongo, which consists of plantains stuffed with seafood or meat with a sauce, either creole or butter/garlic type combo. They are delicious. Afterwards I met up with some cousins at Plaza de las Americas (the largest shopping mall in Latin America). My parents, who landed that afternoon, picked me up and in a moment of family awesomeness I shared, for the first time ever, a beer with my grandfather.
Just to let you know who my grandfather is, people know him better as Popeye. When I asked my mom why this was such, she delicately explained to me that Popeye was known for going to the bars, drinking a few, and getting into fights. Of course, existing in the same vein as Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood, he never lost. Hence the name Popeye. He also had a boat once upon a time, so that may have been related. Afterwards, my cousin David, who has always facilitated corruption of my innocent youth, took me out for a night out in Guaynabo City whereupon after some light barhopping and shit-talking we decided to go to a Christian rap concert to see Vico C perform. I don’t know what the hell that was about. McDonalds while inebriated is delicious.
Thursday – December 29th: My extended family is divided between the capital city area in the east and Mayaguez in the west. Consequently my trips to the Enchanted Island are divided between the two sides. My dad drove my brother and I to the west end to visit his family. Along the way we stopped at some truly amazing beach side views.
At my grandmother’s house my brother and I just kicked it for a bit and chilled out sharing music and stories and the like. It was nice, it was great, it was the best of times, blah blah blah. It felt like being home. That in itself was incredible. Also, can we talk about how great Netflix is? I liked Netflix before I left the states, coming back, I love Netflix.
Friday – December 30th : In an effort to acquaint the uninitiated, my dad took my brother and I to Mayaguez. Mayaguez is one of the three major cities in Puerto Rico (San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez in roughly that order). On this light site seeing trip our dad told us stories and shared with us where he grew up and showed us the school he graduated from and of course had me taking pictures. Being the de facto on-call family photographer in exchange for enjoying the delicious milk of the paternal financial teat while on vacation is not a bad gig by the way. One clutch moment for me was seeing my grandmother’s old apartment that overlooked one of the main streets leading to the town square. The mere scent of the street’s peculiar odor brought back a swath of memories from my younger years.
Later on that night through a weird arrangement with my brother and cousins and insistence from my aunt we went to go see some horrible film titled “War Horse”. I’m convinced that this is a dirty campaign to glorify horses and attempt to bring down Obama’s chances for re-election on the basis that he just signed a bill allowing horses to be prepared for human consumption. In case my sarcasm wasn’t thick enough on that one – I’m joking. Either the movie was truly terrible, or I just don’t care two cahoots about a young man’s strange affection for a horse.
Saturday- December 31st: Clearly this is a big day. At my grandmother’s house it is a huge event featuring Uncle Alejandrito, who is the family DJ and catering by none other Uncle Hilton, who is the family doctor, elitist, and caterer. There was karaoke; there were delicious pastries, incredible food, scrumptious roasted pork (pernil), and best of all – the presence of all 11 sons and daughters of my grandmother. Mimi, Alfonso (dad), Harvey, Diana, Celi, Harry, Norbert, Hector, Hilton, Alejandrito, and the mysterious Tony were all in attendance. This happens rarely and most often it is my dad who is the culprit for missing out. There was a lot of love in the air. I also got to try out the Puerto Rican version of moonshine – pitorro, which is somehow made with almonds. It was disgustingly sweet. My cousin Kathii has a video that I will force her to upload.
Sunday – January 1st: First day of the New Year and we went on an excursion to the mountainous town of Yauco. This was my initiation into the dominoes table with my uncles. This is a prestigious table where not only will ruthless games be played, but also cut throat shit-talking. My dad and I schooled two of my uncles, but the next game, which was with my uncle Norbert – the self-proclaimed God of Excel accountant – killed me, predicting my every move like clockwork. On a less interesting note, my brother and I used a borrowed Xbox to beat Call of Duty MW3. Video game quota of 2012 already fulfilled.
Monday – January 2nd: I returned to Bayamon, but before visiting my Abuelito, my brother, dad, and I took a five hour detour to walk around Viejo San Juan and visit El Morro and some adjoining castle. For the longest time I’ve really wanted to explore La Perla. La Perla (the Pearl) is an ironically named barrio (neighborhood/ghetto) that stands right below the pricey area of Viejo San Juan. It is nestled right on the coast line and stands surrounded by upper middle class wealth. It is also one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the entire United States and associated territories. While it is not quite as exaggerated as Brazil’s favelas, it would be comparable to that or to Chorillo in Panama City. Check out my pictures of San Juan!
We also had a family BBQ at abuelo’s house. Best moment of the night was halfway through a dominoes game whereupon my brother came to the realization that dominos is a team game. This in turn led to my favorite quote of the trip: “Wait, we’re on teams!?!”
Tuesday – January 3rd: Boat. We drove from Bayamon to Lajas and got on a boat with my Uncle Harry, his wife, and her father. It was dope. Shit got real nautical near some mangroves and we just relaxed, drank fancy drinks, swam in clear water, and for two days lived a life of pure hedonism. Uncle Harry is a great chef and his father in law is a great enthusiast of fine wine, liquors, meats and presumably other consumables. In short, I ate like a king. No, really, things I ate included prosciutto ham (of which Panama/Peace Corps has inconsiderably deprived me of), salmon pasta (it was ridiculously good), freshly baked bread (we baked bread, on a boat!), and a new one for me, perhaps truly God’s Greatest Gift to man – blood sausage. Also, my drinking shelf got elevated and I developed an affinity for champagne.
Wednesday – January 4th: More boating, but as we departed we went to a restaurant in Mayaguez that sits no more than five meters from the coast. The restaurant is known only as Gonzalez. I suspect that it is officially Gonzalez Seafood, but everyone just calls it Gonzalez. Here I enjoyed fish (fresh red snapper?) stuffed with lobster and shrimp, all of which was freshly caught. It was the best meal I’d had all year long. I have eaten some great seafood in Panama and elsewhere, but this takes the plate. It set a completely new standard, so much so that for the first time ever, my brother actually requested to speak to the chef just so he could tell him how great the meal was. Keep in mind that we had already been eating remarkably well on the boat. Even with a raised standard on our palate, this meal was remarkably fucking good.
Thursday – January 5th: My grandmother’s 71st birthday was the most important event of the day. Before the ceremonial dinner my family took my brother and I Three Kings Day shopping (more on that later). I re-upped on footwear really seeing as how walking most everywhere and running in the campo has demolished almost all my footwear. Actually, my parent’s concern for my footwear is pretty hilarious. There was a dismissal ceremony for my torn kutaras that were hilariously replaced by a new pair of Rainbows. For whatever reason my mother insisted on getting me a new wallet, so I have that too. If only she would’ve put some new benjies in there.
Dinner was in a coastal town called Aguadilla. Once again in a restaurant that was only a short walk from the coast (although this was non-swimmable). We went to some super fancy and trendy steakhouse that seemed to blow its budget on aesthetics and saving none for staff training. Our waiter was god-fucking-awful. Regardless, I enjoyed a fine skirt steak salad (something Katie had actually taught me to enjoy) and later on walked around breifly to take some pictures of the town’s center.
Friday – January 6th: Three King’s Day! Second, or really, technically first Christmas! Unfortunately I had slept none the night before seeing as how my grandmother’s neighbors had engaged in an all-night party to commemorate Puerto Rico’s true Christmas holiday. There’s more on this holiday on a different post so I’ll spare the redundant redundancy. I will however take the chance to complain about the 6:00AM parade that the town of Anasco (where my g-ma lives) decided to have. At six in the morning! Unacceptable! All throughout the 6th I was completely dazed from a lack of sleep.
Sometime in the afternoon we went to my Aunt Diana’s house where my grandmother’s birthday party was consolidated with the Three Kings Day party. Once again, all the uncles and aunts were together as well as all the cousins. I tasted a micro-brewed Puerto Rican beer known as Magna, chatted with an former State Department employee, and dominated dominoes for a bit. You know how I do boo.
At around 6:00pm goodbyes were exchanged and my mother and I got into the car to drive to Bayamon. I was a bit tipsy and chatty while my mom was worried about how long it would take us to get to Bayamon. Route 2, which you take until you hit the highway, was full and we were catching all the bad lights as if it were a favorite pastime. Thankfully I fulfilled one of my goals while in the US of A, which was to enjoy some Wendy’s 99 cent goodness. Turns out Wendy’s is even shittier than I remember it, so I think 2012 may be marked with a long-needed move away from idolatrous worship of the great American Fast Food deities.
When we get to Bayamon my Uncle Carlos, to whom people outside of our family regularly refer to as the legendary Uncle Carlos, was running a salsa percussion group in the street at what he titled the Beto Convention Center. In short, two tents set up to avert rain, three to five guys, interchangeably playing along to salsa coming from an impressive sound system playing traditional Caribbean/Latino-American instruments. Add friends and neighbors having a good time and eating carne asada while dancing salsa and you have a bonafide cultural event on your hands. It was sick, it was cool, it was straight up mad ill; call it the dopeness, but never once the whackness; it’s a hit, total strike out for the other team, whoever they be; total victory in Europe, victory in Japan, victory at your ma’s house, on your daddy’s boat, don’t matter where; wear a suit, come one, come all; bring your family, your wife, your wife’s wife, don’t matter. My vacation in Puerto Rico was been a deeply enriching personal experience as just an incredibly vacation filled with fun turns at every moment.
My real extended family makes the best host family any Peace Corps Volunteer, nay, any one person could ever hope for.
My camera was packed up when I headed down this bridge and I left, but this of course was the iconic bridge you have to take to get to the airport from Bayamon.
