Valentine’s Day Getaway in Puerto Rico – Part I

For Valentine’s Day weekend, we went to the enchanted island once again.  We had previously visited back in 2005 when Monica and I had just started going out.  We now returned as a married couple.  On our first trip we visited Old San Juan, El Yunque and the beautiful island of Culebra where we did some serious snorkeling. This time, we went to visit our good friends Yazmine and JP (Juan Pablo) and visit the west side of the island. We were very happy to see them both again. We hadn’t seen them since our wedding, 7 months back. Yazmine and I have been friends for many years and when she moved back we promised her that we would go visit her. It took a few years, but we finally made it and we were very excited! When we arrived, the first thing we did was to go see her at her workplace after JP picked up us from the airport. We wanted to know about everything that went on when she audition for American Idol and made it to Hollywood. After a brief catching up, we went to get some typical Puerto Rican food, Chuleta Can-Can (Fried Pork Chop) but I was disappointed I didn’t see Arroz con Gandules, a typical Puerto Rican cuisine, on the menu. The pork chop was a vicious meal, I was stuffed to the core.  So after this serious meal, we went to the Yaz-JP Hotel and met the rest of the family, their four dogs.   When Yazmine got home from work she got ready for us to go to Old San Juan and have dinner. This is when I realized that while JP has been in PR for years, I, a native of Nicaragua, living in the US, had to introduce him to one of PR’s best liquors: Passoa! Passoa is a passion fruit drink that is very tropical and an exotic taste. Women love it because it doesn’t really taste like alcohol, men love it because women get drunk without knowing and then get wild. So after a drink, we went to DragonFly a chic restaurant to get some sushi. After dinner we returned home and passed out.

JP Yaz and Alex

The next day we woke up early and made the hour trip to Crash Boat beach. We drove out early in morning, about 7 or so, to Crash Boat, a beach west of San Juan. First we searched for a bakery to eat some good typical Puerto Rican breakfast but we couldn’t find any. We drove on the expressway but got back on the local roads because Monica wanted to pass out from hunger, but nothing. After an hour, we decided to stop by a McDonalds and get some boring American breakfast platter. There we asked for directions to get to Crash Boat. It turns out that giving directions in Puerto Rico is just like they give directions in my native Nicaragua. No one knows the actual road names, instead the use landmarks and estimates of distance to make a turn. For example, the lady at the McDonald’s gave us the following directions: “You go the right at the corner, then you’re going to go for another 40 minutes and pass three McDonalds and then make a right, then you’ll go to a church and make a left, then when you see a big tree, you take the next left.” I am not exaggerating. When I asked what the name of the roads are, they didn’t know. When I used my iPhone and named the roads (302, 28, etc), they didn’t know even though it was the road in front of them. But, the directions worked.

We made it to the vicinity but got lost after the third Mickey Ds. So, I asked for directions yet again, but to my luck, the guy I asked was a mute. He was mumbling something but we didn’t understand. We felt bad for him because he was trying help, but we had to ask someone else right next to him. And what do you know, he gave us the following directions: “Make a U, go to the church, make a right, continue until you pass a big white house, make a left and continue until you see a small blue sign.” Perfect directions.

As soon as we go there, we parked and ordered some Pinchos from some street vendors. Here you could order pork, beef or chicken on a stick, lathered with BBQ, and topped with a Tostone with garlic. Yummy and cheap! I had been to Crash Boat back in 2003 with my boys (Pato, Bori, Daniel and some Chinese guy) and it was a great time. The beach back then was full of life, it had a diverse group of people, locals, tourists, couples, singles, etc. This time however, it was one HUGE sausage fest. It was like College Spring Break without the chicks. Ok, it had some chicks, but they were jailbait. Not that I was looking for chicks, but I couldn’t help but notice how there were 30 guys to every girl. And there were all young. I guess it must have been either High School skip day or some freshmen college hang out day.

Anyways, I decided to go and do some snorkeling. There was absolutely nothing but white sand. There was an occasional unremarkable fish that followed me around, but that was about it. I ran into some scuba divers that must have been some real amateurs because they were occupying themselves with some small fishes. I guess they were learning. The diving at Crash Boat is just terrible, anyone who thinks it’s great has obviously not fully experience anything other than snorkeling. After about 15 minutes, once I made it to the pier, I made my way back. My uneventful snorkeling was disrupted when two guys jumped from the pier into the water and then started making out next to me. Yeah, awkward. After I made it back to land, we took some pictures but had to move to a more obscure location because the guys were just foaming at the mouth and the young chicks were hating on the hot woman with the hot bikini. Below are some pictures:

The hot wife with the pier in the background

The hot wife striking a pose

I am assuming it's called crash boat because of the boats in the background..

After a hot and steamy photo session with the wifey, I realized that my back was on fire. I was burnt. This was actually something new to me, I have been to many many beaches and I’ve never burned my back.  I always just get darker, but this time, I felt like a white person.  I got burned and turned red.  I felt robbed of my cinnamon-skin and latinhood.  So we decided to leave. We wanted to go to check out the light house in Cabo Rojo, but since it was late and wanted to see the sunset, we decided to head to Rincon where there also was a lighthouse. We asked for directions a third time, same result. Once we got there, we were expecting this huge landmark and impressive lighthouse but instead we saw a “weenerhouse” but it was nice nonetheless.  Below are some ot the pics we took of the lighthouse and from the cliff nearby.

The Lighthouse in Rincon

Rincon is a great location to go surfing or just sit down on the sand and watch the sun.   So we decided to leave the lighthouse and find our own little secret spot to just watch the sunset.  I parked the car when I saw a break in the forage and we made our way towards the sea…

There were plenty of surfers and plenty of couples just spread over the coast waiting for the sun to lie across the sea. This was definitely our highlight. I had many times seen the sun at sunset, but never actually sat down to contemplate it and enjoy it. This afternoon, we did. And it was beautiful. It was an orange reddish circle with a soothing glow, slowly being swallowed by dark sea and the endless dance of the waves.

This was truly such a special occasion for the both of us that we recorded it. Rincon, which is a known as Surfer’s Alley or Surfer’s Paradise, to us, will always be known as the Window to the Golden Sunsets. This video actually shows the sun set ting as Monica and I just contemplate it and enjoy each other’s love. The soundtrack with the subtitles is “I cross my heart” by George Strait, which was our wedding song….

And so our day was coming to an end as we drove back to the Yazmine-JP Hotel.   We bathed, rested and then made our way to meet Yaz and JP’s really cool neighbors: Rolo and Yollie.  We hung out and had some killer steaks thanks to the art of grilling that Rolo has almost perfected.  I showed them my burns and I heard them groan.  Yeah, it was that bad.  Time passed quickly and it was already midnight.  We had to wake up at 530AM to get to Parguera, our scuba diving destination.  So we went back to the Yazmine-JP 5 Star Hotel and hit the sack. 

Rolo - The Chef

Part II coming soon…

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