Tuesday, September 30, 2003
We're off to Puerto Rico in mid Hurricane season. There was
nothing on the radar when we left Knoxville, so hopefully our luck
will hold out. Our flight, as usual, left way too early, but that
way we arrived in San Juan in time to enjoy the day a little. It's
an hour gate to gate from Knoxville to Atlanta, a two-hour layover,
and then three and a half more hours to el Aeropuerto Iternacional
Luis Muñoz Marín, a.k.a. San Juan Airport.
We arrived in Puerto Rico at 1:55 p.m. and headed straight to
Hertz to pick up our rental car. No customs and immigration hassle
since Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and no changing
money - Hooray! For $230.52 for one week Hertz put us in a gray
two-door automatic Toyota Echo, henceforth to be known as "Smoky."
The power in its four cylinders is breathtaking. It can go from
zero to 60 in -- well, eventually. We were kind of intimidated
going into this trip by what the traffic might be like. Well, now
we know. These guys drive crazy! Apparently there's too many cars
on this island for people to take turns, but once we learned to use
the horn instead of the brakes, we were able to go with the flow.
But I'm glad our first car journey, to our hotel, was only a couple
of miles.
For this first night we have reservations at a hotel in Isla
Verde, on the outskirts of San Juan, at the Hotel Casa Mathiesen,
which it turns out also owns the Green Isle Inn in the same block,
which is where we actually stayed. The price we were quoted was
$58, and we of course anticipated the nine-percent hotel tax, but
then they stuck on a $5 "service charge." What the heck is that
about? Isn't some kind of service included in the quoted price? Can
we have a room without service? The extra charge was posted on the
wall in our room, so it wasn't just a gringo tax, but still, it
seems like a trick. In any event, the place is totally worth the
$69 that it actually cost. Our room opens to a beautiful, clean,
warm, refreshing swimming pool. We get about a billion channels on
the TV, many of them in English. (They even have Spike TV - go
figure.) We have a fridge and ice, and the bed is super comfy.
Green Isle Inn
After checking in, we dropped off our luggage and immediately
walked the block to the beach. The beach is very clean and pretty,
and there was almost no one there. Ha! It's hot in the sun, about
90, much cooler in the shade, and there's a nice ocean breeze. I
waded a little bit while Tom took photographs. Then we stocked up
on sandwich stuff and rum at the mini-mart and headed back to our
room.
Yippee!
Tonight we're just taking it easy. We swam and read and napped
and drank rum and OJ by the pool. We had the pool all to ourselves
for the longest time... Ours! Ours! Ours! I think I could get used
to this relaxing stuff. Tom called his parents on his cell phone to
brag that we were in PR and they're not - who could blame him?
The first of many swims
Puerto Rico is very bilingual. We should have few language
difficulties here. Even the cats hanging out around the swimming
pool answer to both "kitty" and "gato."
Our guidebooks and the tourism Websites we've consulted guide
the traveler in Puerto Rico from San Juan east, in a clockwise
direction around the island. Therefore, naturally, we have chosen
to travel in the opposite direction. Why the heck not? We'll begin
tomorrow.
Recovering from the plane trip
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