Puerto Rico Day Uno!

Every year Nirvi, Libby and I take a trip together. The first year, we went to, of all places, Leesburg, VA. It was so great! There was wonderful food and lovely wineries to visit. We went for massages and downtown Leesburg was so nice to explore. We were all so pleasantly pleased at how well we traveled together that we decided to make it a yearly event.

Last year was New Orleans and it was great fun too.

It took us a while to decide on Puerto Rico for this year's adventure. Initially we thought Santa Fe would be great. And it would be, if it wasn't cold this time of year. Libby had a friends who sang the praises of PR and we were decided.

I arrived in San Juan around 3PM after a long day of travel which began with a 5AM taxi ride from my home to Logan.

Nirvi arrived first and settled into our very cool apartment which we found on airbnb online. Libby arrived an hour after me so I waited for her and we caught a cab into Old San Juan to connect with Nirvi together.

It's a beautiful city, though seemingly pretty quiet for the height of the vacation season. We settled into our new home for the next four nights. It's a beautiful open space with tall ceilings, air conditioned bedrooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms. Marble floors throughout and big wooden doors.

During our stay, a few locals took note of the fact that we were in Old San Juan. Apparently most visitors stay in San Juan, in a hotel or resort. Not us! We wanted to be where we were closer to local and everyday life of the city.

this is the apartment's sort of hallway. On the left it opened up completely, no windows or anything. We left the canopy out most of the time because it really made a difference with the heat.

cool stairs leading to the street from the apaprtment

We dropped our things and took to the streets to explore. Admittedly, the fact that Nirvi knew her way around made me quite lazy and unconcerned about my sense of direction. I never really learned where stuff was because somehow, she always knew, or with the help of Fodors and a trip advisor phone app, we could quickly orientate ourselves (no, I’m not getting a kick-back sadly).

Nirvi with a local!

At one point, we passed a strange shop which had wall-to-wall displays of butterflies. Libby chirped, “Wow, There really is something for everyone." It becomes a bit of a catch phrase.

Puerto Rico, where there’s something for everyone!

We needed both a traditional map and our phones to navigate around. The phones seemed best when we were driving, but a good old map served us best when we were wandering the city by foot.

The patio at Rosa de Triana

That evening, we went to the first of many restaurants on our list of must-sees; Rosa de la Triana. We sat outdoors since the evening air was milder than the heat and humidity of the day, and the patio at the back of the restaurant was pleasant, with tall walls on all sides with plants creeping up them, and oddly but charmingly, blinking lights in the shape of icicles! We had some lovely tapas and the server was great; coming over to our table and gesturing to us. He soon realized that Nirvi is quite fluent in spanish and communicated to him that we loved the sangria and our fod was great too. Libby and I shared some crab mofongo for the first time. We were a bit underwhelmed but mostly it was a great meal.  

I was very happy as I toasted over red sangria with my friends, celebrating this tradition of a yearly trip together, and looking forward to the adventures that awaited us in PR.

Back at our home, Nirvi settled in to a single room with a big bed and Libby and I happily shared a room with two singles. Large fans hung downs from all the high ceilings and the AC was refreshing after the heat of the street.