February 9th SAN JUAN (last day)

Friday, February 9^th

Last day in Puerto Rico.

Priya and I left at about 9:30am and decided to take the bus into Old San Juan instead of walking. The closest bus station was one road in from the main street, and the first thing we saw there were a bunch of workers doing construction on the road.

They seemed nice and we said hi as we passed. In front of the bus stop, there was a huge coach bus, along with a truck. They were with the group of workers, but the funny thing was that there were about 3 or 4 men wearing what looked like police badges. We later came to a conclusion that the group of workers were most likely prisoners who were doing community service or something. Interesting.

Once we got off at the bus terminal in Old San Juan, we decided to take the trolley to Forte del Morro which is the other big fort that goes together with San Cristobal. A lady started talking to us and she said she was from Argentina but has lived in Puerto Rico for 17 years. She was really interested to know how we as tourists evaluated Puerto Rico. She kept on saying her English was terrible, but in actually it was pretty good.

We stood and waited and waited for the trolley to come, only to find out that we were standing at the stop for a different trolley. We got on anyway and wow was it crowded. It was almost like the rush hour in Japan (ok, not as bad). The thing about the trolleys though, is that they have incredibly narrow aisles between the seats and once people squish into them it takes forever for them to get off at a stop.

We got off at the City Hall stop and made a stop at Walgreens. I bought earplugs (the ones you have Tenzin!) since we’re near the engine on the ship.

After that, it was a walk over to del Morro. On the way we stopped at a church, which was very simple on both the inside and outside. It really fit with the whole city of Old San Juan. Across the street from there we found a spice and jam store, which turned out to be the main store that supplied to the boutique I was at the day before! So I had hit the only 2 places in the world that carried these amazing sauces and jams! This time I got to try the jams and they were so good. I got a mango pineapple jam for my mom. It was heavenly. The lady there was really nice too. She had come over to Puerto Rico from the States and she was very eager to know about Semester at Sea so we chatted for a while. It seems that there are a good number of people who come and settle here from the States.

The walk to del Morro was really nice. This part of Old San Juan seemed a lot more high class and less touristy. The houses all seemed more taken care of and we also saw a lot more flowers and trees which gave us nice shades.

We had apparently taken a back path to del Morro, but it had amazing views of the water and we passed by a small park. The land suddenly opened up in front of our eyes and there was del Morro on top of a hill. To the right we saw a big hill that curved gently down towards the water. It wasn’t a beach though, since there was the old wall of del Morro that stretched all the way separating the land from water. There were tons of kids who were on field trips and lots of kites in the air.

It was an amazing sight.

From the top of del Morro we could see San Cristobal on the other side. In between the two forts was La Perla. Now this was the place I had read about in the guide books, the one place that said we should never wander into. It is called the most beautiful slum of the world. It really was. The houses still had the same look as those in Old San Juan, with vibrant colors, and the beach that it sat on was so beautiful. Deep blue and white waves. I took a long careful look at it with my binoculars and saw the sign that said La Perla on a concrete wall. It was really interesting. It was the only thing, along we a cemetery, that sat snuggled between the forts. One thing that was noticeable was that it was outside of the old wall that stretched between the forts. When you really look at it, they really did seem like the outcasts. I wanted so badly to go there and talk to the people, but of course no.

So del Morro was a great experience.

For lunch, we headed into a local sandwich joint called el meson (which was like the subway of Puerto Rico). I find I have just been really eager to communicate with people in Spanish. Restaurants are always the number one place to do that.

After lunch we set out to look for a post office to mail some stuff back home, and then we headed for the bus terminal again to go to new San Juan. We took the same bus I had taken the day before and I felt so used to it all it was kind of funny.

I was then back again in Plazas de las Americas, the mall. This time we went into the Borders they had there. It was interesting to see that English and Spanish books were just shelved all together. The magazine section was all English, except for a few magazines. The GLBTQ magazines were in the front rack and very visible, which was a nice surprise.

Since this was our last day in Puerto Rico, we wanted to buy some local sweets and snack. We found a kiosk which was overflowing with what we were looking for. The vendor was a young girl, probably a few years younger than us, and when we asked her which ones she recommended we just ended up getting a whole basket of cool looking sweets. We got blocks of guava and mango flavored jelly-ish things, squares of coconut molded together with sweet potato, plantain chips (yessss!).

After that we went to pick up some dinner at the Taco Maker, which is a chain we had seen a couple of times in Puerto Rico. It’s like the equivalent of Taco Bell, but it turned out to be MUCH more tasty. And then it was back to the ship.

We boarded the bus for one last time and said good bye to the city.

I can’t believe it went by so fast, and I still can’t believe I’m on this trip. But hopefully I’ve internalized a lot more than I fell like have. Thanks Puerto Rico, for your amazing energy and beauty.