It has been a while since the trip, I got so overwhelmed with the thought of back posting all of our fun this summer that I just stopped all together. Now, when has that ever helped?!?!
Anyway.
Sometime in the spring, Papi called and asked Ben to get him a plane ticket to PR. Papi doesn't
do the internet. Ben told me that Papi was going to be there for about three and a half months, so we decided it would be a great time to go visit. Papi hadn't even met "the baby" (who is now days from being two), so it was time for a visit, and PR Sounded like a great place for it!
So we looked at dates and tickets and money and time off, and all the stuff that a big exciting trip entails, and just went for it. Ben booked the tickets, and I started counting down the days :) I packed and unpacked and repacked too many times to count. I bought new and exciting toys for Roman and Isaac to play with on the planeS and fretted about what to do with an 18 month old for 9+ hours of travel.
I am proud to say that the boys were AMAZING on the trip there. And SO cute. Roman and Isaac each had a back pack on, and would walk through the airport like professional travelers. I would have gotten a picture if I wasn't loaded down with 2 backpacks, a 5 pt harness car seat and 2 boosters. And sometimes the carry on rollie. Ben had the baby. :P We had 2 flights, one 2.5 hours, an hour lay over and then the other was almost 5 hours, I think. My good friend, Tamara, had just flown to the east coast with all 5 of her kids, recommended that I take play dough for Aaron. I was worried about the mess it would inevitably make... but didn't fret too long about that, especially when it kept him occupied for HOURS! He would tear it and smash it, and tear it again.
We arrived at San Juan after 10 pm local time, and it was hot and sticky. Papi had brought his sister, Milta, and her husband, Poppo. We gathered our luggage and headed to the rented minivan. Poppo had a little trouble remembering where he had parked, so we waited in one spot while he went to find the car. Finally, he found the car and backed all the way down our one way aisle. Nice. We loaded up the car and tried to figure out where everyone would sit. All 3 boys in the back, meant that Roman's booster wouldn't fit. Not the end of the world, but I do wish I hadn't lugged that thing all over the country if we weren't even going to be able to use it!! Then, we notice that there are only 2 seat belts on the tiny middle row.... great. 2 hour car ride to Camuy, me sitting on the buckles of the two belts, staring straight through the windshield with nothing to stop me from taking a header through it!!
We got to Papi's house sometime around midnight I am guessing. We made up beds for the boys and Papi gave us his room. The boys had a full and twin bed pushed up together, and they all passed out right away. Ben and I had the only room with a/c. A little window unit that cooled the room very nicely, but nothing more. That meant that Ben and I had to shut the doors and windows and sleep in totally darkness with no outside noises. Bliss!! Except I was terrified of the boys waking up in the middle of the night and falling down the concrete steps that lead from the hall to the kitchen. So I was up periodically doing the mommy thing, checking on the boys and pacing the hall.
Papi had been in PR for almost 2 full months by now, I believe. But apparently he was only sleeping at his house. When the boys woke up at 730 the next morning, there was nothing in the house except water. Literally. I opened the refrigerator, and there was a Coke bottle refilled with water, a pitcher filled with water, and a refilled water bottle. Cupboards were empty, and the drawers revealed about 5 spoons. On the table were 2 napkins and 2 knives (no forks), like the kind you get wrapped together from KFC or some place.
The kids played with their new toys and the baby played play dough while I tried to make enough noise to wake the sleeping bears. No luck. Ben and Papi finally woke up around 930 and had this great idea to go shopping, because, you know, THEY were hungry. Imagine that. Anyway. They did, and around 11 am we had breakfast. Then Papi had to take his little acura to get fixed and then pick up Milta and Poppo, who had the van at their house. So on our first day there, we finally left the house at TWO PM. Nap time. Lovely.
As I cheered that we were finally leaving the house (which had bars on the front and back, so we were literally LOCKED inside until then), we talked about what we wanted to do. Not before, when time was wasting away. I told them I wanted to go to the beach and the caves. They said the local beaches were not good, but that we would do a tour of the area and if we wanted to go back tomorrow, we could.
I thought that we had an "in", Papi being born and raised in PR. But this was like the most depressing tour of my life. First stop, a beach that used to be a nice resort, but is now a sewage out let where the bums have makeshift lean tos and people dispose of dead and unwanted pets right in the water. There was a dead cat, legs in the air and stiff as a door nail right below where Isaac was galloping around counting coconuts. Papi thought it was funny and that the boys should see it. Ah, no. Ben and I safely manuevered the boys back to the car, leaving Papi to investigate alone.
The next stop was a train tunnel through a mountain. The train hasn't run through there in a long time, there was nothing to tell much about the history, but after that, a resort company owned the property and it seemed really nice. There was an arcade, a restaurant, an outdoor pavillion where live bands would play... but then a tsunami damaged it, the insurance wouldn't cover it, and they just walked away. Now it is gutted and grafittied. And the attached beach.... FILTHY. The waves were nice, and there were some rocks that looked volcanic, so the boys had fun exploring. But there was trash EVERYWHERE. Sweet little Roman wanted to pick up the trash, but even he could see it was useless. Beer bottles, diapers, socks, wrappers, things that never belonged at the beach in the first place.... Sad. I expected more from such proud people.
We took the scenic route home, over the mountains that we had gone around in the morning. It was fun to see the island in the daylight, but Ben doesn't do winding roads too well.
We got home alive, and talked about going to the beach in the morning. OBVIOUSLY we couldn't go to a local beach, so Papi said we shoule drive 3 hours to a pagado. A beach that is privatized, so you have to pay to get in. Or maybe just park. I wouldn't know, because by time we got there, it was so full they were turning people away!! 3+ hours in the car for nothing. Oh, but don't worry, we can go to another beach, where we can take a boat to a little boat ride.
So, we drive to the other beach, where again, there is not parking. We finally get out to go see how much the boats are, and if they are still running (it's like 2 pm again). At that same time, we find people pulling out, and have a spot.
The boat ride was fun we passed an island that was just covered in iguanas, and then landed at party central. The island was really small (yes, PR itself is a small island, so what did I expect?), maybe the size of a baseball diamond. I think that is being generous. The dock had 3 sides to it, and enclosed a little area for swimming (and drinking). On one side of the island, the waves were calm and nice, but the ground was coral, so you really couldn't go out in to the water. We tried. The water in the swimming area was nice and warm, but very cloudy. And the deeper I got into, the more it felt like a dirty swimming pool. BUT it was pretty, we were outside. So a step up from the day before
On the way home that night, we stopped at Pollo Tropical. Apparently THE place to be on a Sunday night. We waited 45 minutes for our food, cleaned our own tables, and Roman fell asleep sitting up before the food came.
So the lesson in this day?? We should have found a local church branch and visited family instead of completely breaking the Sabbath by going to the beach and out to eat!!!
The next day was Monday. Another slow start. I learned that I had to write out a schedule and actually say that I wanted to leave "early" or we wouldn't leave until after noon.
Papi had to run errands, so he left us at the house, but this time Ben got him to leave the gates unlocked so that we could get outside a little. We had bought some of those annoying popper things from the street fair by the beach the day before, so the boys popped those in the front yeard. We told them that those are only in PR, because I hate them!!
Papi got back to the house about 1130, so we decided to eat lunch before leaving. Then, it was off to the caves!!
Another PR disappointment. Again, it had been a fun place to come and spend the day. Little rides for the kids, swimming pools with a giant water slide, an arcade, restaurants and venues for concerts and what not..... all abandoned and grafittied.
We went ahead and walked into the cave, as far as daylight would take us. There was a wooden walkway that went over the Camuy River and around the perimeter of the cave.... but no one had kept it up, so you would not catch me on that thing! The boys liked the mud and the bats. I took a few pics, and we turned around and left.
We then drove to the Cavernas, but they had maxed out on how many people could come in, so we were turned away again. THIS was when we learned that we had come on a FOUR DAY WEEKEND!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! AND they were hosting the South American Olympics, so the place was in general swarming with extra tourists!! How could we have planned it any worse?!? (Not that WE could have known or anticipated this nonsense! WHO has 4 day weekends??) Well, I guess we could have gone during a hurricane. Just missed one on either end, actually, so I guess we weren't completely cursed.
We decided to go and do what we should have done the day before, and visit family. The first few visits were more than strange. I knew that most of the fam only spoke Spanish, so I was prepared to just smile and feel out of place, and
try follow the conversation a little. But the first few visits, we just pulled up to a location, Papi would get out of the car, open the sliding door of the van, introduce us all, and then we would leave. Ben said that most of those people were like second cousins or something. Finally, we started getting out of the car and hugging and visiting. The first house, I can't remember who it was, still a fairly distant relative, I believe, we went in, and they were watching their afternoon Tel A Novella. I think that is right. We didn't stay long, so they didn't turn it off. My poor Isaac was GLUED to it! He was missing TV so bad apparently, that he stayed glued to people pillow talking in Spanish. We would try to ask him questions, and he was totally in the zone!
We stopped at a few more homes, Tia Nati's being one of our favorites. She has a small zoo in her back yard. (In fact, much better than the mini-zoo that we went to in Areceibo!) I don't know exactly why, or how she got the animals. She had 1 or 2 goats (one was mean and not happy about us being there!), 3 turtles, 1 or 2 iguanas, countless birds, 3 dogs, 2 ducks... was that it? And they were all in the oddest makeshift cages you have EVER seen! I didn't have my camera with me, and didn't want to return only to take pics of her odd little zoo. I don't think I will ever forget those images anyway. Chicken wire walls held together with twisty ties, and metal sheets, the kind with a wavy pattern, for the tops. Rickety legs from uneven posts and odds and ends. All kind of trinkets hanging around for stimulation for the animals? I don't know. But Nati was very sweet and gracious. I guess she is one of Papi's brother's ex-wives. So once you are family, you are always family :)>
We finally planted ourselves at Tia Amada's. The boys had fun going up and down her cement and running through her cement house. Her house was very nice, it was just all cement, as the houses in PR are. We got to see a good little down pour, I love the rain, so that was fun. Amada showed me some pics of her kids and grandkids and family. We tried between my broken Spanish and her broken English to figure out relations.
I think we had some pumpkin flan at someone's house, Tio Luigis. So that made for another good day, see they were getting better :)
Tuesday we woke up early and went straight to Las Cavernas. It was a pretty place, with a small gift shop and cafeteria. It looked like there was a lot going on, but there wasn't much else besides the cavern. Which was fine, because it turned out to be really cool!
First, you watch a little movie about Caverna Clara, the world's second biggest cavern. It tells about... well, I wouldn't know much more than that, because I had to take Aaron out. We hussled to the car for snacks and his blanket, and then came back to join the boys as they were getting out of the movie.
Next, we got to ride a little tram down a steep pathway to the mouth of Caverna Clara. On the way, we saw pretty plants, and GIGANTIC spiders. Terrifyingly huge.
The tour guide inside the cavern was really good. And full of information. Like, the bats inside the cavern don't suck blood, but you don't want to look up at them with your mouth open. And you need to hold on to the dirty rusty handrail, unless you want a wet and muddy backside! But a real gem of knowledge: Did you know there IS a difference between a cave and a cavern? A cave has only one opening, whereas a cavern has two or more. I did not know that! And most people don't, so spread the word, because our tour guide is tired of hearing people confuse the two or use them interchangeably
After Caverna Clara, we went back to Amada's house for a late lunch. She made a yummy chicken soup and pastelles. Yum. We stuck around the neighborhood for a while (there are at least 4 uncles all in the same area, like within 7 houses, I swear). The kids planted themselves in the back room and watched 2 hours of Spanish cartoons.
That night Ben went over to Milta and Poppo's, where his cousin helped him find a nice hotel for us to spend our last night in. (A few days back, it was supposed to be our last FOUR nights in!! But we didn't have internet at Papi's and the days slowly improved!) Back at Papi's, the boys and I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I was surprised that they liked it, and I tried to warm them of the scarier parts.
The next day, Wednesday, finally the first day that was NOT A WEEKEND day! we went to the Areciebo Lighthouse. We had been there a few days ago, and it was packed and almost closed. (Somehow, everyone runs on "island time", but everything closes at 6! How does that work??) So we started there Wednesday, and then were going to go to the beach nearby. I know, all the local beaches (Areceibo is 20-30 mins from Papi's house) are HORRIBLE.... but I had planned on living in my bathing suit and lounging at the beach, and it had been 3 days since I had stepped foot in the ocean!! Anyway...
The Lighthouse park was cool. It had representations of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, and some huts that the first boriquas lived in. They also had a REALLY cool pirate cave thing with a little aquarium inside. This was where the pathetic mini-zoo was though. 1 donkey, 1 chicken and a mini horse hardly constitute a mini-zoo!
Oh, and it had a Light House! The light house was of course up on the top of the hill, with beautiful views. While we were up, we noticed a gorgeous beach on the opposite side of the hill from where we had parked. We wrapped up things at the light house and headed back to the car (where Papi was waiting, he didn't do any of the touristy things with us. Just made us keep to his schedule so that he could chauffer us around :P) We told Papi that we wanted to drive over to the other side of the hill to a beautiful beach. He was concerned with parking, but we had seen there was plenty over there, and worse come to worse, there was plenty where we were, we could come back if we had to. He got kind of huffy, for some reason. We don't know exactly why...
But I don't care. We got in the car, drove over and.....
Fell in love with the beach!!!!!!!!!!!! It was gorgeous, and warm and clear. And there was a little protected area where the waves broke over the reef and then washed nicely into a pristine pool of water. And it wasn't that bad, because most of PR was FINALLY back to work! It was perfect. IT.WAS.PR. That was what I had been looking for all week, and we found it our last day in Camuy. On the otherside of a sandbar, the waves were stronger, and beautirul. So I left Ben with the boys and just watched the waves for a few minutes.
>
We played for 3 hours, and watched a storm brew in the distance. We packed up, sufficiently kissed (burnt) by the sun and headed back to the car.
While we were playing in the pooled area, I had seen some one with scuba gear come up from over behind the reef. As he walked past on the beach, I asked if he had seen anything exciting. I was speaking English of course, and he didn't understand completely. I asked if he ever saw turtles (because I love sea turtles, and I was wondering if they have them in PR). He said "No, everything is okay. Just a few fish or rocks." I guess sea turtles are a bad sign :p But then, later, he came by and told me to be careful with the boys near the reef. (My boys don't swim, so they were no where near the reef.) I told him thank you. Then, when we were leaving, he told me about a shower where we could rinse off, and told me to tell my husband. Then, at the shower, I asked a fellow rinser offer if there was a way to turn it off. She showed me where, and then she asked how I was liking my visit. We complained about how long our lovies were taking to come get us, and then she told me to enjoy my visit when she left. It was kind of fun being the foreigner. Even though most of the people our age or younger spoke English, I got the feeling that they very rarely got to use it :) So they liked to chat, and were very nice.
We got home in time to shower (btw, to shower, you have to flip some switch that turns on the water heater, and then wait for it to warm up. Even at that, I think you have, at most, 5 minutes of warm water!!) and dress, notice our sunburns, and then head to Milta's for dinner. Milta made, per Ben's request, some corned beef over rice. It was very good, and I have tried to make it since. I'll do better next time, when I follow the recipe :P
I think we went and said final good byes to the rest of the fam. By the end of the night, Roman could have fallen asleep sitting up. Wait, he did! And I tried desperately to find a Coqui. To know avail. We asked Tia Nati why she doesn't have a Coqui in her collection, and she said it was because she HATES them! They are just so loud, I think that was her complaint. At Tia Amada's I could hear one, it was in the plants right outside her steps, but I couldn't see it :(
That night I think the boys were all asleep by time we got back to Papi's, so we loaded them into bed and then packed up all our stuff to get an early start on Thursday morning.
Thursday we packed the car and headed back to San Juan. We were going to spend the morning at El Morro and then check into our hotel for our last hours on the island.
We actually made good time to San Juan and were able to get a good parking spot close to El Morro. It was a little shady though, there was some self appointed parking attendant who charged us $7 to park on the street. But we could park there until 10 pm, and he pointed out key points of interest and was very friendly! It was weird, and we were extra nervous, because ALL our things were packed in the car and would have been a lot of fun for a thief to rifle through. We sacraficed the laptop, but wallets and cameras all came with us, so we crossed our fingers and put it all in the hands of our helpful parking attendant :p (Turns out he was good at his job, and had people squeezed in so close together that no one could have opened our trunk no matter how bad they wanted to!)
El Morro was cool (Papi and Milta and Poppo opted out again... so weird to me). The boys liked the cannons and the tiny spaces that they fit in better than any soldier I know. And there were actually plaques and stuff that talked about the history of the place. The Morro that we went to was actually one of three.... but with 3 little boys, we figured the one would be good enough for this trip! It was a lot of walking and climbing, and all the turets started to look the same, but it was a morning well spent.
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After El Morro, we tried to figure out what to do for lunch. We couldn't get a straight answer of what our options were, so we decided to walk to the McDonald's that was up the hill and down the hill. Turns out the McD was like a mile and a half away!! So we finally stopped and had some delightful bar food and a virgin pina colada! Again, the boys were SO tired that they could seriously fall asleep sitting up! They choked down their taquitos and quesadilla and we were back to the car. I had to carry Isaac up the hill, Roman was a real trooper and walked, with as little complaining as he could muster.
We had some problems finding our hotel. We went to the Marriot hotel, and asked the security guy out front if he knew where the Isla Verde Marriot was, and he said his was the only Marriot in San Juan. Apparently, COURTYARD Marriots are too different for the security guards to know about. And btw, our Courtyard Marriot didn't need security our front. (I was about to kill Ben if the first place where we had stopped was the right place. Scary middle of the homicide capital of the world!!) By time we found it, Isaac had taken a sufficient nap, and Aaron was dead to the world. Ben carried the baby up in his car seat, where he napped for another hour. While we enjoyed cable television, the internet, and the view.
The view was gorgeous. Right out our balcony was the beach and the pool. Roman looked out the window, from inside the air conditioned, carpeted, clean room, and said "Next time, let's stay here for 2 or 3 nights. Well, maybe 5, or maybe even 6 nights". :)
After the baby's nap, we headed down to the beach. It actually was not as gorgeous as the beach in Areceibo, but it was warm, and had waves, and sand. The boys liked playing in the water and got pretty silly. I felt really bad that the boys didn't know how to swim, so I was really over protective of them in the water. But they had a good time and didn't notice my neurotic behavior.
AFTER the beach we rinsed off and headed to the pools. The boys had a good time kicking around with daddy and playing in the shallower pools. There was only one other family at the pools when we were there, so we had the run of the place.
Once we were sufficiently pruned, we headed up to the room for showers. Isn't that the way to do it?!? Not having to get back into the car or wait hours to shower. Just walk to the beach, and then back to your room. Ahhh.
All presentable again, we went down to the food court area, where we spent $40 on 2 sodas, 1 tombstone pizza and a deli sandwhich. All of which we ate in our room while watching "Casper the Friendly Ghost". Roman and Isaac slept in the sofa bed and Ben and the baby and I had a king size bed with plenty of pillows :)
The next morning it was time to pack up, ditch our GIGANTIC avocado from Tio Gigi that definitely would not make it through customs :( and head to the airport. We caught a taxi out front, they are always circling like vultures, but the boys were disappointed that it was just a white van, not a yellow sedan. They were assuaged when I pointed out the TAXI plaque on top.
The flights back were a little harder that the ones there, but isn't that always the case. The first flight, PR to Dallas, I sat next to a really nice lady who was born and raised in PR, but had lived in Dallas for 20 sum years. She had left her 5 kids in PR with her parents and was going home alone for a week. She was really sweet and understanding, especially with the kids. Aaron kind of seat hopped throughout the flight. And she gave Roman half of her $10 sandwhich because Ben and I were too cheap to pony up the dough for a sandwhich he wouldn't eat. I didn't get her name, but I hope she knows how enjoyable she made that flight for me :) Another kind Boriqua.
The last flight home was over booked. So we sold Aaron's seat (which it turned out we didn't have to buy, so I was ticked about the $500+ WASTED), for a $300 voucher. Well, that short little flight showed me that it was NOT $500 wasted, but well spent! That kid would not sit still in anyone's lap! He drove me crazy the ENTIRE flight. But now, his seat on the other 3 flights essentially cost us $200 and, now I have a trip to go see Joy and the girls, some time within the year after our trip! yay.
So, it was a wild trip. Roman told us that next time, maybe we should write down the things that we want to do, and maybe we should stay more nights in a hotel. I think he is right :) We didn't know all the things that we could do, but Ben's aunts and uncles all said we need to stay more than a week. There is an island, Isla Culebra, that we have to go to next time, one of the most beautiful in the whole Carribean. And I could definitely go for some more home cooked Puerto Rican food :) Next time we will know what we are up for, and in for, I guess.
Ben went back to work and told all his co-workers that if their wives were acting like they don't appreciate how good they have it, they should take them to PR. A week without clean bathrooms, hot water, carpet, and a/c will send them home thankful for all we've got here in the states!
It's crazy, because I would never have thought I was a spoiled princess type. I'm not a diva, I don't need the biggest, best, newest ANYTHING. I have few wants and think I'm pretty down to earth. Well, turns out I AM a big spoiled brat! I like clean bathrooms and have "standards".
But everytime I look through my pics and think of all the fun we had, I can't wait to go back!!
Side note: When we first got there, Papi wanted to hold Aaron. But Aaron didn't want to have any of that. He was obviously somewhere new, after a day of traveling, and he had NO IDEA who Papi was. By the second day, we was say "Papi" and LOVED him to pieces!! It was the cutest thing. He was asleep when we said our good byes, and when we were at the pool at the hotel, I told him we were going to sleep there, and he said, "No, Papi". He wanted to go back to Papi's. What a sweet boy.
This year the boys are both in school. So I get to enjoy time with the baby. But I have Jilli 3 days a week, and work in the classrooms on Tuesdays... so Friday is our day. I try not to make plans or run errands. We don't worry about the house, and we just do what we want. Generally, that involves getting out every last craft supply we own and making huge messes. We also enjoy tickle fights and kisses. I love this baby. And yes, he is still my baby :)
So, one day I was checking out at Albertsons, and I was raving to the cashier about "Jazz apples", so good. And she told me that all apples were coming into season, or at least Julian apples, and that she was going to go apple picking in a few weeks. Sounded like fun! Something different, possibly educational, and of course good picture potential!
How fun does that sound?!? Yah, I was pretty excited. Turns out, that you had to have a group and a reservation. So I set out to emailing friends and family to get a group big enough to buy the minimum of $100 worth of apples. I got my group, and made our reservations, and we were ready to go.
Thanks to all my friends and family who made the trek and shared in the adventure with us!!
The Star of India was our first stop, and was really cool. The boys got to stand at the steering wheel and explore down in the galleys. 
we were going to Disneyland with the Sharps. As we were leaving, I asked if that was a good surprise, and they said "no". They said it wasn't a surprise. I said "Did you know you were going to Disneyland when you went to sleep last night?" They said "no". But I think that because we didn't jump out and scare them by yelling "Surprise!!" that it wasn't a surprise :)
Last month in Joy School, the boys learned about being curious. One of the days that I taught, included a trip to a museum. We ventured out amongst the crowds on a free Tuesday, where I was helped by 2 wonderful moms.
Bonnie took MLKJ day off to spend with her kiddos, and invited us along for the fun. She had heard about some exciting craft and kids activites at the Museum of Man.
I found these pictures when I
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