Breakin' away

Ten seconds later, Carolina took a tumble. But man, she got up and ran some more. 

I'm glad I didn't think too much about this trip before it happened. It was a nice surprise to discover Puerto Rico without a lot of preconceived ideas. I kind of let Nacho do the research since he was the one making arrangements with his friend about the apartment, so I took the opportunity to let it all be revealed to me once we got there. And sometimes on vacation that's a blessing. You just give in to whatever happens, and we made up our itinerary as we looked ahead to each day. In fact, sometimes we were making it up hour to hour. But the girls hung in there and for the most part, it wasn't too hard on them to do a little city walking and save the beach for later. Elisa only really lost her cool when her new earring broke (of the plastic, clip on variety) and we couldn't fix it as we toured Old San Juan. There were many tears shed. It seemed to color her whole morning. But my lunch time, she had turned it around and we managed to meet up with some Sunnyside friends who were docking in the city from a cruise ship for a few hours.   Then we were off to the beach for a sunset swim where her mood improved greatly.  

The weather was amazing with brief rain showers early or not at all and lots of dramatic skies everywhere you turned.  Carolina was a death marching machine when it came to visiting the castillo or hiking through El Yunque. She even shared the stroller with Elisa for a bit on our morning in Old San Juan, only to try to ride on her lap on the way out of the fort and get thrown for a loop on a bumpy ramp down. It wasn't a highlight of the day, but after consoling her and kissing some skinned knees, we were back in business. Since this was vacation, the girls consumed obscene quantities of Coca-Cola products, we hit McDonald's drive through for the happy meals twice and I don't regret any of it. Normal life can wait. The girls are turning into real little travelers and I was amazed how easy bedtimes were being in a new place with new beds (Carolina loved her twin so much she's taken to napping in Elisa's bed now at home) and new noises--did I mention the schoolyard outside that seemed like it was on constant recess or the rooster that crowed all day and night? Oh yes. It was all kinds of noisy. But we managed and the white noise phone app did wonders to soothe them to sleep, I think. Me, I had to listen to the rooster without even a pillow over my head (since there was only one pillow, I opted to use it for my neck). But hey, vacation isn't always about having the perfect conditions. It's how you adapt to the imperfection and find ways to enjoy yourself anyway. And despite a few moments of pure annoyance, the girls did good. It gave me hope that we could do this kind of school break trip again with even better results.

El Yunque / Luquillo

On Friday, we headed east to explore the area around El Yunque, the national rain forest just 40 minutes away.  It was a complete change in scenery as we started up the lush mountain and I loved the misty rain that fell and cooled things off. I had done a little bit of reading the night before and found that the Big Tree Trail would allow us to hike a bit and see the Mina Falls which everyone recommended. Unfortunately for us, there wasn't any swimming allowed that day because of the muddy overflow hitting the falls after the rain. But the walk and getting up close with nature was still very enjoyable. I was amazed by how well Carolina did on the trail. It was paved but still quite steep in places and there were muddy puddles to jump over and a few steps to climb/descend. Elisa on the other hand, complained about wanting to turn back halfway through. But then, that's her way of letting us know we can't spend all morning doing things with no pay off. She wasn't so impressed by the rain forest especially with its lack of wildlife, but the promise of hitting the beach kept her at bay. On our way down to Luquillo Beach, Carolina fell asleep and I sat with her for a little while in the car while the others went off to swim. It was by far the calmest of the beaches we found and we made plans to return again the next day. 

A day in Old San Juan

Getting acquainted

Our first day in Puerto Rico and we managed to hit the beach to start things off on a good note. We headed over to Piñones beach for a nice swim with the girls in a protected cove.  The undercurrent was strong though, which meant that we had to be on top of them all the time.  The views were absolutely amazing and seeing palm trees swaying did more to lift my spirits than all the positive thinking in the world.  Something about that sea air and sunshine that cures everything.  After a couple of hours, we decided to hit the food kiosks nearby for a traditional island lunch of everything fried and mashed with plantains. It didn't disappoint. Elisa wasn't a fan of the coco frio but I sure enjoyed it. Later, we had the machete-wielding restaurant worker cut it open for us to taste the flesh. So good. Of course, being in paradise with two non-napping kids wasn't all fun and games. Elisa's mood was rapidly declining as we hung out after lunch trying to watch some surfers on another small beach. She wasn't able to shake it off, and so we headed back to the apartment for a very late nap. Later, waking up hungry we went in search of pizza at a place Rafa recommended. I will say the food choices overall in PR were better when we stuck to more traditional foods. There might not be a lot of variety, but they do beans and rice and meats quite well. For pizza, I'll stick with NYC.