Monday, June 11, 2007

Dinner: Indian

I don't like blogging while being eaten alive by mosquitos. The wi-fi spot in the hotel is on the ground floor in the lobby/patio area. It doesn't reach up to the rooms. So I'm down here. As are a gazillion of the little nasties getting their dose of Indian. Ugh.

Besides, it's really hot (no air down here).

And, the hard-drive where I'd downloaded all the photos -- one of those little external thingies, very handy and convenient, until it falls off it's usb port onto the floor with the thud 'cause you were trying to adjust the laptop which just overheated and shut down -- doesn't work anymore. All the Puerto Rico photos are still on the camera (phew). But ... ALL my Australia pics are now inaccessible! And I did not back them up anywhere! I'm hoping those Geek Squad folks at Best Buy can rescue something ... [Yes yes, I've given myself the "back everything up" lecture often enough.]. And I don't feel like downloading, editing, resizing, etc. the lot, again, right now while also being a dinner entree...

So here's a brief recap of the day:

-- leave hotel at 645 am to get to Fajardo to catch the ferry to the island of Culebra. We're in line at the ferry dock at 8:00 am for the 9:00 am ferry, only to find out that locals get priority and there's no guarantee that a) we'll get tickets on the way out to Culebra or b) that we'll get any on the later one back to the mainland in the evening. If we weren't leaving tomorrow, I'd have risked it (hey, nothing like getting stranded at a beach somewhere!) ... so instead, we drove to the south eastern tip of the island, near Manuabo and after driving around (they really don't believe in road signs here), stumbpled upon a completely secluded, gorgeous beach. Not a soul in sight. Absolutely wonderful. The sun out and everything. So yes, now I'm even browner and J and Z are quite pink. Z's back is really bad. That's 'cause yours truly ended up spraying sunscreen on him ... rather unevenly, as it turned out. Hey, I don't have much experience in the sunscreen area -- nature has given us some more natural protection you know ...


-- got back in to San Juan by 2:00, had a quick sandwich, shower and headed to the Bacardí distillery on the other side of the city, in the suburb of Contaño (bad signage here too. There's a whole post coming up when I'm back about Puerto Rican driving etiquette ...). Lots of tourists from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that's in town. The tour itself was ... ehh ... one doesn't actually get to see any part of the distillery itself. Cheesy and a bit too self-aggrandizing as far as the Bacardí family goes. Free rum? Oh yeah. And, of course, the gift shop ...

-- dinner in Old San Juan. We walked out of the Hard Rock Cafe because of poor service (another post about restaurant/service experience later ...) but found a neat Puerto Rican place, friendly service and excellent food, a little further up. Wandered around Old San Juan after that, and had the most interesting discussion with a fun bartender, oh let's call him Emilio, at a place off the Plaza del Colón ... (more on that later. Yeah yeah. Hint: at one point he said, "I hope y'all aren't die-hard Christians or anything, but ... ")

Flight leaves the island Tuesday at 1:55 pm -- up to Newark and then down to Charlotte. No points for guessing the airline.

It's been fun!

5 comments:

St. Elizabeth of Cayce said...

You guys pack more into a weekend than most folks do in a month or two! Sounds like you had great fun, and we'll invoke St. Anthony for the Australia photos.

Sean said...

When I was in PR a friend of my dad's from work who lived there offered to take me around Old San Juan and show me the sights. I don't remember seeing anything in particular, but we did have lunch at the Hard Rock, and the service was pretty mediocre.

Priya Ramachandran said...

Enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Gash. I'm gonna stew in burning envy while I figure out how you manage to spend so much of your time in the coolest places on Earth :D

Dogwood Dell said...

OUCH! Sorry to hear about the pics!

Regardless it appears y'all are having fun. Even finding remote spots that appear wonderful

Hope the sunburned duo are doing well and will not be traveling in too much pain.

BTW...Sunscreen is a good thing - even for those who tan well. No one wants skin cancer! Please remind your pink (sunburned red?) travelers the same.

Fr. Gaurav Shroff said...

Oh don't worry, we all lathered ourselves liberally with sunscreen.

And as to all the travels -- well, I'm unemployed, and only bound by the constraints of the summer classes I'm taking (Tue/Thu schedule so pretty light) and, well, the bank balance ... :)