Puerto Rico, Day 1

After a disastrous flight back from Brazil last summer, I had $400 in flight vouchers from American Airlines that I had to use before the end of August 2008. It costs exactly $400 to fly from Washington, D.C., to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

And off we go!

We were planning on renting a motoscooter and scootin' around the island for five days. Needless to say, we saw the need to pack light. HONEST TO GOODNESS, I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING, this is all the luggage we brought.


Before leaving, I'd called a motorcycle rental place near our first night's hotel and asked about availability for renting a scooter for four days. "No problema", he'd said. But when we got there he wouldn't rent it to us. He thought we were crazy for wanting to drive to Fajardo on a scooter (and, little did we know, we were). Finally, exceedingly frustrated as a gorgeous blue sea churned behind us, we went to the Ritz Carlton (where the service was EXCELLENT), and rented, at the recommendation of the concierge, an enormous open-topped Jeep!


We zoomed zoomed, with the help of our Walgreens-purchased book of maps of Puerto Rico, to the extreme Northeastern part of the island to Siete Mares. We were famished and cranky. We saw a place that boasted pizza and beer and pulled over. We were in for a TREAT, that put a positive spin on the entire trip from the getgo, and I think, was responsible for us having such a good time for the rest of the week. The pizzeria was a BRAZILIAN pizzeria, owned by a Paulista (woman from Sao Paulo, where they claim to have the best pizza in the world). This pizza was WAY better than any pizza I ever had in Brazil, and the beer (served to us by her Argentine husband and complemented by a pleaseant conversation with some Siete Mares residents) was very cold.
After a quick manger we skipped next door to the beach, one of the most popular public balnearios in Puerto Rico, and had a very nice, relaxing time. There was lots of seaweed, but no fish.