Puerto Rico

This post is dedicated to Ezra, who was my best friend and Puerto Rican. He lost touch with me. He used to cook Puerto Rican food for me and he thought, prepared me for my safe travels. I miss talking to him. He taught me to cook accapurrias and plantanos. I still make rice like he taught me. The essential way is that you get a pot that seems too small, add some rice (don’t even measure), and also it seems like it is too much. Then add some water, ideally add annanato oil mixture and some oil. Then cook it an constantly stir. It comes out quite amazing. Even calrose rice.

Maybe someday he'll come around. Anyway, Puerto Rico reminds me of him, but it’s also for me. It reminds me of Santiago, and the city vibe.

San Juan is lovely. Completely lovely. It has cobblestone streets, colorful buildings that are in the style of gothic, renaissance and baroque. They are colorful and beautiful and tall and magnificent.

Here are some fun facts. San Juan is the oldest continuously inhabited post-European contact city in the U.S. territory and the second oldest in the entire Western Hemisphere.

Today I arrived at about 3 p.m. I settled in to my room, which is in a historic building, on the 3rd floor of some very small stairs, and in a very small room, but I love it. There are so many historic features in the building. I cleaned up a bit and ventured off to the store to get some things I needed, and my present for the cub.

I went to a rooftop bar — up 3 more flights of spindly stairs but it was worth it. I met some women from Alabama and we talked a bit. They told me of a local waterfall that was amazing. Then I went to the La Cubanita bar across the street. I just had a pina colada, I guess it is the town pina colada festival from the 7th to the 11th. I sat for a bit, just enjoying the music. I am used to being a fly on the wall in a country where I mostly don’t speak the language.

Then I came back to work on my blog. Tomorrow I will begin to explore more.

I hope to check out the fort up the street, walk around a bit and find breakfast and some hopefully amazing coffee, and maybe figure out if there is a mercato or art or culture museum nearby.

Right now it is stormy — it is 81 degrees and pouring, and lightning and thunder.