The morning appears to have gone by uneventfully, because I do not recall anything from it. So we'll just leave that there. Although I do recall this: I did project stuff, and Janneke went off to meet up with a Williams student of hers who is from Puerto Rico. And who says her family wants to have us over for dinner. I'll believe it when I see it.
Post-lunch, we loaded up the car and headed to Piñones, a spot up the coast toward the East from here that all the Puerto Ricans tell us we have to get to, but which appears to go unmentioned in most of the guide-book-type material we have or have seen. The idea is that it's home to a large population of Puerto Ricans of African descent, that they sell food in lots of kiosks, that the beaches are protected and lovely, and that there's some sort of walkway that you ride bicycles on. So off we went.
Zoomed there in under twenty minutes via the highway. Unbelievable, how fast the Kia Sol can get one around a place.
We found this funny:
"Postal police"? Do they really need a car?
Following directions I got from a guy on the beach a couple weeks ago, we drove until we saw a school, then found a spot to park on the right hand side of the road; the left hand side, where there were bushes, would lead to the beach. So we pulled into the parking lot of a roadside eatery, where two elderly men were sitting at the rear of the parking lot. I approached them and asked if they allowed people to use their lot.
"We do," one of them said, "but we ask for three dollars in return."
"Fair and reasonable," I proclaimed, handed him $3, and gave him a firm handshake.
He smiled broadly. "Con toda confianza," he said. "Lo estaremos vigilando desde acá." Don't worry, we'll be watching it from here.
Both men were black, as was everyone working in or lounging in front of the restaurant. So far, the rumors were true.
Across the road there were stairs that led over the bushy dune and onto the beach. (There was also a dead cat and a lot of garbage.) And once we topped the dune, we could see that the beach was very different from Condado - Thundering surf, and strewn with all kinds of (mostly natural) ocean flotsam. (Or is it jetsam?) Coconuts, logs, leaves, shells, sea glass galore. And quite a bit of garbage. And, like I said, a thundering, pounding surf, with a number of surfers bobbing off shore.
Less true, that bit about the protected beach. Here it is:
Very pretty, but very far from calm. Still, we had passed a beach where there was a natural stone wall that divided an area, thirty yards across and four hundred long, from the pounding surf; we'd kept driving because it was so crowded. So maybe I had misheard the directions slightly. This beach had going for it the fact that apart from the surfers, who stayed out to sea a bit, we had the place to ourselves. And which also made us regret not bringing Clarabelle.
Though getting past the dead cat without the kids noticing would probably have been a lot trickier.
So we all frolicked in the heavy waves, which was a lot of fun. Like a carnival ride, throwing you up and then down. Kids enjoyed it, as you can see:
I was enjoying myself all the more with the strange thrill that one (apparently) gets when running around in public in one's underwear, as I had somehow neglected to bring along my bathing suit. We were probably there an hour, and then decided to head back to the restaurant for some grub before comparing and contrasting this beach with the protected one. Had some chicken pinchos:
Good stuff. And cheap. Off, then, to the proteced beach. Pulled in to the parking lot, off into the grass a bit, and Janneke opened her door, exactly over the corpse of a dead dog, reeking and boiling with maggots.
You've never seen anyone close a door so fast in your life. Nor anyone shift so quickly into reverse. Luckily, no one had stepped behind the car - although, to be honest, maybe they did, I don't think I would have noticed, it was all kind o a blur - and we rocketed to the opposite end of the parking lot. And walked from there over to the beach, where Q and T swam out to the rock shelf that protected them and explored it. Behold!
The glory of the zoom. They found a few parrot fish beaks, and brought them back (no pics, sorry), as well as a number of shells and washed-up, broken-off bits of coral. Janneke and I were content to stay on shore this time. We passed the time quietly, tenderly berating each other for our failings and muttering over a series of long-standing grievances. It was nice.
On to supper, where we ordered far too much food, for which we paid far too much, at a restaurant called...Well, read the menu:
Some of the food was done over a wood fire:
And some of which was served in coconuts, freshly macheted open:
It was OK stuff. Better be, for what we paid for it. Then into the car (some locals had parked us in, forcing me to back out and come within millimeters of scratching their car. Millimeters. Though it could have been centimeters - I wanted to make a point. They had parked frickin' perpendicular to the obvious orientation of the lot and of the people (us) already parked there. Bastards.
I then missed an exit, forcing us to go across a bay we'd never crossed before, into a region of the city we knew well, whence we were able to easily find our way home again. Probably 25 minutes all told in the car getting back. Not bad. To bed! To rest for the coming day!
Today. Which began in the morning, with a trip to the Children's Museum, where a cupcake-decorating workshop was to be held. The museum would open at nine or ten, so we were into the old city pretty quickly - and it turns out, you can park aaaaaaaanywhere at 9:20 AM down there. That's the key. We parked and strolled in a leisurely fashion to the children's museum, located, some of you will recall, on the world's most beautiful street.
The museum opens on Saturdays, turns out, at noon.
No matter! Off to explore a bit of Old San Juan! Snapped some potential Christmas Card photos, found a little public park with a public basketball court and tennis court, and a little pink building with volunteers working inside, and two dozen cats lounging about in the grass and among the trees outside. A big sign there said that they were a charitable organization, run by volunteers, that dedicates itself solely to (1) trapping, (2) sterilizing, and (3) caring for, in ways both alimentary and veterinary, the feral cats of Old San Juan. Many of which, it appears from our chin-scratching survey, have now become very far from feral. Some great, beautiul cats prowling around down there - and they adopt them out to good homes, if any of you are interested:
There was also a mango tree dropping ripe fruit in that park. I ate some. Great, great stuff.
And there was a pelican:
And a tunnel:
And a guy selling piraguas (Puerto Rican snow cones):
And a bench upon which to sit while eating piraguas:
On to do some souvenir shopping. Q, interestingly, really wants a large, detailed map of Puerto Rico for his room. (BY THE WAY: Q is about 50 pages into an adventure novel for young people set in Puerto Rico and written by a Puerto Rican author and he's reading it IN SPANISH! We are so excited we can't breathe!) We didn't find a decent map, but we did find a gift, which T sneaked over to me and whispered that she wanted to secretly buy for Mami. So Q distracted her while we bought it, and then we presented it to her as we sat at the table outside of a place where we had a nearly-noon snack:
The owner of which has adopted one or two of the formerly feral cats, and accepts donations for the care of the yet-to-be-adopted:
And on to the dang children's museum, where the cupcake workshop had been postponed. Why? "Porque la persona que iba a liderar el taller, está de viaje." (Because the person who was going to lead the workshop, is on a trip.) Veeeeery weak. But we went in anyway, to learn that the men's bathroom wasn't working, and the kids' favorite display / manipulative learning area was out of order. Much less enamored of that museum are we right now. Still, they did some crafty stuff and had fun.
Home again, where we divided & conquered: I took Clarabelle for her travel health certificate, and Janneke took the kids shopping and to the beach, where we would meet up.
Except that it took me four hours to get the certificate.
FOUR HOURS! THey don't accept appointments at this place, they just have you come in and you're attended to in the order of your appearance. Four friggin' hours! Long story short, we have the certificate, and I was home in time for supper and a movie. And now the kids are in bed and tomorrow's friggin' Sunday and I am going to rest myself heavily and well. It has been a long day. A good one, to be sure, but a long one.
Sleep well, gentle reader. I hope I do.
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