Dear Mosquitoes, Please Die.

The numbers are in--18 bites and counting.
I wouldn't mind so much if this was something I was accustomed to, but in the states, I very rarely suffer mosquito bites. Apparently, I'm a prime vintage here. Thank goodness for Wallgreens and their off-brand anti-itch creams. (tangent: why is this blog trying to auto-correct "rican" to "american." Knock that crap off!)

My today was excellent. I explored a few more cities outside of San Juan, which I'm quickly growing fond of, and had my very first adventure on the Puerto Rican public transit. I mentioned this in my last post, but you should know, and this is no exaggeration: bus schedules do not exist here. I miss me a good "one bus away" app that gives me an instant play-by-play of the buses in Seattle. Instead, buses run loops, drivers take break, and people hope to Jesús that they time things just right. It costs 75 cents for a one-way ride--there are no transfers, no orca cards, and no pull cords. Instead, you get the drivers attention by waving your hands in a grandiose fashion and yelling "pare!" in hopes that they'll hear you. Pretty effective, if I do say so myself.

My hostelmates and I decided to journey our way to Piñones, a small city on the north side of the island. The city hosts a large population of people from the Dominican Republic, so a lot of the food, music, and people you'll find there have DR roots (the boats running between Puerto Rico and the DR are all under repair now, so this was as close as I could get). After two transfers, a journey through residential Puerto Rico, and a heated discussion between our bus driver and a fellow passenger (they got in an argument about which beach we should go to), we made it! And it was stunning.

We walked about a mile in the sand, and didn't come across anyone. The beach was entirely free of people, which, considering the amazingness of it all, I just couldn't comprehend.

We did find a fancy boardwalk, though, which a fantastic view overlooking the ocean. This is a picture of Jesse and Evan, my fellow hostelmates, and partners in travel.

After our much anticipated lunch in Piñones--coconut milk and crab alcapuria (a deep fried fritter made of yucca and plantains, stuffed with with delicious seasoned crab)-- we began our journey back home to San Juan, stopping, of course, at beach #2-- in Isle Verde. Here's a picture of the coconut-aftermath. The man who sold them to us chopped off their tops with a machete and stuck in the straw. Fresh as it gets!

Isle Verde is divided in to two sections--the touristy "gringo" section, and the section where the locals hang out. I've been pretty fortunate in that I'm racially ambiguous, and more often than not, people assume I'm from Puerto Rico (on day one, my cab driver said I had a 'Puerto Rican face,' whatever that means). But, while its true that I can't guarantee this somehow gets me different treatment, I can say that the beach the locals hang out at was a) far more laid back than the gringo/hotel/resort beach and b) didn't seem to second guess my presence there. So, that was awesome. Sometimes its nice to just blend in.

This isn't the first time that I've noticed a pretty divided Puerto Rico. Even San Juan, between the Old and the New, has an extremely different feel. Old San Juan is touristy--the people speak English, the prices are higher, and the food is..well, burger king. "New" San Juan, however, is anything but--it's pastel colored buildings, empanadillas for breakfast, and tiny bars run out of people's homes. I think our bus drove through 2 or 3 pretty run down housing developments (the front desk manager at my hostel referred to them as 'projects') on the way to Isle Verde. Its been a strange experience, trying to decide where to travel to in search of an "authentic" Puerto Rico--what does that even mean? Places like "gringo-central Old San Juan"--the touristy, the flashy--ARE so integral to the way Puerto Rico is laid out, the way it functions. You can't ignore them, even if you feel like a giant pair of binoculars. Still, its just a bit jarring when the bus takes you outside the expected touristy destinations and somewhere deep inside the island--inside the residential, and the not-so-clean, where loud music pounds through coolers converted into boomboxes, and re-channels its power from the battery of an old diesel truck--a place that maybe, you're not suppose to be. A place you kind of hope you blend in to, so you don't disrupt their music.

Oh! Also. When you're swimming through 50 shades of blue (what with the water and the sky), you're more than likely to see these huge, fatty seals. Like, the fattest seals you can possible imagine (maybe they're eating burger king?) At one point, they were about 50 feet in front of me, and I had a pretty human fight-or-flight response, and racked my brain in hopes of remembering whether or not seals had some kind of weak-spot (like the equivalent of a shark's nose? Something I could karate-chop in case things got a bit dicey?). I also had these crazy "WHEN SEALS ATTACK!" newspaper titles flashing across my brain, but that's not too unusual with my overactive imagination (unlike the extreeeemely unusual fat seals that were the catalyst for said day dream). Meh. I guess if I were a seal, I'd hang out in Puerto Rico, too.

Time for bed--and I've got a hostel room all to myself :)

Mayhaps this calls for an episode of TRUE BLOOD? I think yes.
ps. don't judge me. We all have our guilty go-tos. Many misses!

ak