Puerto Rico Vacation by Ruth Paget
In late 2010, my husband Laurent asked me to go on a trip to Puerto Rico with him. I thought a trip to salsa-music land sounded fun, especially if I was going to be in a secluded area with lots of trees for quiet writing.
Getting to the Caribbean from Monterey, California is a long travel day full of transfers (Monterey to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to New York, New York to Miami, and Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico).
On the flight between Miami and San Juan, passengers placed their laptops on their trays and plugged in their earplugs. Earplugs in 2010 were on wires and fell down to the chest in a Y- shape. I told myself Generation Y was named for this earplug shape and not for following the Millenial Generation and Generation X.
The computers had thousands of songs in Spanish on their file lists. I was going to tell my daughter Florence to definitely sing in Spanish and English for sales one day. (I am a money-oriented stage mother. I do not care about acting myself.)
Florence was taking singing lessons with Rob Edwards who had worked with Christine Aguilera and Keith Richards after working with Monterey entertainer and Monterey County Herald columnist Erin Gray for years.
While everyone else was listening to music, I read a book about Vienna for a travel show I was doing for broadcast on blogtalkradio.com for a station run by a young Dominican Andy Salcedo with shows run by Charles Ray, former ambassador to Zimbabwe, and Vicki Nikolaidis, a Greek journalist based in Crete. I was doing culture segments with book reviews and author interviews with people like book authors Matt Rees and J. Syd Jones.
The view from the plane’s windows was great with blobs of tree-covered islands floating in a turquoise-colored water.
We finally arrived in San Juan. We rented a car and set out for the secluded Naval base where I was going to pretend to be Ernest Hemingway on Key West, Florida with writing during the day and drinking rum-based cocktails at night.
From the highway, I could see high-rise apartments with guards and gates. The smaller buildings along the way had open terraces with bars on them to prevent burglary. The highway was crowded, but orderly.
We arrived at base and settled into our bungalow. We had rainforest landscaping complete with noisy macaws and critters that scampered on treetops. Insects created a constant buzz.
We bought provisions like water, frozen microwave entrées and pasta as well as Coke, limes, and DonQ rum.
Back at the bungalow, I made Cuba Libre (Free Cuba) cocktails – rum, Coke, and freshly, squeezed lime juice.
“Why is this drink called ‘Free Cuba’?” Laurent asked.
“Because if Americans stay drunk on rum and coke, Cuba will be safe from invasion,” I said.
Laurent laughed, knowing I made that up.
The next day, we ate breakfast in the lobby of the main hotel. Laurent went off to work, and I listened to salsa music on the radio. I enjoyed the solitude, sunshine, and chatty macaws as I wrote.
When Laurent returned, we watched television. There was a series on about trucks doing tight turns on cliffs in various countries that we watched all week. The ads featured island-hopping trips at low prices around the Caribbean and to Mexico City for food, shopping, and floor shows.
The day before we left, we went shopping for souvenirs – a bottle of DonQ rum and a book about the history of rum. DonQ was in the book I bought. I confirmed that DonQ stood for Don Quixote.
We, then, went into historic San Juan, which is 500 years old. The architecture reminded me of Andalusia Spain except that San Juan is ochre-colored whereas Andalusia is whitewashed.
The raised causeway leading out to the fort is lawn-filled today. Canons were probably set up along it to fire on pirate ships in the past. The trade winds and currents off San Juan propel ships to Europe and Western Africa.
We walked around the quiet afternoon town with just a few open bars. Some played salsa music. It was idyllic, but I suggested we eat at an air-conditioned restaurant at the airport.
On the way home to Monterey, I felt happy with my introduction to Puerto Rico and thought the noisy macaws were really cute.
By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Teen in China
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| Ruth Paget Photo |
