Puerto Rican vacation

Before I totally forget due to my ever increasing pregnancy brain, I wanted to write a not-so-short summary of our trip to Puerto Rico!

It was such a whirlwind trip from the very beginning. We had scheduled to take a vacation at the end of June to the West coast of Florida, possibly Sarasota area. The day we had planned to book the hotel, we got a phone call from Daniel's dad. Apapa, Daniel's grandfather, hasn't been doing well for awhile and it didn't look like he was going to be doing well enough to come back to FL to visit any time soon. So - quick change, we're going to PR!

We scheduled 9 days in PR, starting out with an evening flight on Saturday, June 25, into the airport in San Juan. Bad idea! We totally thought that since the flight was taking off right around Logan's bedtime that he would just conk out shortly into the 3 hour flight. Evidently we totally forgot to add in that he would be so keyed up from all the activity and "newness" of the airport that he would stay up an extra hour and a half (of course wreaking havoc on our seatmate, what else is new, haha). But we finally made it! It was around 10:30pm and Logan was passed out, which left us to battle two large carry ons, a stroller, a sleeping baby, a pack'n'play, and one checked bag. Whew!! We were exhausted by the time we made it out of the SJ airport and to the pick up lane to find the rental car shuttle.

Oh my. The rental car shuttle was quite the escapade. Daniel was not kidding when he said that drivers in PR are NUTS! We clung on for dear life and eventually made it. When we got there, we joked around about this pretty blue Mustang in the parking lot - "yep, that's gotta be ours!" "wouldn't it be funny to drive around in that thing?!" ha ha ha the joke ended up being on us...the rent a car place said that they were out of clean midsize sedans (what we requested) and handed over the keys to the shiny blue Mustang. Ummm...hmm. This will be a challenge. By now, Logan was wide awake.

Although we didn't get lost, it was a crazy drive to Titi Mayra and Tio Hector's house in Guaynabo. Thankfully Logan went back to sleep in the car and didn't wake up when we transferred him to his pack'n'play. I hadn't seen Hector in awhile and had never met Mayra, so we stayed up and talked with them for a little bit before finally crashing around 1am.

The rest of our trip was filled with family dinners with our PR cousins (Hector Javi, Olgita, Luccia, Camilo, Adriana), two visits to Apapa's house in Hato Rey, a couple of rainy attempts to sightsee Viejo San Juan, eating tons of fried foods, a few fun beach & pool days in the Orejuela's beachfront condo in Palmas, a (failed, but hilarious) day trip to Dos Bocas, tour of the lighthouse in Fajardo, and a little side visit to the El Yunque Rainforest.

Highlights from our trip:
- seeing the relatives of course! Logan's first time to meet all of them except Apapa (he met Apapa when he was 3 months old in Boston).
- eating really good food! Mayra is an amazing cook, Hector a master at the grill, yummy fried calamari at Palmas, amazing lunch at this little restaurant with Tio Rafa and Petra, and lots of authentic Puerto Rican cooking from roadside stands.
- our failed trip to Dos Bocas was probably the most memorable. The hour long traffic jam that involved 8 "lanes" of traffic filtering down to 3 toll booths, the restaurant being in the middle of nowhere and then being closed, attempting to find the little dive place recommended by Alberto but totally failing and basically making a three hour trip to eat at McDonald's.
- having a really awesome tour guide (aka Daniel) give me the true Puerto Rican experience! It is so nice to go with someone who somewhat knows the area (he has been every summer until he was in college) and who speaks fluent Spanish. I never would have made it there alone!

We hope to go again soon, next time baby free, so we can fully hike the rainforest (Logan was ultra cranky that day), do the catamaran tours off of Fajardo, and take a short flight over to Vieques for some snorkeling!