Getting Started

So far, Puerto Rico has been mostly what we were looking for; warm, sunny, forested, tasty, and infused with reggaetón at all hours. Not cheap, though. From what we read in Lonely Planet on the plane ride here, the average income is about 50% of that on the U.S. mainland. I’d guess that prices here, on average, are about 2/3 of what they are at home. So, economically, I think that means life is at least 17% more difficult here. Not to mention 100% more destroyed by hurricanes where the federal relief effort is based on catching paper towels in a crowd.

Anyway, we’ve been set-up at a cute AirBnB in the Central Mountains that has been very relaxing. The countryside around us is really rugged and covered in dense forest. Our casita is just up the hill from a river with a few swim spots that are deep enough to cover your whole body. Unless you are Levi or Matt Danielson, those guys would have to sit on the river bottom to be refreshed. The water was even warm enough that I could stay in for more than 30 seconds at a time!

Sunday was ‘Tres Reyes’, Three Kings Day. It marks the end of the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ and everybody was in on the celebration. We started the morning with a hike through a protected forest area in Toro Negro Reserve to a tower overlooking the mountainous middle of the island. After the hike we followed the crowds in search of a good plate of food.

Q: What’s better than 12 drummers drumming? A: Eating smoked pork-‘lechón asado’-off the spit and drinking beer at little roadside restaurants-‘lechóneras’. The roads are about 1.5 cars wide and both shoulders were parked solid with celebrating families. That leaves just 1 car width for two directions of traffic. We spent a lot of time navigating the dark red line on Google Maps, trying to find a place that 1) had pork, 2) a place to park, and 3) a line short enough to get food in less than half an hour. We realized that didn’t exist. We also realized it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. You could say we were ‘sick’ with hunger.

Eventually, we decided to just stop and eat at the next place we passed. It was a good idea. Just getting out of the car and into the line to order made us feel better. The place was ironically called ‘Doctor Lechón’. Doctor’s orders were to eat large amounts of deliciously fatty, moist pork with lots of smoke flavor along with 10oz. cans of the local lager, Medalla. Our prescription was administered by Nurse Martinez. This is not a joke. They leaned real hard on the medical theme (See Leah’s photo of the 'sala de emergencia' -emergency room). Leah’s roast chicken (and delicious sweet batatas!) actually tasted even better than the pork!