Puerto Rico was warm and sunny when I arrived at midday on July 31, 2023.
I picked up my rental car and drove to my Airbnb in Fajardo. I picked up some groceries and drove around the town. It was much less developed than I expected and many buildings were abandoned, some still with hurricane damage.
On August 1, I went on an evening kayaking trip to see bioluminescence in the lagoon. It was a pretty awful time as we got slammed with a hard, cold rain and could barely see the sparkly attraction because of the full moon and the ambient light from San Juan.
The next day, I was up early for a fantastic trip to the rainforest for a hike in the mud and water activities in the river. I swung from a rope swing and slid down a rock waterslide. The water was so clear, cool and refreshing.
I spent some time on Thursday house-hunting for an Airbnb for our 60th birthday party. I really didn’t find anything I liked. It’s so hot and muggy here. The beach houses are fine but the beaches themselves are so trashy and small. The grocery stores here are expensive and have very little good-looking fresh food. Rental cars are exorbitant. The roads are rough. (We decided on Tybee Island, GA.)
I relocated to San Juan with a stop by a great mall – Mall of the Americas. I felt like I was in Miami.
I met and ate dinner with a lady from NYC and Puerto Rico with her daughter, Jasmin at Bebo’s in Condado. Her name was Aurea and she said I could visit her in Jordan when she moves there in the fall.
My Airbnb was awful because the a/c in the bedroom was crazy loud and it didn’t cool the living area and kitchen. I canceled it and moved to another. This one was clean and fine, but sort of in a basement and was very bare bones. It had no hot water and on Monday had no internet.
The Airbnb Experience food and drink tour of Viejo San Juan was so fun. We walked about 10,000 steps and learned history, had good food and delicious drinks. I liked the beer-mosa best because it was so refreshing. It was passion-fruit-flavored.
I just relaxed and worked on Sunday and Monday, because of the internet outage, I worked at Starbucks and had a meeting with Kristian at the Doubletree Hotel. I took a swim before a huge storm came in and it rained all night.
