Merry Christmas!

We don't fly Jet Blue much - not because we don't like their airline and service, but because they don't fly internationally as much as we need. But we love how they treat their customers. Check out this great Christmas video.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Hope everyone has a happy holiday! I'm not sure what Santa will bring me this year, but I hope it's pink.

Eating in Puerto Rico

If you know my father at all, you'll know that half the experience of going anywhere is getting to try the local food. He's definitely not a "foodie" though. He definitely eats his share of chain fast food like an overweight Southern high school girl.

In fact, he thinks the concept of a "foodie" was a clever marketing campaign created by the secret Restaurant Mafia to trick yuppies and hipsters into spending money on food prefaced with excessive adjectives like "organic" and "artisan." But I digress.

The following series of places we ate while in San Juan and Vieques aren't listed in any cohesive manner or for any real reason (other than we went there). We're not even necessarily recommending any of them to future visitors. It's really just in case it's helpful for others to see what some options are.

Mi Casita (Carolina neighborhood in San Juan)

This local restaurant was a cheaper more authentic alternative for breakfast than the morning offerings at The InterContinental San Juan's restaurant. Instead of paying $15 + tip for a hotel omelette, we walked across the street to the small outdoor shopping plaza and stopped in the diner for a quick bite.

As you can see from their plastic laminated menu, they offered alcoholic frozen drinks even at breakfast, though my parents opted for water and ice teas instead. The egg dishes were very simple (eggs with a side of whatever you wanted), but the prices reflected that, so each meal was only $4-7 depending on what you ordered. The decor is modest and while the service wasn't amazing, you were in and out of there relatively quickly (for a non-NYC place), so it was a perfect morning stop before heading out for the day. And yes, they take credit cards.

 

Convenience Store (Carolina neighborhood in San Juan)

Right next to Mi Casita was a convenience store where they sold most of your basic items (milk, bottled water, chips and other snacks) as well as some more grocery type products, including fresh produce, condiments, and ice cream.

One novel feature was that you could purchase individual bottles of beer just as if you were buying a single Coke or Snapple. A single bottle of Medalla (the local PR beer) was just $1. Obviously, I didn't have any, but my father bought a few bottles for the hotel room.

For those people who wanted a stiffer drink, the convenience store also had a "self serve bar" on the other side of the counter with seating available. The night we stopped by, the seats were all empty, but everyone was pretty drunk loitering outside the store.

 

Street Food (Isabelle II in Vieques)
The neighborhood of Isabelle II (pronounced Isabelle Segundo), located a short 5 minute drive east of the W Retreat) along the north shore, isn't all that impressive. In fact, I wouldn't encourage anyone to go visit there as there's nothing to see or do. Unlike other "downtown" areas we've traveled to, Isabelle II wasn't set up well to attract tourists. There were a handful of boutique shops (clothing and jewelry), but most of the town was run down and really set up to provide general commercial services to the island residents (such as a post office, a grocery store, etc.) and not much else.

We stopped by their rather large supermarket which had quite a selection of items, including many of the baby supplies (diapers, formula, etc) that we weren't sure were available on Vieques. Next time, we won't have to bring a week's supply of diapers in our checked luggage. As I mentioned, the market had just about anything you could want, especially Goya Seasoning.

Wandering from the supermarket, back along the main road towards the W Resort, we passed by several homeless men calling out names and came to an elderly grandmother type who was selling fried mashed potato based items beside an alley. Of course, my adventurous father wanted to try some street food and asked what was inside. Each dish had a different main meat ingredient (a "protein" as the foodies like to say). He opted for the beef and mashed potato one and was overcharged $2.50 for the pleasure (cash of course). One bite let him know that these items were definitely not freshly made, but he continued to eat and even let me have a few bites. As you may know, I happen to LOVE mashed potatoes. We both agreed it wasn't anything amazing, but it sufficed in allowing us to check off the "Street Food" item on our Vieques To Do List.

Bili (Esperanza in Vieques)

The other town area in Vieques was Esperanza on the southern end of the island. It's more of a beach town set up that you'd find in a backpacker hangout (a street full of bars, restaurants and budget accommodations), but they do have higher end dining options that are more appropriate for travelers on vacation. The two popular fine dining venues are Bili and El Quenepo.

We had a chance to try both during our stay in Vieques. The first was lunch at Bili, a colorful tropical island themed restaurant serving a variety of tasty fish based dishes. It was a very casual restaurant but the service was exceptionally friendly and they had the best homemade hot sauce we've had in a while.

They do have other "proteins" available of course, but we couldn't pass up trying some seafood while staying on an island. My mother had an amazing Mahi Mahi wrap while my grandmother went with a Mahi Mahi salad. Here's a snapshot of her colorful salad. The fish tasted super fresh, even though it wasn't local to Vieques.

El Quenepo (Esperanza in Vieques)

That same day, my parents returned to Esperanza to try El Quenepo (the top ranked restaurant in Vieques) that evening for dinner without my grandmother and me. They didn't have reservations, but at 7PM on a Monday it was only half full so they were seated immediately. The atmosphere is much more "date oriented" than the other restaurants on the street, so it was appropriate not to bring my 2 year old self.

The server was quite thorough in his presentation and delivery, often going overboard to demonstrate the restaurant wasn't your "typical sleepy island restaurant" on the island. They really seemed to try hard to position themselves as if you were in a Manhattan Zagat-list favorite. Unfortunately, my parents found the server's insecurity enthusiasm a bit off putting.

The food itself was quite impressive with its unique and diverse combination of ingredients, given the remoteness of Vieques. My mother had the Cerviche as her entree and my father had their Seafood Mofongo. Both were pretty good, but as my father says, "If I wanted a fancy NYC dinner, I would have stayed in NYC." Truth be told, he wasn't really that hungry, because he had a late afternoon snack...

Chicken King & Ice Cream (Vieques)
Apparently, it's almost impossible to get something to eat between the hours of 1PM-6PM on a Monday. My father had heard great things about this Sol Food (a foodtruck based right outside the Natural Reserve), so he saved room for that and didn't really eat much at Bilis while my mother and grandmother enjoyed their lunch.

But when we saw that Sol Food was closed (there's no real schedule), his stomach was starting to lose its patience. So we drove into Isabelle II hoping that one of the local establishments had some tasty Puerto Rican food for us to try. Unfortunately, every restaurant we walked past was closed. The one that had unlocked doors (Shawnaa's) had a woman sweeping up the floor in an empty restaurant with no food left except Cod and Rice. No thank you. So we continued desperately passing restaurant after restaurant, until we finally found Chicken King & Ice Cream.

Located on Route 201 (one of the larger North-South running roads in the middle of Vieques), you almost pass it, because their sign is pretty small and simple (as you can see above). But fortunately for my father, they were open! The place was exactly what you'd expect - a simple fast food place with a large menu on the wall and photos of your food. My father ordered a 4 piece box with potato wedges for about $7. They accepted credit cards.

 

Raices (Old San Juan)
When we were back on the mainland (of Puerto Rico), we had another breakfast at Mi Casita and then took the public bus into the Old Town area of San Juan ($0.75 per person for the 30 minute ride). The final stop was right by the Old Town strip of restaurants where we found Raices.

During our stay in Vieques, my parents had gone on a Bioluminescent Bay tour with some other vacations who were San Juan natives. They highly recommended we try Raices while we were in Old Town for a sample of traditional Puerto Rican culture and food. We were not disappointed.

The servers dress in the old style of clothing and let you take photos with them. As you can see, the colorful walls were offset by the simple wooden/thatch furniture.

 

The menu was full of authentic Puerto Rican food. Being our last full day there, we wanted to sample everything we didn't get a chance to try yet, so we got the appetizer combo called Typical Festival (cod fish fritters, ripe fried plantains stuffed with meat, crab meat turnovers and mashed cassava). To be completely honest, it wasn't that great, because when you fry something so much, it kinda loses its unique flavor. Just ask my father who tried Rocky Mountain Oysters (fried bull testicles) a few months ago in Colorado.

Fortunately, we saved space for our lunch entrees. My grandmother wanted a churrasco steak, and my mother had the $9 fried fish lunch special.  My father's choice, however, stole the show. Called Kan Kan Pork Chops, it was a massive slab of meat with his choice of side (rice and red beans). The best part was that they kept the crispy skin on the pork so you enjoyed a nice diversity of tastes and textures in each bite.

Street Food (Old San Juan) 
And after our indulgent lunch, to wash it all down, my mother searched high and low through the cobble stoned streets of Old Town for her favorite island beverage, a fresh young coconut (note the 2 unnecessary adjectives, you foodies!).

Bioluminescent (Mosquito) Bay

If you happen to go to Vieques, you will undoubtedly hear about the amazing Bioluminescent (Bio) Bay Kayak Tour.

"What is the Bio Bay?" you ask. Well, according to the Wikipedia page, certain waters around Puerto Rico have a high concentration of a micro-organism that glows (like a firefly) when something interacts with it. As a result, you can see a neon blue glow when you move through the water.

Obviously, you should try to observe the phenomenon at night, particularly when there's not a full moon. Unfortunately, our entire stay in Vieques (December 13-17) was at the exact time leading up to the full moon - the WORST time to try to see Bio Bay.

But we didn't want to leave Vieques without even trying to see Bio Bay (especially since they had my grandmother with us to babysit me for the evening), so my parents scheduled a tour through the hotel's concierge staff. Many outfitters will not even have a tour on the nights near the full moon, but the W Concierge knew which one uses large canopies to cover the kayakers and shield the moon light. For $40/person (cash), my parents could take their chances. So on Saturday morning (Dec 14), they booked a reservation for later that evening.

We didn't have a rental car that night, so they needed transportation from the W Retreat (A on the map) to the meet up point on the southern end of the island (B). The W Concierge also took care of that. For $10/person (round trip), my parents would be picked up at 6PM from the hotel lobby in a van where they could leave their personal things.


They advised us that we'd be in the water on kayaks, so my parents arrived prepared in their bathing suits and clothes that they didn't mind getting wet. My father asked the front desk for some towels which they were happy to provide. He also brought along some eco-friendly bug repellent, because they read about why they call it Mosquito Bay. At 6:00PM, the van arrived right on time, and my adventurous parents were joined by another young couple staying the W.

They all drove the 20 minutes to the meeting point (a dark parking lot) where other vans from other hotels gathered. From there, my father paid the $40/person fee and were consolidated with everyone else into a single van that went down the dirt road towards the bay. I'm glad I wasn't there, because my father said I would have been pretty scared driving in the dark with complete strangers. I've seen enough Homeland to know how these situations can end up.

But before you knew it, my parents had arrived at the beach where kayaks and guides were waiting for them. Everyone was paired up into 2-person kayak teams and outfitted with life vests and purple glow sticks to attach to their backs. Of course, it was dark at night, so their point & click camera was pretty useless, but here's also what Mosquito Bay looks like during the daytime.

 

The right photo of Bioluminescent (Mosquito) Bay is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Each tour guide kayaked out taking two pairs each, giving them the ecological and scientific context to better appreciate the neon blue glowing phenomenon. Despite having a bright full moon above them, each stroke in the water did yield a strong blue color.

After kayaking towards the red mangrove trees whose roots tangled and intertwined to form makeshift land, the guide explained how the micro-organisms feed on the nutrients provided by these plants. Also, the unique physical properties of the bay (deep and cool water, with limited in/out flows) allowed for a large concentration of the micro-organisms.

From there, my parents kayaked out deeper into the bay and gathered closer together with the other boats, while the guide remained in the middle opening up the large parachute to shield everyone from the moonlight above. Fortunately for my parents, it was also a bit cloudy and overcast that evening as well.

Under the canopy, they dipped their hands into the water and activated the neon blue glow.

Perhaps not the most amazing thing they've ever seen, but it was still pretty cool to experience first hand. To be fair, keep in mind that this photo here doesn't capture the full vibrancy of the blue color because of the camera's flash. It's much better in person.

WARNING: if you already googled "bioluminescent bay" and looked at the photos, keep in mind that these pictures are photoshopped to enhance the color. The real experience will likely not be that strong of a glow as the Google images suggest, so you're not doing yourself a favor by getting your hopes up.

In case you don't want to go all the way to Vieques to see bio bays, you have a few other options in Puerto Rico, though they say Vieques is the best given the limited interaction with civilization.

Vieques by Jeep

We would have missed a huge opportunity had we not left the W Retreat & Spa property during our stay. The island of Vieques is such a stunningly beautiful place in its raw, natural state.

We weren't sure which day we wanted to rent a car, so we didn't make any reservations in advance. That was a mistake, because when we went to the on-site Island Car Rental outpost after breakfast on Sunday morning, they were all sold out for the day.

The unmotivated agent took down my number and said he would call me if one opened up. I soon learned that this "give me your number and I'll call you" was a common trick in the Puerto Rican service industry to manage annoying customers, because this happened several times on our trip and no one would ever call us back. But in this instance, it was OK because Sunday ended up being on and off rainy all day.

The next morning, my father thought he'd try his luck again. This time, an older manager was also helping out the first agent. They went back and forth in Spanish and finally told me they were calling the Avis down the road to see if they had any availability.

Of course, my father being a frequent flyer/loyalty program nerd (he's an Avis Preferred member), he had already checked Avis' website the night before, which said they were also sold out for the day. But for some reason, Ricky at Avis said they had jeeps available.

For just $77 for 24 hours, we'd be on our way. In fact, Ricky would come pick us up at the W Lobby and drive us to the Avis. Perfecto!

Since the quality of the roads were known to be horrible (and the fact that we'd be offroading), we fell for the rental agency push to get damage liability insurance. For $22.95, we were fully covered and could return the vehicle with any amount of damage. You would think that this kind of practice would mean we received a car in horrible condition, but in fact, our jeep was brand new. It only had 4,000 miles on it.

So we road out, armed with a cheap map and my own car seat from home, and set off West on Rt 200 towards the old abandoned military bunkers.

As you can see, there aren't many roads in Vieques. That being said, these aren't the highways you may be accustomed to living in the mainland United States. These are more akin to country roads that aren't always labeled. Yes, they're paved, but they're not very well maintained, which is why most of the tourist rental cars are 4x4 Jeeps.

Our first stop was the Giant Ceiba Tree. Luckily for me, when we arrived, there was a bunch of wild horses grazing around the tree. I never realized how much I loved horses til I came to Vieques.

We could have driven out on the long Mosquito Pier to get another perspective, but we opted to continue driving along Rt 200. Since the maps weren't drawn to scale, we did our best to estimate when the turns were coming. As I mentioned earlier, the roads are really not clearly labeled, so it became hard to differentiate between a road and someone's driveway and just a clearing. But eventually we found our way into the "jungle."

 

As you can see, the "road" is barely wide enough for one car to get through. In fact, through much of the jungle adventure, the vegetation was excessively more than this photo suggests, but my father was so focused on driving (and my mother was so focused on panicking), that we didn't have a chance to take any pictures. To give you an idea though, imagine you were driving your car straight into a huge bush with the branches and leaves striking the exterior of the car like a drive through car wash. Then add in the fact that you cannot see more than 5 feet of road in front of you with no confidence that there wouldn't be another car going the other way. The map (as you can guess) was completely useless, but we had faith that eventually, the vegetation would clear. And it did.

After this taste of wild Vieques (and flashbacks of episodes of LOST), we made our way back to civilization and drove to Esperanza. After passing several lovely residential mansions as well as abandoned shanties, we finally made it to the busy seaside street with a new promenade alongside beach town restaurants and hostels.

 

Our next stop was the fabled Blue Beach (La Chiva as the locals refer to it). To access this raw beach, you need to drive into the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Natural Refuge which is open to the public. In case you're not sure which road to take, you will see the infamous Sol Food truck right by the entrance.

After a long drive on a paved road, you will reach the point where the road turns into gravel. Still drive-able by regular cars, you will soon encounter the potholes that will make you thankful your father rented a 4WD vehicle.

  

Eventually, you will see side "roads" branching off the main road. Taking one will lead you down towards the beach. You may also see some warning signs that you should pay particular attention to. Decades ago, Vieques Island was used as a U.S. military bombing target. Apparently, if you see something that might be a live munition, it could very well be. That being said, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't allow tourists here if it were a likely to stumble across one.

 

 

But this beach was actually not Blue Beach. From the sand, you could see down the shoreline towards a more stunning serene beachfront. To reach La Chiva, you needed to go back and continue along the main road. You kept driving along until you passed a bridge (full of potholes) and saw a large sign. Then you had reached La Chiva.

Blue Beach is actually accessed by a series of different entrances (as seen here). For convenience, they're labeled #1-15. We kept driving past each one checking to see if there were already cars parked inside. Unfortunately for us, each entrance had 1 rental jeep already there. 

But by #15, we just parked alongside and walked towards the clearing. As you can see, even though all the parking spots had people there, the beach was still clear of tourists. You could easily imagine yourself stranded on an uninhabited island with nothing but the gentle waves in your ears and mosquitoes on your legs. Oh yeah, bring bug spray!