Left on the red eye at 10pm from LAX headed to Puerto Rico with a layover in New York of all places. Landed in NY and went to the Delta Sky Club Lounge which was heavenly as I was able to shower, eat and sleep during my 2.5 hour layover. Boarded the plane to Puerto Rico and I was off! Landed successfully and immediately upon stepping off the plane I noticed the warmth of the Caribbean air.
My brother in law Michael was joining me on the trip so I waited for him to land, we jumped in the rental car shuttle van and headed to Target Rent a Car. I rented through Target because they were the only ones that had a "Premium" full size SUV available....we got into our Ford Expedition and they told us that this was the same one that Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony rented when they came to the island.....not sure if it was true but we decided to have fun with it.
Upon driving away we immediately noticed two things....there was a distinct odor in the car that smelt like kids yogurt...but old. We determined that J'lo's kids must have spilt nasty yogurt in the car. Good thing was that since Puerto Rico is a US territory my GPS worked there...so that helped. After leaving Target we passed a hooker walking in the middle of the street.
We drove around and found ourselves in the worst traffic known to mankind in old town San Juan. On top of everything else we were exhausted having both flown red eyes and getting very little sleep on the airplanes over. PR is 4 hours ahead of California, so even though it was earlier for us we were wiped out. We didn't have a hotel as we had decided before coming to let PR take us wherever we found ourselves. Initial observations included the large of amount of police...and we found it funny that they kept their lights on no matter what.....just all the time period. Mike declared a rule of, "No Fast Food," for the trip which was admirable but I broke within 1 hour because I needed to eat.
We drove up to the Yunque Rainforest...but by the time we got there the road was closed. We grabbed some shots and just listened to the sounds of the rainforest which was truly amazing....so loud and so beautiful.
By this point it was only 6pm, but we really needed some sleep. We found Luquillo Beach which was very nice. We parked next to the water for a quick nap....and fell fast asleep. It was very dark when we fell asleep as there was no moon. I woke up 90 minutes later and looked out over the ocean and saw one of the most amazing moon rises I have ever seen. There is a distinct gap in time between the sun setting and moon rising in PR, and this was a sight to behold.
Mike was still wiped out so I went out onto the beach and grabbed some shots. I always like to get a shot of me looking at what I'm shooting which is what I did here...because it reminds me best of that moment where I took in the view. I went down to the water, walked past the coconuts, and got pretty wet getting shots of the waves. Went back to the car and we finally determined to stay at the Marriott in San Juan. Still pretty exhausted Mike went to the room while I grabbed a quick burger in the hotel restaurant....and then we went to bed.....an exhausting but great start to our quick vacation.....