Back in Belgium

I am back in Belgium. Yeah. Back in Wevelgem. No latino or african american culture here. Boring.

Blogspot has been taken over by google. Just like orkut was taken over by google. Just like everything is being taken over by google.

Maybe see you later!

Ciao

Mall And Movies

It rained for two days in Miami and I had to do something, so I went to visit the ‘malls’. Hector and Billy had already showed me some of the malls they go to and I found even more on the way. I don’t really like malls too much. I way prefer the European way of shopping: on the street! That’s why I like Lincoln Road so much or Manhattan.

I went to the biggest mall in Fort Lauderdale, Sawgrass Mills. It’s an excursion that is listed in the ‘sightseeings’ of South Florida. Well, I’m sorry, but going to a mall is not a tourist attraction to me. It sucked. Sure, it’s big. But I wasn’t impressed at all. And it’s not only an outlet mall. It has normal stores too. I was in an outlet place in New York State last year, which was nicer. Malls are crazy though. I mean, some try to bring in some atmosphere by creating fountains or different sublevels or even fake waterfalls. There’s a lot of little stands in the middle of the ‘shopping lanes’ and every store seems to scream for your attention with huge ‘sale’ billboards. The sales are of course only in a small corner in the back. There’s a lot of ‘buy 2, get the 3^rd free’ actions. I didn’t really feel like shopping too much. I only bought a few things, of which my new cool Samsonite travel suitcase was the best purchase. I’m really happy with that one.

The nice thing with malls is that when you go to the food court, every eatery has someone standing outside to have you taste what they offer. I especially like the pretzel stands or Cinnabon, which have cinnamon pretzels. There’s panda express (there orange chicken is good) and all different kinds of pizza places, burger joints, sub makers… It’s all very fast food, but hey, that’s the US.

Every mall has a huge cinema complex too. The reason why I was visiting all these malls, was to get to see Apocalypto, the Mel Gibson movie about the Maya culture. I really looked forward to seeing hat movie as the reviews were good and it’s just a culture I want to get to know more of. The only problem was that they didn’t really show the movie in many theatres and the hours that were given in the newspaper were incorrect. Anyways. I went to the movies a few times and what I always do in the states is make it into a movie afternoon. I pay for one ticket and then after the feature film I just go from one theatre in the other to see parts of other movies. It sounds crazy, but I always did this when I lived in the states and I discovered some interesting movies like that. During two visits I saw three movies in their entire length and big parts of some 5 other movies.

Apocalypto is an amazing movie. I really loved it. xxx1/2. I just loved everything about it. I don’t think highly of Mel Gibson, but I thought it was incredible how he filmed those scenes in the jungle. Also the entire movie is one long journey that ends in a chase scene. It just keeps you focused all the time. I also absolutely loved the performers. Especially the evil guys. They were just the coolest meanest native Americans I’ve ever seen. When you see pictures of heavily tattooed El Salvadorian gangsters in prison: well they got inspired by their Mayan ancestors man! A lot of people didn’t like it because of its violence and its gore. But, I didn’t think it was bad at all. I prefer seeing this than horror flicks like Saw for instance. This was very well done.

I also saw Last King Of Schotland, which was a bit disappointing. Forest Whitaker isn’t that good. He’s ok, but I wasn’t that impressed. The movie was a channel four production, which basically means it’s a good television movie. I really didn’t think it was that extraordinary. I was more impressed by Will Smith in Pursuit of Happiness. That guy surprised me by acting so well. Anyways. Third movie: Dreamgirls. Again, disappointed. That Jennifer Hudson girl was amazing. But she’s the movie: I don’t understand why she got a nomination for best supporting actress. Beyonce was just not present at all, although I loved it when she sang ‘listen’. Still, her character and her performance were very weak. Eddie Murphy was okay, just like Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover, but they weren’t extraordinary.

And then the movies that I briefly saw: I saw parts of The Queen, which I missed in Europe, but want to see in its entirety. I saw parts of Freedom Writers, which is your typical Hollywood movie about a literature teacher trying to make ghetto kids appreciate to write and read. With Hilary Swank. Too standard. Then I saw a part of Norbit, the new Eddie Murphy comedy. I hate it. Really, I don’t understand anyone who can laugh with jokes like that.

South Beach

I just spent a week or so in South Beach. I really like that place. I’ve been there plenty of times before, but this time was different. First it was February, the busiest time of the year and also the nicest to visit the place. It was remarkable how different it was to my visits in the summer during the hurricane season. There was more atmosphere, the weather was less humid and much more pleasant. The restaurants were full, there were a lot of people on the beach. Yeah, nice period to visit. But an expensive period of course. Second: I had no tourists to take care of.

South Beach is the Art Deco area of Miami, although it looks nothing like our Art Deco in Brussels. It’s Tropical Deco, like they call it. Lots of colours, but very basic buildings. The best preserved buildings are on Ocean Drive. They now almost all turned into hotels and restaurants, surrounded by tall new condominium buildings. It’s only in the evening and at night that things get beautiful. During the day, the buildings somehow lose their charm. Ocean Drive looked really cool this time with all the outside terraces filled with people. On the other side of the Drive, the Ocean side, they finally finished a boardwalk promenade. I love walking up and down on it, doing my favourite pastime: people watching.

There’s a few well known establishments on Ocean Drive, of which the most touristy one is the house in front of which Gianni Versace was murdered. I don’t really like the house, I prefer the house to the left of it, but you see a lot of people taking pictures of the gate. Whatever. Across that house on the beach side, you have the beach volley guys and the open air fitness equipment. It’s not like in Venice Beach though, it’s more natural.

I really prefer South Beach, Florida to Venice/Santa Monica, California. There’s just something much more natural in South Beach. There’s less attitude. There a lot of hot people in South Beach, hey, more than in LA, but they don’t really show off that much. It’s much less hip or alternative, but it’s somehow much more pleasant. The only thing I prefer about the LA beaches is the weirdo’s you meet on the promenade there. The skaters, the bladers, the artists. You don’t really have that in South Beach. But what I definitely prefer in South Beach are the beaches. Man, the beaches are nice! And the water is much cleaner too. It was a bit too cold to swim though, but it just feels much cleaner.

Another nice thing about South Beach is the mix of people. More than in LA, where you basically just have white folk, black folk and lots of Mexicans, you have a total different mix of people here. There’s more European tourists from all over Europe. There’s all the possible Caribbean, Central and Latin American people… It looked as if there hardly are any North Americans here. Nobody in South Beach was born in South Beach. They all come from somewhere else. You do have black people too, but the population is predominantly latin. South Beach is also much more gay than Santa Monica or Venice, but in a cool kind of way. And the models here look like they deserve to be models. In LA the models look like they’ve been fabricated at plastic surgery hospitals.

There’s three more roads that you can walk on. Collins Avenue is the one behind Ocean Drive and has all the hotels plus a lot of designer stores. Washington Avenue is the one behind Collins Avenue and has all the cool restaurants and shops and delis and stuff. And then there’s Lincoln Road, which is a pedestrian zone of ten blocks with more restaurants and shops. It beats 3^rd Street Promenade (Santa Monica) in charm and atmosphere.

I noticed something funny in the Miami fashion. A lot of shirts and t’s had huge symbols on them (inspired by death metal album covers: skulls, snakes, crosses..). Very cool, BUT they also pimp the shirts with bling bling. That is really incredibly ugly. However, it’s very Miami. I didn’t take a picture of it. There’s a lot of cool shops on Lincoln Road and Washington Avenue. On the latter avenue they have - close to Lincoln Road - lots of vintage stores, second hand clothes… and the further south you go, the more ‘independent’ the stores become. No chain stores there.

And there’s the nightlife! I love going to Twist. It’s kind of like a hook up place, but you can have fun watching people there. There’s a few rooms that play all kinds of music. As you enter you go though a mainstream (often pop rock) bar with video’s, then you get to a patio where there’s a separate bar in which gogo dancers get really trashy with stupid customers willing to put a dollar bill in their pants to get a touch or kiss maybe. If you walk up on the stairs in the patio you end up on the second level where you have a room with urban music and then a dance floor where you hear the typical Miami house (Victor Calderone, Peter Rauhofer). The dance floor is totally dark though, so just go there to dance and not to watch people, there’s plenty of places in the bar where you can do that. Twist has no cover! Most other clubs on Washington Avenue have and they are pretty expensive. Most of the clubs have daily night events. A bit further on Washington you have this r’n b club with an dress code! And there’s the ‘Madonna’, which is basically a nude bar. The only other club that I went to was on Lincoln Road, called The Score. I had been there once and was disappointed by its size (small bar), but I didn’t know there was a door leading to a big dance hall behind the bar. I went on Wednesday night: the latin night. I hoped to hear some more reggaeton, but all I got was salsa, salsa, merengue, salsa, latin pop and did I mention salsa? I needed a few cuba libres to appreciate it though. But I had great fun.

Friday and Saturday night are incredibly busy! Parking is hell. Remember this golden tip: park your car in the car parking near the police station (12 street/Washington). During the week it’s only 6 dollars/24 hours. In the weekends it’s 10 dollars. You’ll pay much more in other parking lots and it’s kind of safe next to the police station. It’s also very central. The parking on Lincoln Road for instance is always full and 8 dollars per day during the week. There is hardly any room to park your car in the street as it’s for residents only. And the other places are a quarter per 10 minutes or so. Actually, don’t get a car when you just want to stay in South Beach alone.

I was happy to have a car though as I found a very nice and affordable hotel on 76 street (yes, 60 blocks north of Lincoln Road which is 16 street). I found the Baltic hotel by accident. I wanted to get something cheap but the motels along highway 1 and road 1A1 (the coastal road) were either dirty, sold out or too expensive. I just happened to see the little corner hotel and stopped. I got a nice room for 80 dollars flat. A 2 minute walk from the beach (very clean, family friendly, quiet). The owner is a Costa Rican woman who just loves to talk (about her feud with the Cuban neighbours: ‘the Cubans think they own Miami’) and the rooms are really neat. I also stayed in the Royal Hotel on 8^th street/Washington. That room wasn’t as clean, but I loved the interior (very sixties: all white plastic furniture which combined the bed with the kitchen table or the relax chair with the tv holder) and the price was okay for such a good location. I would recommend the Clay hotel though, if you ever decide to go. It’s most central and most economical. No cool interior, but really the best place on the beach. There’s a lot of shabby motel looking hotels that overcharge for dirty rooms. And the big hotels charge too much money for a room. I finally understood how hotels can make money. It’s because of impulsive travellers like me. You end up paying twice as much as if you would pay it in a travel agency! My business card didn’t help much.

Oh well. I’m stuck at the airport in Miami. Hope to get the last flight to Atlanta, otherwise I’m fucked.

Puerto Rico

I just spent a short week in Puerto Rico. I fled there to escape the cold of Washington, New York and, yes, Miami (where it’s been cloudy for a while now). There were three destinations on my list: Yucatan, Mexico was an option. Belize as well. And Puerto Rico. I decided not to go on my own to Belize after reading the Frommer’s Belize guide. I really want to visit that country (so small and so diverse!), but not alone. And if I do decide to visit Belize with someone else, I might just as well visit the neighbouring Yucatan at the same time. So hence, no Yucatan either.

I didn’t know much about Puerto Rico apart from the singers that the country has produced (Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Ghent-resident Gabriel Rios), it’s most typical sound (reggaeton), the song by Vaya Con Dios and Marco, a law enforcement officer from Fort Lauderdale who used to be a pen pall of mine and who I met twice while touring in Florida. Most probably the coolest blatino I had ever met!

Anyways, back at the house of the couple I’m staying with in West Miami, I have mixed feelings about my visit of the Isla Del Encanto. I had never associated Puerto Rico with that Pixies classic ‘Isla De Encanta’ until I saw it on the license plates of the cars. I have experienced as much joyful moments as annoying and frustrating ones. It’s been a trip of ups and downs, part of which is my fault as I naively thought I could just visit the island without serious preparation. Being impulsive was the worst thing I could do. It will definitely make me rethink about how I travel.

puerto rico

I just spent a short week in Puerto Rico. I fled there to escape the cold of Washington, New York and, yes, Miami (where it’s been cloudy for a while now). There were three destinations on my list: Yucatan, Mexico was an option. Belize as well. And Puerto Rico. I decided not to go on my own to Belize after reading the Frommer’s Belize guide. I really want to visit that country (so small and so diverse!), but not alone. And if I do decide to visit Belize with someone else, I might just as well visit the neighbouring Yucatan at the same time. So hence, no Yucatan either.

I didn’t know much about Puerto Rico apart from the singers that the country has produced (Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Ghent-resident Gabriel Rios), it’s most typical sound (reggaeton), the song by Vaya Con Dios and Marco, a law enforcement officer from Fort Lauderdale who used to be a pen pall of mine and who I met twice while touring in Florida. Most probably the coolest blatino I had ever met!

Anyways, back at the house of the couple I’m staying with in West Miami, I have mixed feelings about my visit of the Isla Del Encanto. I had never associated Puerto Rico with that Pixies classic ‘Isla De Encanta’ until I saw it on the license plates of the cars. I have experienced as much joyful moments as annoying and frustrating ones. It’s been a trip of ups and downs, part of which is my fault as I naively thought I could just visit the island without serious preparation. Being impulsive was the worst thing I could do. It will definitely make me rethink about how I travel.

oh, this entry has been put twice on the bogspot site... i couldn't delete the other one

PR 1 Puerto Rico

I just spent a short week in Puerto Rico. I fled there to escape the cold of Washington, New York and, yes, Miami (where it’s been cloudy for a while now). There were three destinations on my list: Yucatan, Mexico was an option. Belize as well. And Puerto Rico. I decided not to go on my own to Belize after reading the Frommer’s Belize guide. I really want to visit that country (so small and so diverse!), but not alone. And if I do decide to visit Belize with someone else, I might just as well visit the neighbouring Yucatan at the same time. So hence, no Yucatan either.

I didn’t know much about Puerto Rico apart from the singers that the country has produced (Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Ghent-resident Gabriel Rios), it’s most typical sound (reggaeton), the song by Vaya Con Dios and Marco, a law enforcement officer from Fort Lauderdale who used to be a pen pall of mine and who I met twice while touring in Florida. Most probably the coolest blatino I had ever met!

Anyways, back at the house of the couple I’m staying with in West Miami, I have mixed feelings about my visit of the Isla Del Encanto. I had never associated Puerto Rico with that Pixies classic ‘Isla De Encanta’ until I saw it on the license plates of the cars. I have experienced as much joyful moments as annoying and frustrating ones. It’s been a trip of ups and downs, part of which is my fault as I naively thought I could just visit the island without serious preparation. Being impulsive was the worst thing I could do. It will definitely make me rethink about how I travel.

PR 2 Puerto Caro

I knew the Caribbean was expensive and that’s why I didn’t go to the Bahamas or Bermuda or any of those islands. I figured Puerto Rico would be more like the US. After all, it’s a US commonwealth country. But boy, was I wrong. I ended up spending a fortune on the island for things that weren’t really worth their money. On accommodation for instance. I had bought and read the Frommer’s Puerto Rico guide who listed a few moderate and budget hotels near the capital San Juan. Some of them got really nice reviews on the internet too, so I called them up before booking the flight. However, five of them were sold out and couldn’t help me with alternative addresses. The bizarre thing was that the prices they gave me over the phone were already 20% more expensive than the rates in the guide book (released summer 2006). The cheapest rate I could get was 75 dollars! Without tax.

I called this hotel in the centre of Condado who was famed for being a ‘house party’ at times. It was a gay owned hotel with a bar on the beach and close to a bus station taking you to Old San Juan. They asked 115 dollars for a room and I decided to be a bit decadent and go party in Puerto Rico. Upon arrival however, one of the guests came to warn me I should get to another hotel. I didn’t really trust the guy. It could have been someone working for another hotel. But I did take his advice on checking the room first. And that’s when I first thought: what the hell am I doing here?

I had just spent 15 dollar on a taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, which would not even have cost 10 euro in Brussels (no meter! fixed price! In EVERY cab!). I really didn’t want to pay 115 dollar for a room, which even in Switzerland would not even be worth 130 CHF (35 euro). The room was damp and smelly, the sheets looked as if they had been washed 1150 times, the toilet seat was about to break as I would sit on it and the shower, well, the shower produced a few leaks only. But I did take it (for the round price of 100 dollars) as I really didn’t want to spend 200 dollar for a more decent room in the San Juan Beach hotel nearby. The other hotels in the neighbourhood were sold out or asked ridiculously high prices. The Marriott for instance had a room for 390 dollar! I ended up paying 100 dollar each night for the entire trip as it was the lowest I could go for a decent room. And with decent, I really don’t mean fancy. I mean: decent. The kind of rooms you get in Germany for 25 euro.

Not only were the taxis and the accommodation outrageously expensive, the prices of food and clothes and everything else you can buy were never below US prices. Even at my favourite Subway sandwich place, the menu was more expensive than in New York. If you ever go to Puerto Rico, don’t go alone and split the costs with a travel partner (there is nothing for backpacking single travellers there) or try to stay with a local family. Even my business card didn’t do wonders. A tour guide? For a cruise line company ? (I never told them I did river cruises instead of Caribbean cruises) Fine! But you have to pay the total amount anyways.

PR 3 Puerto Carro

I ended up renting a car because I needed to get out of the Costa del Sol looking Condado beach area, which had nothing authentic. There is no public transport on the island. The bus from Condado to Old San Juan for instance should run every 20 minutes, but I tried to take it twice and I had to wait 45 minutes each time. Getting out of San Juan to the rest of the country is impossible without a car. Unless you would rent a sailing boat and sail around it, but I don’t have a sailing license (yet). Day excursions cost way too much money (example: three hours in Ponce, the second city of the country, from San Juan: 85 dollar) so I got myself a Lancer for a few days and guaranteed myself some adventure.

The craziest thing in Puerto Rico are the drivers. Or the traffic in general. My god. People say that Belgium is undriveable if that’s a word, but it’s nothing compared to PR. I kind of liked it though. It’s challenging and definitely not boring. You don’t really enjoy the view that much as you have to be 100 percent concentrated, but I somehow felt like driving in one of those Playstation games, never knowing what would come up next. Puerto Ricons don’t use their indicators. Very frustrating. They also stop without any sign of warning. Even on the highway. They also don’t drive in lines. I guess they will be flabbergasted if you told them that a highway has two lanes in order to have traffic ride in two lines. Then it gets confusing as the cars are American and have mileage, just like the speed limit is indicated in mileage, but the distances are put in kilometres. Signs appear and disappear making sure you’ll not find your destination easily.

The big thrill of driving a car in Puerto Rico is that everyone constantly warns you about carjacking. Of course the guide book mentioned it, but also the employee at Avis who gave me the advice to stay on the main roads only and not to drive at night. I wonder why drug addicts would try and steel your car to sell it for cash as it was my impression that everyone on the island already has a car! There are some 3,5 million people living in Puerto Rico. I saw at least 2 million cars. I thought it was amazing that every single car on the highway was manned by the driver only. Carpooling still needs to be introduced there. Maybe they ship the stolen cars to New York, where 2 million more Boricua’s (nickname of Puerto Ricans) live. I don’t know. However, I made a slight mistake of driving through the inland routes. I went on this panoramic route, which was beautiful, but I had no time to really enjoy it that much. It was a rollercoaster ride over hills and mountains with hundreds of hairpin bends with crazy conductores popping out of nothing almost crashing into my rental car. I saw two accidents in an hour drive on that road! But more scary were the many abandoned cars along the road. I also saw some bush fires on the way, which made me think of my own Final Destination movie. Burned out cars along the road, bush fires, accidents… I was sure they were signs of my near death. Very scary thought to concentrate on when driving on hilly and bendy roads. I made it in one piece though. Still, it would have been cooler with someone in the car!

PR 4 Puerto Bailando

Although I didn’t like my first hotel at all, the Atlantic Beach hotel, I had some great fun on my first night. The hotel had a bar, which turned out to be the gay meeting point of Condado, sometimes referred to as the Miami South Beach of Puerto Rico. I spent some time in the bar, drinking the local beer Medalla Light for 3 dollars per beer (happy hour). By the way: they don’t have regular Medalla, they only produce the Light one. It’s better than Heineken, but hey, only slightly. Anyways, I had some fun watching the crowd of the bar. There were some loud American friends making a fool of themselves by being loud Americans. They must have been 45 or so, but they acted like college kids. I don’t know if they were gay or not, they could have been just four office managers gone wild, but they sucked. And they stayed on my floor! Then there were a few couples watching the constructions sites, in between witch our ‘hotel’ was located. There were also a few attractive locals walking in, but my guess was that they were rent boys, who weren’t really successful in their pursuits.

An older American who was on a business trip started talking to me and offered me a drink. I guess I’m becoming as gay as you, Piet, accepting drinks from older guys knowing very well that they don’t make a chance at all, but hey, I ran out of money and I was thirsty. The guy ended up being a very interesting lawyer from Chicago who worked for the same law firm where presidential candidate (and my personal favourite) Barack Obama met his wife at during an internship. Yeah, I had interesting conversations with that guy and he needed a drinking partner too. I ended up convincing him to go to this club where they played reggaeton. I had asked some guy at the bookstore where I had to go for a reggaeton night and he warned me about the straight reggaeton places. Apparently, I wouldn’t get out alive as a gringo looking reggaeton lover. So, he suggested Club Eros, a metrosexual (read: predominantly gay) club which had a latin night on Wednesday. I absolutely loved the place!

The club was a ten minute walk from the hotel, but was located in a more seedy area of course. I had no trouble walking there with that guy, although he was very scared and I would have been scared too if I had walked up there on my own. However, no mugging and no harassing whatsoever. Unlike other tourists who wrote their stories on the internet. They served Coors light at the club (a beer from Colorado, only available in light version) and that’s what we continued drinking. The place looked very cool. It would be very successful in Brussels or Antwerp. And I loved the fact that they played reggaeton. I danced a lot and watched the locals move their asses and hips as if they auditioned for a part in an urban video clip. I realised that the only thing that separates reggaeton from sex are clothes. And yes, Puerto Ricans are beautiful! Definitely, the second best looking people on this planet!

I didn’t know much about reggaeton. It’s been around for a while, but it only recently started to be mainstream. It’s basically latin gangsta rap with a very typical sound that you either like or not. It’s like drum ‘n bass. Every song sort of sounds the same, but not quite. The bass is very important and the attitude even more. Unfortunately it’s the music of the drug dealers and the criminals and the lyrics are really nasty and aggressive, but I just love those beats. However, I heard nothing but reggaeton. On the radio, on tv, out of boom cars passing by in the street… I’ve heard enough of it for the rest of the month. Examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWQUPak5S-g / (the most famous duo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrA4ERbxxF0 / (yeah, they have child stars too)

Apart from reggaeton, there’s other latin music too, but I didn’t really hear it that much. Ricky Martin has an unplugged cd and I heard some nice version of some terrible songs. He’s still big there. And of course you have meringue and cumbia and salsa and stuff. There’s a lot of music everywhere you go and that’s what makes travelling so cool.

PR 5 Puerto Rios

On a small note. Just as a test, I asked 20 people if they knew Gabriel Rios and only one person (the bar tender of the gay bar in the hotel) knew who he was. Most other people (young, educated, older, music loving taxi drivers, …) had no clue who he was, but were very interested in hearing me talk about him. I don’t like Rios and his music; I don’t think it’s anything special. I’ve seen him live a few times and I thought he sucked (he doesn’t address the audience), I watched him parade with an ugly model girlfriend at the Cactus festival in Bruges last year, I’ve heard him during interviews: not my kind of guy. I don’t even understand why people think he’s attractive. But it was nice to know that nobody knew him in Puerto Rico. Let him never tell people otherwise!

PR 6 San Juan

I visited the old city of San Juan twice. The first visit was a bit of a disappointment as I had fallen from a boardwalk looking up at the facades of the beautiful, colourful, hacienda houses. I put on some ice and thought I would be okay, but ended up walking way too much on it, making me have to rest and get back to the hotel way too early. But I finished my stay in Viejo San Juan and that was a nice farewell to Puerto Rico. I really liked Old San Juan: the houses, the doorways, the colours, the street life, the squares, the people, the fortresses, the views on the ocean, the cemetery, the chapels and the churches, the people, the statues that are spread all over the city, the big cruise ships that dock in the harbour, the history, the inner courts and again, the people. My imagination ran wild when I walked around in the city. I thought of the days when Columbus arrived, when the Spaniards fought the Dutch, when the pirates took hold of the city, … yeah that was cool. I also visited the Bacardi distillery across the bay. I didn’t have enough time though as I had to rush to the airport in time and it’s a rip off I you don’t go there with your local car. (there’s a ferry going across the bay, and a bus taking you there, but if you want to get there fast you have to rely on faux taxi drivers who take you there at ridiculous prices) You do get to taste several Bacardi rums and see how you can make the perfect cocktail. They have excellent flavours you can’t buy in Europe (yet)… like coco rum of course… the tour itself is free, it’s only getting there that is expensive. Go there by car! But that’s just something extra. San Juan is really nice, but small. You can visit it in an afternoon.

PR 7 Puerto Playa Oeste

I am very happy to have left Condado Beach for a trip to the west coast of the island. I wanted to visit the east coast as well, but I never made it there. You could visit it all in a week, but with better planning. I didn’t get to do plenty of things I wanted to do in Puerto Rico. I didn’t see a cock fight, I didn’t see the pearl of the south, I didn’t see the rainforest, nor the most beautiful beach of the island (Loquillo), but I had a nice time in the west.

First I visited the Caves of Camuy, which is one of the few natural attractions of the country. It’s one of those school trip destination, which meant that there were plenty school kids hanging around. Upon arrival, I had just missed a guided tour, so I had to wait 40 minutes for the next one (yeah, that’s Puerto Rico too), but I had fun watching the kids and how incredibly mixed the children were. From pitch black to whiter than… me. They weren’t all adorable. I think half will grow up to be ugly and at least 5 will start dealing drugs. But some were incredibly cute. If I don’t find a Brazilian mother for my children, I’ll start looking in Puerto Rico.

The tour itself was a bit amateur, but I was entertained. I still couldn’t walk properly, so I didn’t really want to complain too much. The caves are naturally cut out of a rock formation area called the Karst region. Now, I once was so fascinated by a guy in my school who had the same name extended with –en that I looked up the word in the dictionary. I hadn’t thought about that guy in ages, but finally seeing around the world. The caves are inhabited with bats, but I didn’t get to see any. We did see amazing shapes of stalactites and stalagmites that, in my imagination, looked like dinosaur fossils. But I especially liked the light that came into the caves.

We had to wait a long time before the trolley brought us back to the parking lot and I wondered what would happen if I was stuck with my fellow tour takers in a LOST kind of scenario. There was absolutely no-one in the group I felt like bonding with. It was the most boring mix of people I’ve ever seen together on an excursion. But the local guide was nice.

The drive from the Caves to Mayaquez was incredibly. I didn’t see that much of the very diverse landscapes I drove through as I was too focused on the road, but it showed that Puerto Rico was more than beaches. I liked the houses along the road that looked as if they were either very expensive or very cheap. I never know with Caribbean houses. They look so charming, but they probably are not modern at all inside. I like the colours and the flowers around the houses and of course the stray dogs and chicken that walk around and tease the cow or horse which is tied up along the road to graze.

More about Mayaquez later. This is about the west coast. I visited two beaches on the west coast that were tipped to me by other people I had met earlier in the trip. The first one was Boqueron in the southwest of the island. The other one was Rincon in the northwest of the island.

Boqueron has a large beach with palm trees as far as the eye can see. It also has a small village centre where you can buy mussels on the street! I tried to stop in the village and walk around, but it was so busy (on a Saturday) that I couldn’t find any place to park my car. They have a local dish which serves mussels in coconut milk sauce. It’s the kind of village that will become a major tourist attraction in a few years time. I parked my car on a designated car park near some condominiums and a big beach resort. From there you had a perfect beach filled with Puerto Ricans who want to get away in the weekend. I really liked that beach a lot and stayed there for a while watching the many surfers and ordinary families who had brought there whole kitchen with them.

Leaving Boqueron, I drove a little bit further inland to San German, which is the second oldest city of the country and the place where the missionaries tried to baptise the Indians. I had no idea there were Indians on the island, but apparently there were two tribes who didn’t like each other. They all got extinct of course, because of the European diseases, but some people still claim to be from a direct lineage of the indigenous people. San German was dead! There was no one there apart from this older man who was walking his dog and a few kids with their skate board. The city had a nice square though, as almost all these little towns.

Rincon is famed for its lighthouses and the best sunsets of the region and I didn’t want to miss that all. Of course, I ended up visiting the beach on that one day when it got cloudy in the afternoon and rained a bit. No sunset. However, I really liked Rincon. I stayed in a beach hotel which also had a bar and restaurant. A small family owned place with six rooms or so. There were more of these places on that stretch of beach and there was a nice atmosphere. Lots of young people, pina collada’s (invented in Puerto Rico) for 5 dollar, Rincon Steak Sandwiches for 8 dollar. I really liked the place, although I ended up leaving with some 20 bites of sand fleas I guess. I didn’t really have that much fun in the bar, because everyone was watching the superbowl game at home. But the owners of the place were really nice and we listed to Moby and some latin songs as I imagined how the sun would set on that nice beach.

PR 8 Puerto Ponce

People who know Puerto Rico ask: did you go to Ponce? Well, I did and I didn’t. If they ever ask me what the most useless thing was that I have ever done in my life, than I finally have an answer. I drove almost an hour from San German to Ponce with the idea of spending the evening in the Pearl Of The South as the city is called, but I ended up driving back to Mayaguez after not finding the centre of the city at all and filled with angst paranoia about being mugged and carjacked. There’s something terribly wrong with the maps that the tourist office issues and I just drove around in circles. Ponce is also not a small city and I ended up driving through a neighbourhood where I just did not want to get stranded. The big problem was that there were no lights in that city. After I had taken the only exit I found to the centre of Ponce, there were no more indications and the people who were outside looked as if they too auditioned for a reggaeton video clip, but then as gangsters. I took that exit twice and just didn’t find any sign to get to the centre of the city, where a hotel called Belgica is located. (a dump apparently). So I ended up driving back to Mayaguez. A reason to come back, as some people told me afterwards. We’ll see..

PR 9 Two Nights In Mayagüez

I experienced the most interesting part of my trip in the third largest city of the country, Mayagüez (pronounced majawez). I somehow ended up there after my rollercoaster ride in the hills of central Puerto Rico and I didn’t want to go look for a hotel in Boqueron. I passed a nice looking hotel who offered me a room for 100 dollars again (a bit cheaper than the price in the brochure) and I happily accepted. There was a car park and the hotel was right in the centre near the main square and the church.

Much to my surprise the city was celebrating it’s patron saint that weekend! I couldn’t have had more luck. It looked as if the whole town was getting ready for the big party. My first impression was very positive. The church was small, but typical for the region. They had this statue of the virgin Mary who I never had seen looking so sad. Some older guy in the church told me it depicted the ‘birth of pain’, when Maria says goodbye to Jesus’ body after his crucifixion. The man was probably one of the oldest people in town who probably has been mayor at one time, or at least someone important. He explained to me how the archbishop of Puerto Rico was going to visit and that there would be an open mass, with a procession and some bands playing in front of the church. Hey, I needed not hear more.

There was a nice atmosphere in the city, with small stands selling fried codfish or a sweet cake called Mallorca. The most intriguing thing was this horseracing betting game which drew a lot of people. I was amazed by this simple betting game which I had never seen before on a European fair. Some guy spins a wheel after which 20 horses race around. When the last horse stops they check which horse stopped closest to the finish line. If you had bet on that horse, you win. I loved the enthusiasm of the people who participated! That was fun. The mass itself was boring. The procession around the square in the centre of which you have a nice statue of Christopher Columbus was boring too, although i enjoyed it as it was the first time I saw such a thing. You see it on tv, but it’s nicer in real life. And then you had some old singers sing some popular songs, to which the older crowd was shaking and moving. The strange thing was that I did not see any 20 or 30 something, making me conclude that it’s the kind of town were you grow up and come back after you spend your young life in San Juan or New York.

Unfortunately I found out that there are young people in Mayaguez too. There’s actually a university in the city. It’s quite bustling. And my hotel was right in the middle of downtown where bustling is all it does on a Saturday night. I had met a nice couple during breakfast who were in town for some medical treatment and had to wait 3 hours in between two tests. They offered me to show me around the city, which I happily accepted. They showed me the campus of the university, the mall, the harbour, the tuna producing industries, the ferry to the Dominican Republic and they constantly reminded me to be careful if I would venture out on foot or with my car. It was as if they were giving me a tour in Beirut. I couldn’t possibly think the city was so criminal after the very nice evening I had celebrating the patron saint. However, that second night in Mayaguez I experienced madness in front of the hotel.

I had stayed in after checking out the area around the hotel. There were some bars and clubs but none of them appealed to me. Some looked a bit dangerous, others worked with a door policy based on the dress code. I just enjoyed watching the people and when I still couldn’t sleep at 2.30am, I decided to watch the street live from the outside corridor of the hotel. And then it happened. A car stopped, someone got out, started beating up a guy, who was immediately backed by his friends who started to beat the aggressor, upon which the driver of the car did nothing less than get in reverse, then turn and drive into the fighting crowd! I swear, I couldn’t believe I was witnessing this. I got back to the room, felt very uneasy and had my imagination run wild about a possible Rio style gang war. My paranoia didn’t stop when I saw two police officers do surveillance in front of my window. Although they should have given me some rest and peace, they actually enhanced my fear of being trapped in a crazy action movie. The noise outside was incredible up until 5 am. I never knew what happened to the kids They told me no one got seriously injured, but I find that hard to believe. All I know is that I didn’t sleep at all that night. And all I know is that I couldn’t hear any reggaeton anymore as that was the soundtrack music to this chaos. Every time a boom car drove around the area (showing off, trying to impress), it almost got kicked out of the bed by the mattress moving to the incredibly powerful bass.

PR 10 Puerto Rico End

Puerto Rico has some nice assets. First the people: they are really great. Friendly, attractive, joyful. Then the houses. Very colourful and with lots of flowers. Of course the beaches and the weather is great. And if you had to a mall, you just think you’re in the states. So they do have everything possible. I do want to go back one day, but preferably as the start (or finish) of a Caribbean cruise or an island hopping trip. However, it’s so fucking expensive! And the constant warnings of locals about mugging and carjacking does ruin your careless trip. I wanted to stay in a beach hotel, but don’t go to Puerto Rico for that. And definitely don’t go to the tourist areas Condado and Isla Verde, which look just like Salou. This was my first island trip ever (if you don’t consider Britain to be an island) and I was really wondering why I prefer expensive Puerto Rico than cheaper Cyprus or Malta. Oh well. I’m back in Miami