We headed from New York down to U.S. Territory of Puerto Rico and discovered that they are recreating New York nightlife and New York hotels on the island. It sort of has the glitz of the boutique hotels. The place we stayed had a waterfall IN the elevator. The walls of the place were white with neon blue lights shining down on a printed pebble walkway with the sound of surf piped in and a jar of blue jellybeans to munch on while you waited in your hallway for the elevator. Funky.
We checked out the Old San Juan area, a seven block area that is surrounded by thick walls that the Spanish had built with good old slave labor. Upon entering the downtown, we had an initial surprise that many of the buildings looked similar to those in New Orleans. They’ve been painting and refinishing a number of the buildings, so the place is looking rather spiffy. Derrell claims it did not feel much like being in the Carribean, but it was certainly pretty.
Unfortunately for us, we ended up staying along the beach front instead of in the old city and the traffic between the two locales was longer than our patience. With 1 million of the 4 million residents on the island living in the city, we evacuated the island after three nights. The quiet island concept was missing and had more of the blaring music, late night cruising revelry served up with lots of dressed-to-the-hilt, too-fashionable-to-walk style than we were packed for.
So, overall, it was an interesting stop and sort of brought the U.S. Territory reality home… but no match for Hawaiian beaches.
