Beach Days

Day 7 and 8 --- Friday and Saturday
The drive through the mountainous Ruta Panoramica was beautiful, but very winding, like driving through a rainforest. We picked wild mangoes on the way. We were heading for the north-west corner of the island, but had no place to stay. After getting lost a few times, we stumbled across a small beach community called Playa Shacks, tucked away far from any main roads. We found a rental place owned by a young Canadian, Trevor. We couldn’t believe our luck --- the house was sitting right on one of the most beautiful beaches imaginable, just steps from the ocean. Our big wooden patio overlooks the ocean and within seconds we can be swimming in clear turquoise waters with no other people in view.

Trevor also told us about a local bar, Ola Lola and a few places to eat. In the evening we went to Ola Lola, which is a shack with 3 tables just up the road from us. It turned out to be a very interesting place, a gathering of transplants from the US and other English-speaking countries. The owner and his wife are from Michigan – he wrote grant proposals for the Kalamazoo county and she taught speech pathology at the university. Now, they are running this beach bar and seem to be doing quite well. Saturday lunch was lechon asado (roast pig) which we had to drive miles over curved narrow roads to find. Regretfully, we couldn’t get any veggies to go with it because Puerto Ricans do not eat vegetables or fruits. It’s very hard to find any in stores and fruit stands are few and far between. It’s hard to understand why in a tropical climate people would eat just fried stuff and meat and rice and beans.