1. There are roadside food stands everywhere. This whole country smells like food! And yes, there are too many KFCs and Burger Kings, but there are five times as many roadside stands with a whole pig on a spit. We’ve heard the food at our resort isn’t so good, but that’s fine with us–we’ll probably never try it.
2. Puerto Ricans fry EVERYTHING. For lunch today we had a fried cod fritter, two fried chicken empenadas, a fried corn meal stick, and lightly fried mafongo (stuffed plantains). It was awesome.
3. We found the signature Cafe Rio flavor that makes their burritos so good. It’s the flavor in the beans at El Parrilla, a food kiosk in Luqillo.
4. Six hours after taking off from JFK, we were sitting on a secluded beach an hour outside of San Juan.
5. It’s a five minute walk from our hotel room to the beach, and a five minute drive from our resort to the El Yunque rain forest.
6. It’s always cloudy over the rain forest, even when it’s sunny over our beach.
7. Puerto Ricans have a knack for giving cool names to things. The rain forest by our hotel is El Yunque, our town is Luquillo, the town next to that is Fajarda, where you can take the ferry to Vieques. The traditional food is called Mafongo. Great names, all.
8. It’s not uncommon to see kids riding horses around town.
9. Corinne (who really is a bonafide dressage expert) says the horses here have two extra gaits. Not too sure what that means but it has to be a plus.
10. Car rental is 20 bucks a day.
We just posted our first batch of Puerto Rico pics on flickr. More to follow, I’m sure.
