After passing my finals on Harvard law school in Boston, Massachusetts, I decided to treat myself with a luxurious trip to the Caribbean. Going to Harvard has been so exhausting and I really needed a break from everything before I started my new job at Burns and Levinson as an attorney. I drove to JFK and took an airplane straight to Luis Munoz Marin airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ride took approximately 4 hours and I was sleeping the whole time. I only woke up when we were landing and when a baby behind me started crying. I remember how the burning heat from Puerto Rico just hit me right in the face. It felt like I was in an aluminum suite. Today it is 15 days ago and thank God I`ll be here for another 13 days! After that I am going to meet Sophie in Jamaica. She is my best friend and I know we will have so much fun together.
Going to Puerto Rico alone is a magnificent experience and the last 15 days has been incredible and so educational. Like, who knew that the world’s largest radio telescope that is about 305 meters in diameter is located in Puerto Rico, or that the island was discovered by Christopher Columbus on one of his trips. I for once did not, and now I would like to share some of my experiences with you.
I am staying at the Hotel El Convento in San Juan, the capital. This hotel is beautiful and gigantic. The hotel has four stars and the most amazing mofongo I've ever tasted, and I have tasted it in essentially every restaurant here. Mofongo is a mashed mound of baked bananas with seafood, vegetables or meat in it, you only get both seafood and vegetables at the hotel and it tastes like heaven. To top it off they serve it with rice and beans and a sauce I adore but don’t really know the name to. Puerto Rico is a wonderful island in the Caribbean. It has a rectangular shape and is approximately 100 miles long and 35 miles wide between the north and south coast and 90 miles wide between the east-west coasts. The island is the eastern most island in the island group Greater Antilles in Caribbean. The capital of Puerto Rico is San Juan and other big cities are Ponce, Patillas, San Germàn and El Yunque. Because Puerto Rico is an island it does not border to any country but the other main islands in the Caribbean. These are countries like Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There are also loads of small islands like St. Lucia, Barbados, British Virgin Islands and Bahamas plus a whole bunch of others. Puerto Rico lies thousand miles southeast of Florida, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the British Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico belongs to the United States but is in fact not a state. If it was, it would have been the third smallest state before Delaware and Rhode Island. Puerto Rico has 3.8 million inhabitants and most of them come from the U.S. It is calculated that almost every person has been in America. Puerto Rico also has many mountain ranges and the tallest mountain lies in the city Ponce and is 4,389 feet. It is called Cerro de Punta. I actually saw the mountain when I was in Ponce, it is kind of cool to say I have seen the highest mountain in Puerto Rico. I did not try to climb it though, that would have been too exhausting, plus I only were in Ponce for a day, and there was so much to do. There are also so many beaches here; you have the Ballenas, Isla Verde, Seven Seas, Conado beach and many more. The beaches are so soft and you feel like you are flying while walking on them, that's how soft they are. You just want to squeeze your feet under the sand and bury yourself onto the lightness and warmth of the white beaches. The longest river is Rio de la Plata which is 60, 5 miles and lies in the North Coast of the island, and flows from south to north and drains out in the Atlantic Ocean.
The island has a tropical Marine climate. That means it's hot all year round and the air is always steamy. The main temperature is 26 degrees all year round and there are always sunny and warm days here. It is the winds that blow in from east that determines the temperature and sometimes when the wind is extra strong hurricanes may arise, but hopefully not when I am here. In the months between May to October it rains the most and those months are called the hurricane season. Over all the year it rains about 60 inches in north and 36 inches in south. The last 15 days has not been as hot as I imagined, but it is hot enough.
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| Cerro de Punta |
A while ago when I was in Ponce I had an English guide walk me through the city. She told me that Juan Ponce de Leon was the first European to ever visit Florida. He was of Spanish origin and worked as a boy for the royal court delivering messages. When he got older he joined the military and later on he sailed with Columbus. As a reward for his service to Spain, Ponce de Leon was given the right to find Bimini, an island in Bahamas that was supposed to be the place of the fountain of youth. The legend says that whoever drinks from the fountain of youth will never grow old. Ponce did travel, but not to Bimini, he travelled all the way to Florida. He thought he was on an island and called the place Florida because in Spanish Florida means flowers and supposedly there was so many of them. Ponce couldn’t find anything and sailed back. Five years later he decided to go on another voyage to find this fountain. This time he landed on the west coast of Florida … again, but he was met by Native Americans shooting at them instead of pretty little flowers. Ponce was shot and taken to Cuba where he died in 1521 from his wounds.
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| Juan Ponce de Leon |
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| A city in Florida named after Ponce |
It was fun to hear about Ponce de Leon especially because I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean; on stranger tides. And this movie is about finding the fountain of youth.
The capital San Juan is divided in the old and new city. The old city is located to the west of San Juan. It is a well maintained district from the 15th century. This was the only city there was, around was just landscape so they built a city wall around the entire place, this to prevent any intruders to come in. La Puerta de San Juan was the official gate into the city for those who came with ships. And just up the block is a Cathedral the travelers went to, to thank God for allowing them to make the journey. The Cathedral is also Juan Ponce de Leon’s grave chamber. That is why the capital is called “Juan”. It was really cool to go downstairs in the church and be guarded by monks to see Ponce’s grave. The monks were completely silent, they did not speak what so ever and I was not allowed to either. It was strange, I had to sit kneeling between two monks who were praying. I was too scared to even look up so I pretended to pray as well.
When I was walking through old San Juan which I have quite a few times now, I could see how beautiful the buildings were and I could just stare at them for hours. The balconies, coble stone streets and buildings made me feel like I went back in time for real. It was somewhat poetic to go there alone and take pictures. One of the many museums in San Juan fell particularly in my favor. I loved La Casa Blanca which is a house built for Ponce de Leon also the governor of San Juan. But he died before it was finished so his family lived there for 250 years.
In “the new San Juan” or more appropriate “materialized San Juan” they have a business district where all the office jobs are, and all the “fancy buildings”. San Juan also has some casinos. I was at a casino one night and things kind of got a bit wild. Partying with the locals of Puerto Rico was such an experience, and very different from Boston. People just came up to me all the time and asked me questions and expected that I would answer. They dragged me to the dance floor and gave me lots of drinks. But they were so nice and sweet, though. Especially this woman who started talking about something she had seen, out of the blue, I couldn't figure out exactly what but she wouldn`t stop talking. I also remember that at one point they were all showing me these tricks they could do and telling Puerto Rican jokes and I had no idea what they were saying, I just laughed along.
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| Me in the old San Juan |
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| La Puerta de San Juan |
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| The church |
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| Ponce de Leon's grave |
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| My casino, lots of memories there... |
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| The business district |
In Puerto Rico I couldn`t not go to a spa, so I took a train down to El Conquistador near Carolina and stayed one night at the spa resort they had there. And let me just say, it was an out of my body experience. I can still feel the cool air and breathe in the wonderful smells. The whole place was floweriest and smelled like roses and peonies. It is called the Golden Door Spa and it really was golden. They had many treatments there, for instance health and fitness care, beauty makeover, massages, Pilates, Yoga, saunas, baths, and so much more. Everything was so well prepared; I even got my own robe, and managed to take it with me. It was pink and had the letters GDS engraved in gold. I was served room-service for breakfast and lunch and dinner I ate in the garden under a pavilion whilst reading my Jane Austen novel and looking at the wavering sea. I know, it sounds just like a movie, and let me tell you it did feel like it. The food they had was healthy and organic and tasted like a mix of both heaven and paradise in one beautifully formed dish. The best thing I ordered was a plate of cheese. I got all kinds of cheese-types with walnuts, honey, apples and grapes. It was really delicious.
The massages I had were life-changing or at least need-to-sort-my-money-priorities changing. I was in there for about six hours. I had a head and neck massage and a back and shoulder massage. When they massaged my back they covered it with hot chocolate and surprisingly it was not bad at all, it felt great. At the end they did my nails both toe and finger-nails. It was just marvelous and I smelled like coconuts, olive oil and chocolate afterwards. I know it sounds gross but it really wasn’t.
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| This is exactly what they did to my back, no one could take my picture so I found one online. |
I'm so excited, so wish me luck!
- Edda
- Edda
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