Me fui de vacaciones con Bad Bunny
- Monica Puerto
- Jul 25, 2022
- 6 min read
Puerto Rico was a last-minute trip and not our original Memorial Day vacation plans. It's July now, two months later from exactly when we went and we are still in a small Covid wave. We originally were going to end up in Colorado but unfortunately, our good friends/hosts caught Covid. They have since recuperated. The majority of my friends and family already caught it, thankfully with vaccines, everyone recuperated just fine and hybrid immunity has shown to last much longer than natural infection, so I went to Puerto Rico and have been traveling unphased :). This was around the same time that Bad Bunny, a local and now global artist released his latest album which we saw advertising everywhere on buildings with his beautiful album art. Highly recommend a listen, it's really all I have been listening to for the last few months.
After a long delay on the tarmac, we landed in beautiful Puerto Rico, known to the Tainos who lived there for an estimated thousand years before contact as Borinquen. The term boricua is still used today meaning someone from Puerto Rico. To me when I arrived it was the island where I did not have to spell out my name to anyone, and where Colby's favorite rum was produced, but when I left I had a whole different perspective and appreciation. That is why it is important to travel. When you travel, you gain first-hand experience, and that is always life-changing because it stays with you.
During our stay here we visited the Castillo de San Felipe, El Morro, a National Park US Historic Site since Puerto Rico became a commonwealth and a World Heritage Site as well. We visited Old San Juan, a beautiful historic old city in the island's capital at the northern tip of the Island. We then hiked in a cloud forest called El Yunque, which is a national forest. It is the only tropical US rainforest. We rented a car and also visited some different beaches in the southeastern parts of Puerto Rico in Maunabo. And lastly, we did what is considered a rum pilgrimage to Colby to his favorite rum distillery in the world, El Ron de Barrilito. Click here for a map of the sites listed previously. I covered about 20,000 steps each day. I was definitely sore when I came home but worth it!
We stayed in Isla Verde, just outside of San Juan; about a 15 min uber ride away. The beach was beautiful and crowded on Memorial Day but we stayed till Wednesday and it was much calmer on Isla Verde after. We arrived in time for dinner and some drinks. We had the best rum cocktails I have ever had and I grew up in Miami.
This is our first night arriving, already enjoying the amazing drinks (yes plural) in Puerto Rico.
The next day we woke up early and went to visit the famous forts and Old San Juan.
In the the16th century, El Morro was a large military base for Spain and a strategic point for trade routes in the Caribbean. For Spaniards, it symbolized strength but for Puerto Ricans it symbolized oppression. During the Spanish American War, the United States had its eye on Puerto Rico as a US military occupation. After about 200 days of fighting, Spain's defeat resulted in Cuba's independence and now the United States controlled Puerto Rico and Guam. As of now Puerto Ricans at times feel like second-hand citizens, and do not have representation. Currently, there is about a fifty-fifty split on whether residents of Puerto Rico want statehood or not. Living in DC for about six years it was frustrating to pay those high taxes and not have representation. I am not going to get into the examples of how Puerto Rico is exploited via the tax breaks given to companies in the United States because Bianca Graulau, a Boricua storyteller does a great job at it.
Also a random coincidence, my mom was the same age when she came to Puerto Rico and visited El Morro and San Juan as well. My father traveled a lot for work, so my mother would often tag along, and also us eventually when we were older to new places! I think that is where I got my love for traveling.
After a couple of hours of exploring El Morro and reading about its history, we headed to Old San Juan.
Walking through Old San Juan and the cobbled stones, and narrow streets, under the hot sun through the colorful maze of different pastel-colored buildings was entrancing. You could almost taste the salt in the air from the heavy tradewinds.
We stopped at a couple of bars and a smoothie place to cool off and also grabbed lunch. Each bar had its own flare, especially the Marilyn Monroe Bar. I talked to the owner and asked if he ever met Marilyn Monroe and what was her obsession. He laughed and said he bought this bar decades ago and there were already some memorabilia and people would gift him items over the year. Sadly he never had the chance to meet the muse of his bar.
We went back to the hotel, which had a pool to cool off thankfully, and went to sleep to wake up early for our next adventure.
We rose early and before heading to Maunabo for a change of scenery, we visited the Botanical gardens that were run by the University of Puerto Rico. I have had the privilege to visit probably over ten botanical gardens throughout the United States, and I was so sad to see the state of this botanical garden.
This made me sad because I love botanical gardens. You learn so much about the ecosystem and plants and animals native to the area through these botanical gardens. As a tropical place, this could have been a beautiful garden of colorful flowers. I wish I was rich to donate money to help turn this place around. We did see some overly friendly turtles that definitely wanted us to feed them which we obviously didn't.
After walking around for about thirty minutes we decided to head out towards Maunabo, and those beaches definitely did not disappoint. We went to two, Playa Tuna Lighthouse and Playa Los Bohios which was a black sand beach.
The next day we headed to El Yunque! Unfortunately, we discovered while hiking that the peak was closed but the tower nearby was still available to hike to and still provided stunning views if you were fast enough before the clouds arrived and engulfed you. It was a nice workout among the serene sounds of the native Coqui frog. It is such a cute sound, especially when there are many coquis singing at once. If you have never had the privilege of listening to the Coqui, click here.
Colby and I like to wake up early to hike to have trails to ourselves and beat the crowds. You get great parking and then have the rest of the day to enjoy still if it is not a long hike. We then headed back to shower and then go to Colby's beloved distillery, El Ron De Barrilito.
You can not find much of this product in the United States, if I remember from the tour, they said they sell about 30% outside of Puerto Rico and make most of their sales in Puerto Rico. It is a family-owned distillery that has been passed down from generations dating back to 1880. The formula and the process have not been changed much since then impressively. The family wants to keep its niche and not compete with giants like Bacardi. In that way, you can tell they prioritize quality over quantity. I do not love rum by itself but after tasting Ron De Barrilito, I am definitely a convert and a huge fan. Their product stars correlate with the longevity of aging. They start out with two stars that have been aged in the barrels for 3-5 years, the three stars between 6-10 and are an excellent sipping rum, four stars that are aged for up to 20 years, and lastly the five stars that are aged up to 35 years with a selling price of $799 (not including shipping).
And on that sweet note, I will end this blog post!
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