The Mistakes I Made In Puerto Rico

Now that we are back in Austin, I can’t help but think about all the mistakes I made on our first big adventure. To tell you the truth, I feel like a complete idiot. I had every intention of embracing the culture, attempting the language, and doing every activity possible during our month stay but I failed. I failed miserably. I found myself scared out of my mind right after leaving the airport. As soon as I saw the first big hole in the road, I felt like I had put the girls in danger. Getting lost on the way to our rental only furthered my fear and then to top it all off, the rental ended up not being in a livable condition.

I swore I wanted to embrace the culture and live like a local but after two nights of living in less than stellar conditions, I booked a night at a resort. We were relieved when we turned on the road to the resort. All of a sudden the roads were paved and everything was clean and well maintained. The girls shouted from the back seat that it looked like we were back in the states. Our was clean and the beds were more than comfy. The air condition was refreshing as well. It was late. We were exhausted. We slept. We slept like we hadn’t slept in days because we truly hadn’t slept in days. In the morning we went straight to the pool, and the girls smiles returned to their faces.

I was so relieved. At the resort, I didn’t fear anything. I knew everyone would speak English. I knew we could expect a certain standard of cleanliness. I felt safe.

After leaving the resort, we were able to snag a nice little condo on the beach. This place screamed American with it’s beachy theme.

Right across from the condo was a Walgreens, Mcdonalds, and Wendy’s. I am ashamed to admit that we ate Mcdonalds multiple times a week because I knew that someone would speak English there. I was too afraid to even attempt the language. Actually, i guess you could say I was more embarrassed and ashamed than anything. I didn’t want to offend anyone or look stupid. Shoot… I am still sick from the amount of Mcdonalds we ate.

I don’t even think we did much even though we were there an entire month. We didn’t hike in the rain forest although we did live there for two hellish nights, and we did drive to the rain forest and see La Coca waterfall.

After seeing the waterfall, we even managed to drive up to Yokahu Tower and climb to the top for an awesome view. But everyone says that hiking in the rain forest is a must and we didn’t do that.

We did spend a ton of time at Luquillo beach. It was pretty much a daily activity for us. In the morning we would try and take walks along the beach and then in the afternoon we would grab the boogie board and start jumping waves.

We had plans to see the Bioluminescent Bays but I never got the courage to venture out there with the girls and the baby after hearing some of the horror stories of kayaks crashing into each other and total darkness.

I did randomly decide to splurge on a place on the other side of the island, after we had been there for two weeks, only to get homesick for our little condo back in Luquillo. I lasted one night before going back to the condo. I am still irritated with the amount of money I wasted on that splurge. At least the place had a beautiful backyard. I desperately tried to love it but I just couldn’t.

The girls and I did fall in love with Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. It was definitely made to appeal to tourist with its well maintained roads, English speaking employees, and Starbucks. To me, it was the one place we could go outside of the condo and feel completely comfortable.