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Published: January 14th 2009
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Morning Duty
Sun, sand and obligation - someone had to do it and we voluteered! Ok, here we go.............we got a late start today -
we are on vacation, you know! Nice breakfast at the inn and then the one block trip to the beach - tough duty, but we volunteered! Oh, did we mention that it was 84 and sunny today :-) Walked on the beach and in the water, sat and received our daily vitamin D dose and then changed and headed south. (dinner yesterday was at Bebo's cafe, delicious Puerto Rican food, mofongo and pork chunks, mofongo and chicken, rice and red beans, salad, and Medalla, - then a short walk back to the inn)
Our first stop was the little town of
Cidra. We discovered this beautiful place from the breakfast cook. She grew up in this town and mentioned it was on the way to one of our predetermined destinations. The town is located in the eastern end of Puerto Rico's Central region and is in a mountainous and rural. The outskirts of the town shows signs of modern development (Mikey Ds, etc) but the pueblo, the downtown area, was true to historical form. We parked on the Plaza de Recreo Francisco M. Zeno and found the church and a
Cidra
Beautiful Plaza lively game of dominoes.
Next stop,
Cayey - our planned destination of the day. We were planning on discovering the pleasures of pork sandwiches we had heard about on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show. Note, we said, were planning. As we followed the back roads from Cidra to Cayey, we looked on our map for the restaurant and the name of the restaurant. Unfortunately, we had left the name of the restaurant at the inn and the directions we had printed from Google only led us to the town. So................we decided to try and locate an internet cafe to access the information online. After stops at Burger King and Chilis, both had wireless hot spots, but we did not have our computer with us.............so...................we headed for the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey to try and find access in the library. The guard at the main gate accepted our Rowan IDs and we found the library. Well, turns out you need a password to get on the computers, so we asked the Coleccion Puertorriquera librarian if she knew of our restaurant (remember, the one without a name that we could remember). Long story short, she and her assistant finally
Lechonera
Lunch - it was the best! combined their Spanish and limited English to identify the area where this type of restaurant is located. The area, Guavate, was located in the mountains overlooking Cayey and we did find the restaurant. OBTW - small world - the librarian's daughter just graduated from Rutgers and lives in New Brunswick - yes, small world.
Our
Lechonera Los Pinos experience was fantastic. The restaurant building is without windows and doors - completely open air with a roof overhead. The first thing you see are two pigs on spits in the front of the restaurant - one whole and one that had been partially enjoyed by earlier customers. The waitress and cook did not speak English, so we pointed to the pig and held up two fingers. The result was 1 pound of pork divided between the two of us. Our plates were full of pork, pork skins, white and yellow rice, red beans, mango, and yucca. The extended search for the restaurant was WELL WORTH it!
After this feast, we continued on the
RUTA panoramico, which is the panoramic - less traveled road. The drive south through the mountains was breathtaking. Passing through the Bosque de Guavate we saw
bamboo, palms, pines, small groups of homes, few people, windy roads, and one view after another. We ended up in
Guayama and then on to
Salinas - which is on the Caribbean Sea side of Puerto Rico - a short distance from Ponce. Both were interesting little towns with Puerto Rican architecture - stucco - yellow, blue, pink, orange - many flat roofs - one story - with distinctive iron work on the windows and doors.
Took the major highway back through the mountains to San Juan. Parked our car in the center of Condada and walked on the beach, into the Conch hotel (incredible) and filmed a
Stella beer commercial that was being projected on the wall of the San Juan Beach hotel (
attached to this blog entry). Back to the inn and sitting on the deck above the outdoor bar having a beer and writing our daily journal.
Tomorrow we head west to Ricon...............more about our adventures on Wednesday!
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