We're back! While our fellow DCers suffered Good Friday snow and less-than-seasonal temps, we had a great time in Puerto Rico. Rather than a blow-by-blow of what we did, though I'd like to focus this entry on a few important things that Pat and I learned on our trip. Sort of a public-service announcement, if you will. We thought we were pretty well prepared for the Spanish-speaking contingent down there; Pat speaks a decent Spanish, and I can usually understand enough to get the gist of whatever someone's saying to me. But there were a few key phrases we wished we had studied up on before our trip.
I'm sorry, my car seems to have run over this iguana. (Ay yi yi, el iguana es muerto.) Pat and I were well-warned about the human and vehicular dangers that awaited us on Puerto Rican highways and backroads. Mere hours after arriving, however, as we drove carefully along looking for signs to El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest to belong to the National Forest System, I spotted something in the road. At first, I thought it was a stick, or maybe a board, so I gave Pat a standard passenger warning. "Hey, there's something in the road up there." As we got closer, I suddenly KNEW exactly what that stick was, but the proper word eluded me, so I stuttered, "It's a... a... you know... a..." and just as our car reached the point of no return, "AN IGUANA!" THUD. Pat later told me that he had hoped to "straddle" the iguana with the car, but I can assure you that the lizard was not straddle-able. The horrible-yet-hilarious mental image had us in embarrassed fits of giggles for the rest of the trip. We consoled ourselves with the fact that the iguana is not a native species to the island, so really we were sort of doing the natural ecosystem a favor. Right?
Hey, is that a rabid mongoose over there? (Esta eso una mongosta rabida?)
To read Let's Go's guide to Puerto Rico is to become convinced that the entire forested area of the island is teeming with hordes of rabid mongooses, lying in wait for hapless tourists to wander by, only to jump out and... I don't know. Bite them? Bite them, I'm sure. I got to thinking, after the fact, that I have hiked in areas with rattlesnakes, or mountain lions, or... whatever, rabid raccoons, and beyond glancing at the big "WARNING: MOUNTAIN LION AREA" signs, didn't really give it much of a second thought. But those Puerto Ricans, they're serious about their mongostas, man. Needless to say, we saw exactly zero mongooses, rabid or otherwise. But we DID learn the Spanish word for mongoose, so that's something.
I'm sorry, Officer, I didn't mean to cut you off on your police motorcycle. (Por favor, aqui esta todo mi dinero. Esta bien?) Once we got all the hazards of Puerto Rican fauna out of our way, we were able to enjoy traveling around like locals. Which, in the southern city of Ponce, meant that at a four-way city intersection, Pat made a right turn IN BETWEEN two motorcycle cops. Don't remember that ever happening on CHiPs. Don't get me wrong, Pat theoretically had the right of way, but still. Foreign (sort of) police officers. Don't usually like being cut off. They didn't pull us over, but if they had, we were going to blame the iguana.
So, grasshoppers, if you ever find yourselves on a flight to the Enchanted Island (no, really, it's on the license plates!), brush up on these phrases. It could mean the difference between a successful trip and spending half your time figuring out what the proper way to pluralize "mongoose" in English is. And in all seriousness, PR was great, we DID get one run in (along the "Paseo Del Morro" in San Juan, sandwiched between the walls of the old city and the ocean), the hiking was beautiful, and did you know that if you go to the Bacardi factory down there, they give you a free tour AND two free drink coupons for rum-based drinks? Good times, and we've got the sunburns to prove it.
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