This morning, we prepared for another excursion. This time in Old Town Puerto Rico. We decided to take the bus instead of Uber/Lyft so that we could experience the local flavor. We trotted out to catch the bus close to our hotel and waited for the bus. Waited we did. What's going on here is that there hasn't been a bus coming buy at the intervals we were told by the concierge. This was starting to feel like that time in Utah, where we trucked our ski gear to a bus stop and waited an hour before finding out, buses stopped running the route a week prior. Was this that same curse?
Then, a bus came! Hmmm, he's coming a bit fast, aaaaaand, now he's passed us. We gave it another 10 minutes before we were to call Uber. We had a hard stop at 11am to meet with a tour guide, and we were cutting it close, and then we saw it. The bus. We got on and was prepared to pay the .75 cents we heard was the going rate, but the driver extended the hand and let us on without paying. He must've felt guilty we initially thought. But then other passengers jumped on along the way and we figured out everybody rides for free! Way cheaper than a taxi.
We arrived in Old Town with about 15 minutes to spare. I realized today was probably not a good idea to skip breakfast and was starting to feel the sugar low coming on. We ended up walking up hills a bit, and I'm doing the math on my blood-sugar crash. We found the location where we to meet the guide, the Old Bastille on the top of a fortified hill. We waited at a bench with a bunch of feral cats who reside on the premises to keep rodents at bay. Some were people friendly, but most of them wanted nothing to do with a little petting. The guide (William) showed up and we were on a private walking tour throughout the town. He was nice and gave us a lot of background on the political aspects of Puerto Rico. I liked the political talks, but I suspected Sandra was more interested in more of architectural history.
We walked through some of the colorful streets of metal cobblestones for a couple of hours. Each restaurant and pub we passed had a waking repercussion reminder for skipping breakfast. After our 2-hour limitation we were able to call it good and step out for lunch. Sandra says, "Did you remember to bring the $100 to pay the guide?" Huh? vaguely remember saying something about money as I was lying in bed half asleep when the girls headed to breakfast. But that was quickly a faded memory once I had hit the shower. We were out the door without cash.
Thankfully, he said he does Venmo, so here was technology to save the day. We did the transaction and tipped him well for the 2-hour sunburn around the town.
We went back to a lunch spot we had passed during the tour and climbed up 3 stories to the rooftop tables. We relaxed, ate and had a couple drinks. I finally caught up on my calories and was good for the day. We walked to some of the locations the guide pointed out, until we felt the food coma set in. Alexa was ready to hit the lawn chair on the beach and fortify that burn into a tan.
We caught the bus back, and again, it was a free ride back to the hotel. After getting off the bus, we hit the local CVS (which and since changed into a Farmacia). I picked up a razor and bag of jerky. Sure, the jerky was $20, but it was worth it. Alexa picked up some new sunglasses and she had lost her other pair the day before.
Back at the resort, I grabbed a beer at the beachhead restaurant while Sandra and Alexa sacrificed more in the sun. But the Sun god took and ugly punch with the arrival of the Rain god. The clouds opened and threw down a saturating dump of water. We consolidated under an umbrella until it had passed. Once it had, it was again happy hour/dinner time. We ate at the hotel today since we had a big day in the town and didn't want to go out. We played one hand of cards afterward and called it an early night again. It appears impossible to stay up past 8:30pm in this climate.