Happiness Is Puerto Rico: Relaxing, Eating, Snorkeling

View from the Hotel

It's the tail end of the hurricane season and two sisters are determined to get the most out of a week-long holiday in San Juan. Not much effort is necessary when the travel companions are on the exact same page. Priorities in order of importance: sleep, eat, drink, sunbathe, see some stuff. 

During their stay, the girls feel genuinely happy. Despite being caught in the rain (the kind where the sky opens up to drop enormous buckets of water onto shoppers below) only once, the weather is, thankfully, cooperative.

Puerto Rico is oddly very American and un-American at the same time. Costs for meals and shopping are comparable. A Walgreen's down the street from the hotel offers everything you'd find stateside. Sure fuel is dispensed in liters and people eat mofongo and plantain "canoes" (canoas) for lunch, but everywhere you look, it's obvious that PR is an American territory. Still, the sisters feel away, far away from work and responsibilities, which is what vacations are all about.

They sleep in, grab coffee in the hotel lobby, lay out on the hotel's private beach and have dinner in Old San Juan. On the days they decide to "see stuff," they visit the Bacardi factory, take a hike through the rain forest and snorkel off of the island of Culebra. The sisters do this all at a snail's pace because for once they decided that while on vacation they want to feel on vacation and not do so much that when they get home they feel the need for a vacation from their vacation. Got it?

Mofongo

Travel Tip: If I were to go back to PR, I would spend an entire week on the island of Culebra. Just sayin'.