El Combate, Puerto Rico

On Monday we visited my great-aunt, who lives by the poular beach El Combate in the southwestern corner of Puerto Rico. They live in a big, beautiful, saffron colored house with peach trim. In the backyard there is a lush tropical garden filled with flowering trees and fruit trees. I think you could just toss a seed on the ground in Puerto Rico and it would grow - the vegetation is so dense and abundant. She lives there with her second husband, who is twenty years younger than she, which caused a bit of a scandal in the family when I was a little girl, though I couldn't understand what the fuss was about at the time.

They gave us deep yellow bananas from their own banana tree, which were shorter, fatter and sweeter than those we buy at the grocery store, and my dad's cousin propped a ladder against a tree and picked us a bag full of quenepas, a fruit that was new to me.

The quenepa is small and green, about as tall as a quarter. To eat it you bite gently into the rind, pull it off, and suck the sweet pulp off the pit, which you then discard along with the rind. The fruit is sweet, kind of like a plum. They're kind of addictive.

The neighbors had chickens and roosters walking around the yard, and the kids got a kick out of watching them through the fence. It's funny how common it is to see chickens just walking around houses in Puerto Rico. I wonder if they don't have regulations against having chickens in town? I don't know. We even saw a guy sitting on the side of the road selling caged chickens and roosters.

After a while the kids got bored - you know, older relatives, no toys in the house - so my dad drove us down to the beach. It was their first experience with salt water, and they weren't too impressed with it. Yuck! It was weird, because after we'd been in the water about an hour and a half, the kids both started complaining that the water was stinging them, so we got out and looked for seashells until Dad came to pick us up.

I was glad that they got to go visiting, though, and see a real Puerto Rican home, chickens, quenepas and all. It can be hard to get a real sense of a place if all you do is go to tourist attractions.

Woof!

Strolling around Ponce you can't help but notice the stray dogs wandering around - usually alone but sometimes in packs. Most of them are on the small side, but I've seen a couple of big dogs too. I've instructed my kids to steer clear of them, even though they seem mild enough.

Today the kids and I ate lunch at the Burger King across the plaza, and a cute, wiry little yellow dog managed to slip into the place. The kids in the restaurant were cooing over her and petting her. The manager instructed one of the workers to pick her up and carry her outside but she just stood outside the door with a big doggy smile on her face, waiting to get in again. The manager went outside and tried to lure her away from the restaurant with a juicy burger, but she just gobbled it up and promptly returned to the door again. Pretty funny.

Cathedral, Cruceta el Vigia, Seralles Castle, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Sunday morning we had breakfast on the rooftop dining area of the Hotel Melia, then killed an hour before going to mass at the cathedral in the plaza. My father remembered walking to that church every Sunday as a child and was looking forward to attending mass there again for the first time in more than 50 years.

Unfortunately, the church seemed to be undergoing renovations, and many of its statues were obscured by plastic coverings. It was a pity, because the statues that were not covered were magnificent, and from what I could see peeking out from the edges of the plastic covers, the others were probably equally stunning. My kids did a great job behaving, especially considering that the mass was in Spanish and they can't speak a word of it. Still, I could tell it was important to my father, so I brought them and they did okay.



We went back to the hotel and changed out of our church clothes, then headed up the hill to visit the Vigia Cross and the Seralles Castle. The Vigia Cross was erected as a monument to the original cross that stood there. Apparently, ships frequently stopped at the city's ports, so to alert the townspeople of arriving ships, they decided to erect a cross high on the hill and have a guard keeping watch on the bay. When the guard spotted a ship, he raised a flag of the country that the ship hailed from on the cross. In this way the town's merchants were aware of any trade ships approaching the city or of potential pirate ships entering the bay.

From the cross we headed to the nearby Seralles Castle. The Seralles family founded Don Q rum and continues to own it to this day. The mansion was built by the son of the company's founders in the 1930s. From the house one can see all of Ponce spreading out to the sea, and I though that Seralles must have felt like royalty, with his kingdom before him. We walked through the beautiful rooms, marvelling at the decor. The kids were bored until I began asking them to pick three things from each room that they'd like to have in their rooms at home, if they could. This little trick caused them to really look at the rooms to figure out the things they'd most like to take home, if they could. I definitely plan to use it again in the future for trips to museums and other places that make the little ones groan.

My dad's grandfather was once an accountant at the Seralles family's sugar plant, which bought sugar from the local farmers and processed it for use in the rum. We were surprised to spot him in a photo of the plant's supervisors located in one of the mansion's rooms devoted to the history of the family's businesses. He died when I was six and I only vaguely remember him, a skinny old man with a shock of thick white hair sitting in a rocking chair. In the picture he's young and vibrant. I like to think of him posing for that picture with his friends from the other departments, never guessing that one day far in the future his great-great grandchildren would be exclaiming over it.

After we got back to the hotel the kids swam for a while, then we tried to find a place to eat close by, but everything was closed, so instead we went to the Ponce Hilton Resort where we had dinner at La Terraza. The Hilton looked impressive and the food was scrumptious. I highly recommend getting the salad bar, because although I'm not a big fan of rabbit food, there was also an incredible shrimp salad, crab salad and a tasty cream of plantain soup, which I thought resembled corn chowder as well as a number of delicious desserts. I had the flan - yum.

Arriving in Ponce, Puerto Rico

We arrived in Ponce and found Hotel Melia, where we'll be staying until Thursday. I should mention that the reason we've traveled to Ponce is that my father was born here and moved away when he was nine, so he's been longing to come back and see the places he remembers so vividly from his childhood.

We dropped off our suitcases in our rooms and then my dad, the kids and I headed out to the plaza, the heart of Ponce. My father told us that when he was a child the custom in town was to take a promenade around the plaza on weekend evenings, greeting old friends and making new ones. The four of us took a slow stroll around the plaza, stopping to look at the Parque de Bombas, a brightly colored building that was originally built for an exhibition and was donated to the city's homeless firefighters after the exhibition was over. Today the firehouse is well known throughout Puerto Rico and is a popular tourist attraction.

Behind the Parque de Bombas, facing the opposite street was the city's beautiful cathedral, with spires stretching toward the heavens. I jogged over to the tall front doors to read the mass schedule for the following day, Sunday, so that the four of us could attend.

We continued to the center of the plaza where a fountain shot water high into the air. Lions, the symbol of Ponce, adorned the fountain on four sides.

After that we walked over to an ice cream place across the street from the plaza that had a line stretching out the door. There were placards on the wall with the flavors of ice cream available, from good old chocolate to the exotic tamarind. I chose pineapple, while the kids both picked lemon and my dad went with coconut. The ice cream was quite tasty, though more of a sherbet than the type of ice cream I usually get at home. After we finished our ice cream we walked back to the hotel and put the kids to bed. It was a long day, but a good one.

Getting to San Juan, Puerto Rico

When we got to San Juan we picked up our luggage and went outside to get a shuttle to the rental car office. This was frustrating, since it was extremely unorganized. There was a long curb and you had to flag down the shuttle bus for your rental car company as it came by. We saw huge shuttle buses passing by for Hertz and Budget, but nothing for our company, Enterprise. Finally we spotted a small minivan crammed with people, with Enterprise emblazoned across the side. I'm not sure exactly how long we waited, but it was 92 degrees and humid, we were tired and the little one was cranky, so it seemed interminably long. Another minivan came and filled up before we could get to it. After another wait another Enterprise minivan arrived and took us to their office, a beautiful building with that brand new smell because it had just opened three days before. The car is a 2007 compact Kia and has been operating wonderfully.

We'd promised the kids McDonald's as a reward for being good on the plane and had spotted one down the street, so we went there after we got the car. McDonald's was next door to BeBo's BBQ Chicken, which the shuttle driver said was the best chicken in Puerto Rico. The aroma surrounded us as we got out of our car in the McDonald's parking lot and I was tempted to just get the McDonald's for the kids and carry it over to BeBo's so I could get me some of that scrumptious smelling chicken. But it would be rude to bring McDonald's to Bebo's, so we didn't. I am definitely going there when we go back to San Juan at the end of the week, though.

The Flight - Entertaining the Little Ones

Flew out of Detroit this morning. We followed Jamie the desk guy's instructions and reported outside the doors of the Westin by 5:45 to take the shuttle to our terminal - easy-peasy. I'm glad that we didn't have to deal with looking for parking at the economy lot and hiking to the shuttle stop with our 50 lb suitcase and then waiting for the shuttle to appear at that hour of the morning. Especially in light of the fact that there was a 20 minute line to get through the security checkpoint. Anyway, we got to the gate just as they started boarding.

We took some books, a leapster for my 4-year-old and my 7-year-old's Nintendo DS for entertainment. We flew US Airways and they offered movies and tv shows for kids, free if you had your own earphones or they sold earphones for $5 that would be yours to keep. We had earbuds for our handheld games, and they worked in the earphone outlets, though only one ear worked. That was enough though. The videos were perfect for my son but a bit too old for daughter, who soon lost interest. That's where the Westin colored pencils & postcards came in handy, since I'd left our crayons and coloring book at home.

On our way to Puerto Rico!

Today we began our journey to Puerto Rico! We saved several hundred dollars by flying out of Detroit Metro Airport, which is a 2.5 hour drive away. We have a 7:15 AM flight so I decided to stay at the Airport Westin hotel. I found a good rate through the hotel's website, and we'll still be saving lots of money on the plane tickets, even with the gas and hotel. The hotel also had a sleep and fly deal where you get savings on parking for 8 days, so we took advantage of that.

The room is nice sized with muted earth tone decor, a sleek black wooden desk and furniture, leather headboards - a businessman's room. We have a view of the planes and as we walked into the room one was landing, so the kids are getting a kick out of that, but the rooms are perfectly soundproof - you can't hear the airplanes at all. The lobby is beautiful with tall bamboo trees, a reflecting pool and lobby bar/restaurant. When we checked in the very friendly and helpful guy at the desk - Jamie was his name- gave the kids each a Westin kid's club bag, which contained a cotton hat, colored pencils, a world map, and make-your-own postcards with a stencil. It's a nice little kit and should keep the kids busy during down time on our trip.

$10 bucks for the wifi - bummer! I refuse to pay it so I'll have to write this now and post it tomorrow when I have free internet.

Bonus - there are herbal teas and Starbucks coffee in the room! My husband and I love Starbucks and it's the only kind we drink at home, so it's nice to have it in the hotel - I hate that watery junk that hotels usually provide. Right now I'm enjoying a soothing cup of chamomile tea before I turn in. Big day tomorrow - goodnight!