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A Puerto Rican Honeymoon

By Amy Swint

After a day that `magical' cannot begin to describe, we pulled up to the Burnham Hotel, downtown Chicago, on Saturday night, relaxed from a luxurious ride in our wedding departure limo (we left the everyday limo in the garage). The hotel was everything this bride could wish for her first honeymoon night-lavishly decorated in dark woods, blue velvet and gold trimmings…and very trendy. We were escorted to our room by James the bellhop, a self-proclaimed Burnham hotel tour guide, shoe shiner, safety officer and `optimistic young person', in his own words. After finally pulling ourselves away from his compelling monologue (only accomplished with a tip), we went into our corner room on the ninth floor with a view of Lake Michigan peeking through the skyscraper alley, though we didn't fully appreciate the view until morning light. Our room was divine, with champagne on ice, chocolates, CD playing in the stereo system and two fluffy robes waiting for us. All was just what we needed after a glorious wedding day. The only hitch to our evening was when I started breaking out in a wicked rash, but then realized that I was just swelling up from the myriad of gnat bites we'd gotten at the outdoor picture session! They were vicious bites, and didn't go away for 4 or 5 days, but by that time they were all mixed in with Puerto Rican mosquito bites anyway, so I didn't really notice.

Sunday, we slept magnificently late, checked out, and got out the map to locate our next hotel, which was only about a block and a half away…nice coincidence (Reuel planned things masterfully in general, but this was pure luck because it was a Priceline.com room!). After checking into the Palmer House Hilton, we took a stroll along Lake Michigan, thought about going to Navy Pier, but then decided to wander through shops on Michigan Ave. and happened upon the perfect jacket for Reuel that we'd looked for all of last season, and on sale. Yay! Next, we were off to the hotel for an early turn-in as I was feeling pretty icky from the bug bites. We ordered room service, I took a hot bath and Reuel tucked me in and fed me an Actifed pill, which might as well have been a frying pan to the head…that was one potent sedative for me, and caused me to alienate my poor new husband, I'm told. Apparently, when Reuel came and joined me, he snuggled up and said, “Amy, we're married, and we're sleeping in the same bed!!” at which point I responded with, “That's nice,” and rolled over. Sorry, honey J

Monday morning we packed up, ate at the corner bakery, found the El station (which was only a block away, also coincidentally!) and headed for Midway airport.

Next: pick your own adventure! Which do you think really happened??

How Monday Ended, option 1:

It was a nice ride to the airport, and our flight to San Juan through Miami for $99 each

was a steal! We caught a cab, checked in at the Marriott Resort on the beach in San Juan, had an evening swim and a lovely outdoor dinner, followed by dancing and then turned in for the night.

How Monday Ended, option 2:

It was a nice ride to the airport, and our flight to San Juan through Miami for $99 each would have been a steal…if we weren't IDIOTS!! Taxiing up to the gate in Miami, the captain invited us to deplane and take a walk around the airport in Miami before reboarding for Puerto Rico. Being the responsible individuals that we are, Reuel and I asked what time the plane would be reboarding and were told 6:25pm. No problem-plenty of time to go and try to find the Cuban coffee shop I remembered with fondness from a previous Miami layover. In fact, looking at our watches and seeing 5:45pm or so, we even had time for some dinner right outside the terminal where our plane was parked. All of a sudden, over a greasy slice of airport pizza, I asked Reuel to look at his watch and had a sickening realization. Central time. AAAAAGH! We ran like the wind (as if the faster we ran, the more chance we had of making the flight-that was pretty funny) only to meet an exasperated group of ticket agents mustering their most unpleasant angry parent faces. We felt like morons, and they persisted in confirming our feelings by telling us we'd missed the flight by 12 minutes, they'd held the plane for us, and paged us over the loudspeaker several times. The only thing that finally broke the ice was when we told them we were on our honeymoon, at which point they just felt sorry for us. After the $100 `stupid tax' for ticket reissue for the next day, we searched for the nicest cheap hotel we could find, judging only from the pictures on the kiosk in the airport. We decided on the Days Inn North near the airport, which said it was five minutes from lots of things to do, showed a nice pool, restaurant, palm trees, etc. etc. and was $50. Not bad! We checked in, beginning to question our choice a bit from the looks of the lobby, and then went to our room-corner room w/ semicircular walls, peeling paint, double bed with a 25-year old polyester pink and kelly green bedspread. Then, imagine in your mind's eye all of this bathed in a green glow from the neon light right outside our window. Ah…just as we were beginning to try and forgive ourselves for our mistake. We pouted for a while (did I mention that it turns out there was nothing to do near this hotel and it was a $20 taxi ride each way to South Beach?) with nothing more than the clothes on our back at our disposal, then ordered a pizza and watched B movies. Eventually, we were laughing, though there were a few aftershocks of regret, especially when we checked into our resort room in San Juan the next night and realized what we'd paid for and not gotten to enjoy :} But, all we really needed was each other-it was a fun married adventure, and we'll never forget CST vs. EST or any other ST again. It's boring when things go too smoothly!

Tuesday, we spent a leisurely morning checking out and getting to the airport for our 2pm flight. This time, we glued ourselves to our seats at the gate and didn't budge until boarding time. Funny, every time we checked in with a ticket agent from then on (to check baggage, etc.), they would give us a strange look and say, `Did you miss your flight or something?'-there must have been a `stupid passengers' stamp on our itinerary. One benefit of our delay was that we got to fly over the Caribbean in daylight, and it was really nice to see the clear blue/green water, coral reefs and mountainous green islands on the way to Puerto Rico from the air. We arrived at the Marriott in the late afternoon and it was lovely-huge lobby with seating around a bar, stage for live bands in the evenings and a dance floor. Our room was beautiful, with the best hotel bed I've ever felt, and a cushy down duvet. There were about three pools outside, a hot tub, a swim-up lunch counter/bar, 2 restaurants by the beach and the beach itself. It was quite a bit different than I expected-brown sand, big surf, and opaque water as opposed to the white sand, crystal clear ocean and almost no surf (due to the coral reefs) I'd seen at Grand Cayman. It wasn't as pretty and classically Caribbean in some ways, as I'd hoped, but it certainly had a more magnificent beauty, with bigger waves crashing on the rocks. It reminded me a lot more of the Atlantic I grew up with during summers at Daytona Beach. Through conversations with various people, we figured out that white sand comes from buffeted and chewed-up coral reef, and the browner sand in parts of PR is due to a lot of volcanic material mixed in-there are actually some purely black sand beaches in PR, we were told. We went for a walk on the beach in the evening-Reuel had his wallet and I had my camera, it was dark and I kept wondering if we were safe. Later we figured out we really shouldn't have done this…oops. For dinner, we went to Miro, a Spanish seafood restaurant, and shared crab croquettes and mixed grilled seafood-oysters, fish, clams, scallops, shrimp, and lots of little octopi. We both agreed the octopus was one of the yummiest things on the plate, as long as you didn't look at it too much.

Wednesday, we rented a car and headed west along the northern coast highway toward Arecibo, to take a look at the giant Arecibo radio telescope. It was a nice drive through the `Karst' region of PR, with the most interesting little hillocks everywhere-miniature individual mountains maybe 8 or 10 stories high poking out all around. Some were terraced and cattle and sheep were grazing all over. The telescope was neat to see-the scale of it was the fascinating part. Reuel and I were both musing over where scientists with big dreams like a giant telescope actually get the courage to try to build their creations and believe that they can make them work. I have seen too many paper clip/duct tape lab projects I think, and find it hard to believe that something on that scale could actually function! But I suppose modern life as we know it is pretty much based on fixed-up duct-tape projects. It started to make more sense how the thing ever got built when we learned that it was originally built for military purposes-spying and such.

Sinkhole at the Camuy Caves

After Arecibo, we were running a bit late to get to the caves at Camuy, about an hour's drive away. We were also starving and stopped for take out from a local Puerto Rican hole-in-the-wall (do they even have electricity in there?, I wondered) that said Pollo BBQ. We managed to communicate that we would like rice and beans, half a chicken and two drinks to go. It was the best, most authentic meal we had all week--moist, fall-off-the-bone, well-spiced chicken, great beans with some sort of orange starchy vegetable in them and sticky rice. Mmm, mmm. As often as we could after that, we stopped at the smallest, worst-looking-on-the-outside places we could find for the best food. That reminds me of another interesting thing about PR-by average American standards, things look pretty run down. That' s been my experience with island/tropical locales in general-the combination of salt, humidity, storms, and heat leads to mildewing and peeling paint pretty quickly-one B&B owner told us that you have to paint every two weeks to keep things looking nice-exaggeration, but perhaps not much of one? The buildings are all very small and square, with flat roofs, and generally pastel-painted stucco. Also in the more rural areas, animals are running around, laundry is out on the porch-that kind of look. I loved it, because it was real and not touristy once you got away from the main beaches.

The Camuy caves were nice, but we missed the grand tour and had to settle for the single cave tour. We entered the cave through a sinkhole (where the roof of part of the cave had collapsed long ago) and it was just magnificent. It was a HUGE cavern (I don't remember the dimensions) with impressive stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. Also, we got to see the roaring underground river that had participated in carving it out. Very nice, but once you've seen it, you've seen it. It wasn't as touristy as the Mammoth Caves in KY (if I remember correctly), so that was nice. We drove back to San Juan that evening and took a stroll on the beach and a dip in the hot tub.

El Morro fort in Old San Juan

Thursday, we spent the morning in Old San Juan-we walked El Paseo de la Princesa and viewed her sculpture, but never did figure out who the Princesa was. That led us to the city wall by the sea-HUGE stone wall rising right out of the water, practically. We went to the San Juan gate and took a back road up a grassy expanse to El Morro, a gigantic stone fort high on the very tip of the Old San Juan peninsula. The Spanish defended PR from El Morro, and did well as long as attacks were from the sea, but not as well when invaders came up from behind, by land. Sweat-soaked from our hike to the fort and tour of it, we walked back down into the city to Fortaleza Calle, a street full of shops, both souvenir-ish and not. We definitely did not see every nook and cranny of Old San Juan, but got a nice overview for a half day. We ate a fabulous lunch at a little café-beef empanada (turnover), chicken in fried plantain cups, rice and beans. AND espresso con leche, my favorite. The coffee was as tasty as I was told it would be.

In the afternoon, we discovered Puerto Rican traffic (typical, we hear) as we drove to Fajardo, at the northeast corner of the island. It probably should have been about a 45 min. drive and I can't quite remember, but I think it took more like 2-2.5 hours. Fajardo was hillier than San Juan, and our hotel was high on a hill with a view of the city and ocean. We checked into the Fajardo Inn, took a swim in the pool, got dressed up, and went to the desk to see what there was to do in town. They told us that there was dancing at the Wyndham resort across the bay. What an experience! We (at least I) didn't know what to expect-Reuel knew from tour book reading that this Wyndham was the only five-star resort in PR. Wow! It was a city of its own, with a huge golf course, manicured lawns and gardens, three or four different hotels (main hotel, residential condos, suites? more?), three giant pools, hot tubs, 6 different restaurants, three jewelry stores, a mini shopping mall in the lobby that was as big as most hotels, parrots in giant cages, conference facilities, a marina, a cable car down to the marina, a ferry for toting beachgoers across the bay to a private island beach, and the list goes on. I have never seen a place like that! We were dressed appropriately, thank goodness, so we had fun pretending to be Mr. and Mrs. Richie Rich, and walking around like we were guests. We decided it would be nice to eat there, but soon discovered that the cheapest food (boring hamburger) was $20/plate and the nicest was a whole lot more. And, all the food was so typically American! It was actually rather sad to realize that these rich tourists come to another country, and just want to eat their own food. We ordered the most local thing we could at the cheapest restaurant, and it wasn't bad, but we would have preferred some more Pollo BBQ from a shack. After dinner, we found the disco, and had some fun getting' jiggy wit' it, to some techno versions of 80's hits--smoke, disco ball and all. I chickened out on the dance floor because I hate looking like white-girl-can't-dance, but Reuel got me feeling free by the end. Since it was off-season for tourists, we were the only ones dancing most of the time, which was probably a good thing.

On Friday morning, we got up early and caught the ferry to Vieques, a smallish island off the east coast of PR. It has about 10,000 inhabitants, lots of natural beaches and untouched beauty, and the eastern half of it is also the home of the US Navy munitions testing site (until 2003, when they are supposed to clear out after the expiration of their contract). There is a very obvious movement against the occupation (Paz = peace is graffiti-written everywhere), and we even saw a protest meeting right outside the gates to the site. Vieques has two small towns and apparently travelers who like a less touristy, more rustic getaway frequent the island. Some of the lodgings don't have modern amenities at all, Reuel read. We were picked up at the ferry station by, `call me Donna', a Swiss-Polish woman who moved to the island 18 months ago to open her bed and breakfast, The Great Escape, and we were her first guests, to our surprise! She was very eager to please and find out what we thought, so we made sure to be a little over the top with our compliments, which made her happy J The inn was beautiful, up in the mountains with a wide ocean view, and wealthy looking summer homes nestled in the hills all around. Her decorating was a bit eclectic, though. There was typical Caribbean-looking wicker furniture in the rooms, but red, yellow, blue and green colored lightbulbs in the hallway, a bright blue neon strip along the top of the building and I Love Lucy posters and alarm clocks in the room. Hmm, couldn't quite figure out that combo! She was a very gracious hostess. Tragically, her husband died six months after they arrived in a car accident when he drove off of a cliff-what an awful story.

After settling in, she took us to rent a jeep, and we drove around for a while, got some bug spray (much needed), and then went to meet our sea kayaking party in Esperanza, the smaller village in Vieques. Kayaking was excellent. Here we found the white sand/clear water Carribean beach I was used to, and paddled out into the open ocean, over 1-2 ft swells, which added some fun to the experience. Later, we went for a swim with the guide, Elena, a very granola and spunky lady, who was a great guide, but a little bit open for a first date, telling us all about her messy divorce and her son named Rainbow, etc. She had a nice dinner for us, and then we set out for the bioluminescent bay. This was the highlight of the trip for me. The water at Mosquito Bay, Vieques, is filled with tiny single-celled algae that emit green light when they feel pressure, up to seven times per night. So, the water looks dark, but anytime you paddle, or run your hand through the water, or look at the edge of someone's kayak, you see a green aura of light in the water. It is beautiful and a very strong effect. We went swimming, bathed in green. My favorite part was pulling my arm out of the water, and watching hundreds of little green droplets falling off of my arm, like twinkling stars. It was absolutely surreal, and so foreign to anything I've experienced. We were both just thinking that God is a creative and marvelous artist…real life is a fairy tale! So much of our honeymoon reminded us of all of our blessings from God-how wonderful to have a mate for life and a beautiful world in which to live. Except…why did he make such a marvelous bay so that it is aptly named Mosquito Bay-I must have gotten 20-30 bites (we weren't allowed to use OFF, because it hurts the bay ecology), and was periodically in a pretty good bit of misery from them. Reuel of course got one or none. I guess I'm sweeter!

We could NOT find our way back to the B&B. We tried our best 3 or 4 times, asked for help at another inn, making friends with the owners (from New York) who didn't know where we were going even though the island is so small, because Donna's place was so new. I think we became the talk of the island while they called all their friends trying to track down our lodgings. Eventually, we found our hostess' phone number and she came and picked us up…so nice of her.

La Mina Falls, El Yunque Rainforest

Saturday morning we had a lovely breakfast and then drove around the island some more before departing on the afternoon ferry back to Fajardo. We picked up our car again, and then drove as fast as we could to El Yunque (the rainforest) for a tour, stopping for some authentic Puerto Rican fast food at Luquillo. Mmmmmm! They had deep fried pastries stuffed with seasoned chicken, crab, lobster, shrimp or beef, plantain fritters and deep fried plantain stuffed with crab. It was divine and we ate there again later. I think we might have paid tourist prices, but I'm not sure. We missed the last tour of El Yunque, but did our own touring, getting a map at the Ranger Station and hiking down to La Mina falls through the beautiful rainforest, full of coqui (little tree frogs specific to PR that are EVERYWHERE and sound beautiful at night as compared to the buzz of cicadas or crickets!), where people were swimming in the pools created by the falls. We didn't swim, but took some pics and had a nice time looking at all of the interesting plants-leaves as big as us in some cases.

In the evening, we drove to Ceiba, south of Fajardo and stayed at the Ceiba Country Inn, owned by more New Yorkers (we met American Northeasterners almost exclusively), settled in and then drove for dinner to Playa Naguabo. We had some fish, beef and shrimp pasteles (large turnovers), tostones (fried plaintain patties), and dessert of flan and guyaba con queso (guava preserves with white cheese), then took a walk along `the strip' where all the locals were out for Saturday night dates and the music was Hispanic and loud. It was a fun time.

Sunday morning we drove to the Puerto del Rey marina to meet Captain Bill and his large sailboat, the Erin Go Bragh. Another family from Indiana who was living in PR due to a job transfer joined us for a day of sailing, snorkeling and BBQ on the boat. They had three very cute towheaded boys who were quite shy. We sailed out to a string of islands that protect the waters around Fajardo, keeping them calm for boating, and stopped at a couple of different islands for snorkeling and swimming. Captain Bill was great! He was the classic sea dog. He's a huge guy with a swarthy complexion, white curly hair and a giant white bushy beard, with a thick Massachusetts accent. He told us he'd been sailing since he was 8 and he was probably in his mid-50's. He seemed like he was full of stories and opinions and chatting with him was great-he'd just gotten married in June on his boat! His wife was away doing FEMA inspections in Louisiana. Snorkeling was beautiful-we saw plenty of parrotfish, angelfish (?), a flounder along the sea bottom and a giant pufferfish (a foot long at least) that a Puerto Rican boy had caught at one of the islands. We were out on the boat from 10am-5pm and it was so nice to relax in the fading sun and ocean breeze as we sailed back to Fajardo.

That evening we drove back to San Juan, to a different beach than the first one we'd been to, called Isla Verde. We pulled up to our five star hotel (yeah, Priceline!) and it was quite cool. It's called The Water Club, and is a totally contemporary boutique hotel-ultra modern sleek chrome and vinyl furniture scattered here and there, very sterile, with blue lights, waterfalls, and candles in the hallways. It's actually pretty tough to describe, but the best thing to say is ultra-contemporary. Our room was lit in blue neon, and quite comfy, with all the little amenities. We felt totally underdressed when we came to check in wearing shorts and t-shirts. Oh well! I was laughing that they made a point of saying, `Oh, you have a Priceline reservation,' when we checked in. I guess that means we're the smart ones! We went for a walk on the beach, and stayed in after a pretty long day.

Monday morning I retrieved breakfast from a nearby bakery, and then we spent the morning at the beach swimming and walking. It was a beautiful beach, except that a bunch of coral and seaweed washes up in the surf during the fall. This we learned from a Puerto Rican lady with whom we swam and chatted for a while. She found out we were on our honeymoon and was cooing at us (as many people did during the week), and left us with a reminder that marriage is not for two, but three, and that we should remember to keep God in the center.

We washed up, checked out, and headed for the airport. Coming home, we did not leave the airplane at Miami, and during the layover one of the agents from our previous scolding walked down the aisle, taking the names of people remaining on the plane. I hid my face, worrying he'd recognize us, and he leaned over and said, `You're the Swints, right? We just need to make sure we don't leave anyone behind,' and gave us a grin. Very funny, ha ha. J

Angel Posters

Amy and Reuel Swint were married on October 5, 2002 in Champaign-Urbana,

Illinois, at the church where they met while graduate students at the

University of Illinois. Reuel is currently a postdoctoral associate in

electrical engineering at the University, researching novel semiconductor

diode lasers and Amy is finishing up her PhD in analytical chemistry.

Reuel hails from Paris, Texas, where he grew up with five brothers and

sisters on his parents' cattle ranch. Amy grew up in a variety of places,

including some years in South Africa; an experience that has left her with

an insatiable desire to see the world. Aside from honeymooning, Reuel and

Amy enjoy entertaining, volunteering at church, working on home fix-up

projects, taking weekend trips and trying new foods.