Originally I didn't have Puerto Rico on my travel list - a big mistake. Fortunately, chance has led to a visit to Puerto Rico. The plan was that Katharina would fly there a few days before and I would follow so that we would have two more days together. No sooner said than done: Katharina had already got to know great people and the city of San Juan in the first days, so I had the pleasure to explore a lot of Puerto Rico in the little time I only had.
Even the taxi ride from the airport was a highlight. My elder taxi driver Wito had a rattle and a guitar in the passenger seat next to Jesus pictures and rosaries in his taxi. He pulled them out at the crossroads to accompany the song from the CD. It didn't surprise me that on the back of his taxi business card he had his band's contact details for booking gigs.
We lived in the middle of Old San Juan in an AirBnB apartment with Jenny, the best host you could wish for. She had great tips for the city and exploring the island and let us dive into Puerto Rico's attitude to life. So on the evening before my arrival Katharina cooked together with Jenny and her friends and they liked Katharina's Austrian Kaiserschmarrn a lot 😉 When I arrived in Puerto Rico, Katharina welcomed me with the words "it's a power cut, it can take up to 36 hours, but why don't you have a mojito". Since Tanzania, power cuts really can't shock me anymore. So we slurped Mojito before we went into town to eat a stuffed avocado. So I loved San Juan at first sight.
Katharina showed me the city as well as Jenny's favourite places and shared some interesting insights from her Guided tour from the day before with the architect Andy. For example, the old houses in Old San Juan are only one-storeyed and the higher the house, the younger it is. A really great city, which I can only recommend everyone to visit. Colorful beautiful houses, cobblestones and music everywhere. Unfortunately I wasn't there on Sunday when Katharina visited La Perla, a somewhat poorer but nevertheless safe part of town, where people sing and dance on the street during the day and night at weekends. Fortunately, the huge cruise ship that lay in the harbour was not noticeable in the number of tourists in the city.
In the evening we had dinner with Jose and Andrés. Jose is from Puerto Rico - Katharina had met him on the plane and Andrés is an Ecuadorian living in New Jersey who was on the architectural city tour as well. Jose has invited us to all the specialties you should eat in Puerto Rico. Simply delicious! Then we moved on through the dark streets of San Juan. The electricity still wasn't there, so we were sitting in a bar lit by candles, which is actually much cooler than electricity. Unfortunately the bar "La Factoría" was closed. If you're ever in San Juan, you definitely need to go there. It's got great angles and secret doors and stuff. After a beautiful day and evening I fell into bed dead tired.
