Trip: Puerto Rico – Day 1
Attractions: Guajataca Beach, Cafe Puya, Sandy Beach, Pool Time, The Beach House for Sunset
Date: February 26th, 2022

Jill and I are officially in our forties so we wanted to go on a great trip to celebrate. We had such a great time in Wine Country with the Stille’s (Jason and Lisa) a few years ago, we decided teaming up with them only made sense. Beautiful Puerto Rico was our destination and Jill did a great job of planning and finding our amazing Airbnb. We found a cheap flight out of Chicago, but the kicker was that we arrived in San Juan at 2:00 AM. By the time we got our rental car and hit the road it was about 3:00 AM and we weren’t supposed to be able to check in to our place until 3:00 PM. Since we had a 2.5 hour drive from San Juan to Rincón, where our place was, we began our trek westward.

A funny thing happened while we were driving. People kept passing us while we were stopped at red lights. Like NOBODY waited for the light to turn green. They just paused and then ran the light. At first we kept stopping, but getting sped past so many times, we decided to go with the “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” philosophy. After driving for quite some time, we decided to stop at a near by beach and try to get some sleep as we waited for the sun to rise.

We picked a place in Isabela named Guajataca Beach. It was pitch black when we pulled in to the parking lot, but we parked and made our way to the ocean. The beach looked nice enough so we laid down some towels in the sand and tried to get some sleep. I don’t think anyone really slept much but it was nice to stretch out after traveling for so many hours and listen to the waves crash against the beach. I must have fallen asleep though, because I was awakened by some birds chirping around 6:00 AM and the arising sun revealed a beautiful sunset to the east and a really cool old railroad tunnel to the west. We explored the beach, some beautifully painted walls, and the other side of the tunnel for a bit before climbing back into our chariot and finishing our trip to Rincón.

While looking for a place to grab a coffee and breakfast, we noticed that many places didn’t open until 7:30 or 8:00. We found a coffee shop called Cafe Puya that served sandwiches and omelets. This was our first experience attempting to order food in a country that didn’t speak English as one of its native languages so we had a bit of difficulty telling them Jill only wanted a little ice in her coffee, but lo and behold, my two years of Spanish paid off and I remembered that “a little” was “un poquito” in espanol. They had no trouble understanding the rest of our order in English and we really had very little trouble the entire trip. Our sandwiches and omelets were delicioso.

After breakfast Jason found a near by beach for us to check out. We parked at Sandy Beach, changed into our swimming suits, lathered up some sun screen, and headed out to the sand and salt. There was a rental shop in the parking lot, so we rented a couple of $10 beach chairs and chilled out in the sand and sea for a few hours, taking turns sleeping and exploring. There were coconuts everywhere. We collected some beach glass and seashells to pass time. One thing we noticed almost immediately is that you rarely see a dog on a leash in Puerto Rico. There are a lot of strays, but even dogs with owners would be running around at their own leisure.

We were attempting to keep ourselves busy until our 3:00 check in, but decided it would be worth the extra $20/hour to get in early. We arrived at our Airbnb – Peaceful Puntas Rinconcito at around noon. The place was perfect. It had a nice kitchen, nice rooms, a decent living room, a rooftop hangout with a view of the ocean, and a pool. We got settled in then went to pick up some groceries.

We bought some essential snacks and booze along with some steaks and salad for dinner. I was surprised to see an entire pig head staring back at me when I was looking for some meat to grill. I’d never seen that before! On the way back to our house, we saw a crazy bike with a huge front wheel. There were many bikers navigating roads in Rincón and it made us all nervous because there wasn’t much room on the narrow roads to share with them.

After having some drinks at the pool, we decided we would have dinner around sunset at The Beach House because it was Saturday and we knew there would be live music. We read that finding parking around sunset can be difficult, because there are more tables than parking spots, but on our second pass through the parking lot, a red Jeep was leaving and we got Rockstar parking right next to the restaurant. The music was great, the drinks (Rum Punch) were amazing, we had the first of many fish tacos, and the sunset was breathtaking. I’m so glad we decided to hit this place up for dinner. It was the highlight of my day. We got some great pictures and the VW van that made an appearance made the photos all that much better.

After dinner, we headed back to our Airbnb and played a game of Pepper (cards) before heading to bed for some much needed sleep. It was the perfect beginning to our trip.