i love you, Puerto Rico!

Your 4-day, 3-night lover’s guide to a resilient, glamorous island…

 

My first trip to Puerto Rico was brief. I was twenty-one, had just graduated from USC, and went with a bunch of friends on a multi-island adventure. Adventure it truly was. San Juan was our first stop.

I took full advantage of my newfound wealth and booked the nicest place I could find. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel and Casino, San Juan.

What I remember is the food. We walked out of that marble lobby, ten minutes up Isla Verde Avenue, and just as the concierge directed, we found Metropol.

At the time we called it the best shrimp scampi ever. It was mofongo de camarones. Green plantains mashed with garlic, piled with shrimp. My young palate had never experienced anything like it. That unique, diverse mix of spices and flavors just rearranged what I understood food could do.

It was so good that on the way home, during our layover, we left the airport and went back to Metropol one more time. We almost missed that connection, but that shrimp, was so worth it!

Years later, my first time back to visit Bela (hubby), that Ritz-Carlton had closed. Irma and María destroyed it in September of 2017 and took almost sixty-five percent of the public areas with them. It still has never reopened. In 2022, Marvel filmed Black Panther: Wakanda Forever inside the abandoned hotel.

Like the water crisis, it is one of the many curious, contradictory realities of this island. But Metropol is still open. Sixty years now. On your next trip, try it. Here are more suggestions.

for you:

  • Metropol, 6600 Ave. Isla Verde, Carolina. Cuban and Puerto Rican, open since 1965.
    • Order the mofongo de camarones.
  • It’s about ten minutes from the airport, which why our layover run worked.

after María

After Hurricane María, Bela was deployed to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico as a first responder working with FEMA. For part of it he lived in a condo in Condado, directly across the street from La Concha. Condado, in the mix!

That is when I really got to know this place. And when I fell in love with this resilient island.

From the mountains, where I discovered the most exquisite coffee and learned how to order my perfect cappuccino. To the most magical beach sunsets in Rincón. To being in community like Santurce, where survival means hard work, protest, and relying on faith.

I will never forget a family I met in Adjuntas right after María. The father had used a machete to cut a pathway from his house to the road. They were running electricity off a car battery, and there was no house left. Just the foundation of what used to be one, a few walls, and the appliances still standing where the rooms had been. A sink. A refrigerator. Then I turned around, and behind me were the most breathtakingly beautiful views I have ever seen. Lush greenery, mountains, flowers.

Monique and I were still living in New Orleans then, but each trip back, more and more of it was rebuilt. This year I have already been four times. Two of those trips were affected by the water shortage, and every single one of them was wonderful.

Part of the rebuild, and part of the vastness of this island, is that we still keep going back to our favorites. Brunch at Numero Uno in Ocean Park. Beach horseback riding in Isabela. And “my” beach in Piñones, Loíza. On August 1st we celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary, and came to our favorite island to do it.

As part of shikiri.com travel, here is your four-day, three-night lover’s guide to Puerto Rico.

for you:

Traveling during a water shortage

On my June trip, the second morning, at 10:53 a.m., my host sent a message.

“A water shortage is currently affecting the entire Carolina/Isla Verde area. As a result, the building is now being forced to implement a water rationing. There will be water available during the following times: Morning 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Evening 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.”

Four hours a day. That was the whole allotment. She sent up gallons of bottled water and chocolates. That is what it looks like when somebody is trying to make an impossible situation feel gracious, and manageable.

Two days later I asked whether those windows still held. She wrote back that yes, the shortage was city-wide, and that what was filling our taps between seven and nine was the building’s emergency cistern. Not from the city, a tank.

I showered on that cistern’s schedule in Isla Verde. When that did not work out, I showered at La Concha, because my friend Rona had a hotel room there. And on a later trip, when the water was out again at an Airbnb without a cistern, I showered and worked out at Las Ruinas, the bathhouse in Old San Juan.

for you:

  • Ask your host before you book. Is there a cistern, and what is the current schedule?
  • Resorts have cisterns and generators. Most neighborhoods do not.
  • Keep bottled water in the room. Shower on their schedule, not yours.
  • Tip well above what you would at home. Not as charity. As your gratitude tax.

the guide:

where you sleep

One place, all four nights. An apartment in La Placita with a parking space.

You want to walk to dinner and drive to the beach.

day one: Santurce

Morning. Grab your espresso or matcha at my favorite, Café Hacienda San Pedro. Walk the murals. Santurce is an open-air gallery and Calle Cerra is where you start.

Afternoon. Settle in. This is your easy day.

Night. La Placita. It is a quiet market by day and the answer to “where do we go out” by night. Dance in the street, not just at the table.

Dinner one: Jacinta Cuisine, La Placita.

You are steps from your door. That is the point of sleeping here.

for you:

  • Café Tresbé on Avenida Loíza if you want an outdoor table in an actual neighborhood. The night I was there, reggae.
  • Kumo Rooftop for the view, plus delicious Japanese and Puerto Rican fusion.

day two: august 1, our 17th anniversary!

This is the day the whole guide is built around, and how we spent our seventeenth anniversary:

Sleep in. Then drive to Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, and have lunch at Positivo Sand Bar.

Every beach in Puerto Rico is public. By law. All of them, including the ones behind the guard booth. So here is what we did, and what I highly suggest at the Ritz. Book lunch. Bring a small blanket, and take your dessert to the beach.

Late afternoon. We took a private salsa lesson on the beach with the experience. Barefoot, in the sand, with the sun going down.

Night. Get dressed. I broke out my vintage Roberto Cavalli. Two nights in a row, because you can here.

Dinner two: Levant at La Concha, Condado.

for you:

  • Book the restaurant, not the room.
  • Or the spa at Dorado. Services get you past the gate too.
  • No gate at all: Numero Uno in Ocean Park. Brunch there is a tradition of ours.
  • Bring your own towel and a tote. Look like you belong, because you do.

day three: go west!

Nobody tells you to go west. Rent a car. This is the day that requires one.

Morning. Grab your espresso or matcha at my favorite, Café Hacienda San Pedro.

Drive two hours to Villa Montaña in Isabela and have lunch at The Eclipse. Then stay on the secluded, dreamy beach until you feel like leaving. That’s another beach very difficult to reach without going through the hotel gates.

Afternoon. Sunset horseback riding with Tropical Trail Rides in Isabela.

Night. Drive back and eat well.

Dinner three: Santaella, 219 Calle Canals, La Placita, next door to the Airbnb.

  • If it is a Sunday, book the rooftop. Reserve ahead either way.

for you:

  • La Poza, Isabela. Jobos Food Stop, and the flag you take your picture inside.
  • Rincón, if you can spare an extra night. The Beach House, and Domes Beach at sunset with the surfers still out and stay at the Villa Montaña Beach Resort.
  • Give the west two nights if your trip allows.
  • Try surfing!

day four: Loíza and Piñones

The last day is the one you will think about after you get home.

I do want to prepare you for something, because initially, I was not ready for this. I have run into colorism in Puerto Rico, more than once. And every single time, the moment they realized I spoke English, it cleared right up. Their service warmed. Suspicious frowns turned to smiles. But the shift was never about my face. It was about the money I could spend.

And then there is Loíza:

The heart of Black Puerto Rico, the birthplace of Bomba, a town built by my people who freed themselves and stayed. It’s where my prized Piñones beach is. That is why I love it, there’s always an empty beach and a Black face.

Morning. Drive out to Piñones and stop at COPI, Corporación Piñones se Integra, at kilometer 4.2 of Route 187, right where the trail starts. A community nonprofit since 1999. Rent a bike for about ten dollars an hour and ride the coast.

Midday. Grab lunch at El Nuevo Acuario, tip well and swim at Las Positas en Piñones.

Dinner back in Santurce: MĀRO, 1311 Ponce de León, two blocks from the Airbnb.

for you:

  • Book Nuria’s tour early. “Savor, Walk and Learn the Soul of Piñones,” seventy-five dollars, two and a half hours, led by a woman who is ninth generation from Piñones. It sold out on me.

get your hair, your nails and your body done there

I spa in Puerto Rico, and you should too! I always come home looking better than I left, and for less.

for you:

  • Yaidee Medina, at Sunny Braids, Ashford Avenue, Condado. Six hours of medium boho braids. Bring your own hair, and give it the whole day.
  • Oasis Nails and Sculpting_and_more. I love them both. I have the photos, and I am not shy about the results.

How to book. Booksy is how the island books. Reserve before you fly, because the good ones fill.

Wellness is not optional

The best thing I did on a recent trip started at six in the morning and cost twenty-four dollars.

for you:

  • Sunrise Ashtanga with Jessica García, Ashtanga Yoga PR.
  • Las Ruinas, Old San Juan. Thermal pools, cold plunge, sauna, steam. Book ahead.
  • Barefoot Yoga in Rincón.
  • Two runs worth flying for. Paseo Lineal Río Bayamón, where the river meets the ocean, up to eleven miles out and back, with separate lanes for runners and cyclists, water stations and restrooms. And the Paseo de Piñones, my favorite, from Boca de Cangrejos where Isla Verde ends out to Vacía Talega. About thirteen miles round trip, flat, ocean on one side and mangrove on the other. Honestly, the wooden boardwalk sections have been storm damaged for years and still have boards missing.

one more thing…

Our 4-day, 3-night lover’s long weekend was July 31st to August 3rd. Jacinta the first night. Positivo at Dorado, salsa, and Levant at La Concha on Saturday. Piñones beach and rooftop dinner at Santaella in the La Placita on Sunday. On Monday, we drove two hours out to Isabela for Eclipse, a sunset horseback ride, and back, ending at delicious, sexy MĀRO, (see it all here and all my highlights over the years here).

Our seventeenth wedding anniversary.

On this island we have made a living. I have grieved. I found my people. And I continue to find so much joy and so much laughter here.

It truly is my happy place.

There is so much more beauty here that I still have not seen. Next time I am taking you to Adjuntas, up in the mountains, where I had the most exquisite coffee of my life… But that is another story. See you on the 26th!

With love,

Shikiri