almost okay

SAN JUAN SNAP(PER) SHOTS

It was my third day in Puerto Rico and I was sitting on a park bench under a palm tree near the ocean. Behind me over my left shoulder was a bronze statue of some local Nineteenth Century dignitary, while directly in front of me was a busy intersection filled with cars and pedestrian traffic. It was lunchtime and people were everywhere, with scores of incredibly beautiful women strutting by singly and in pairs confidently displaying their shapely legs, ample rumps and heavy breasts. I was far enough away from the intersection that I could surreptitiously snap some candid shots with my digital, zooming in on a spot and waiting for one of the brown-skinned lovelies to pass... focusing... wait... wait... ah, there she is. Click. I had never seen so many beautiful women in one spot in my entire life as I had when I was there. And they all seemed to be happy and friendly, smiling easily whenever they caught me looking.

Joe was inside one of the souvenir shops buying trinkets to take home as I sat on my little park bench taking pictures like a dirty old man. It was in the eighties, but not as humid as it had been the two previous days when we'd been working at the Borders bookstore at the Plaza Las Americas, an enormous three-story maze of a mall with a Sears, a Macy's and a J.C. Penney, along with all the familiar fast food any mainlander could want, from KFC to Burger King. Yum! It was so hot in the store where we toiled that the air conditioning couldn't keep up, especially on the second floor, and I had nearly worked myself to exhaustion climbing eight-foot step ladders and striding across the tops of bookshelves as we installed the display material to complete the store's remodel.

On several occasions as we worked inside the bookstore Joe and I had nearly knocked heads, craning our necks to check out the women and forgetting entirely what we were just doing. We called it getting 'distracted'. Whenever we spaced out on the job, we said, “Sorry, I got distracted,” which brought chuckles all around. Distraction was very easy to come by there. “Even the ugly fat ones are good looking,” I said to Joe once.

“When we get back to the room I may need some alone time, if you know what I mean,” said Joe after one particularly gorgeous young thing walked by displaying bare legs, cleavage and a toothy smile. Joe shuddered and shook his head.

The work went well, though, despite a glitch or two, and we finished on time to good reviews. After two long days of labor, we now had all of four hours to enjoy the local scenery before catching our flight back to Detroit.

So we found ourselves in Old San Juan, a tourist area on the coast that was a mere ten-minute cab ride from the Best Western where we had been staying in Condado. The sky was blue and the ocean breeze was working wonders on my stress level, which had continued to drop with each passing day on the island. It was my first trip to Puerto Rico, and I'd gone three days without having to drive or use a computer. When added to the exotic island locale, the hot women and the laid back atmosphere in general, it was just the right combination to make me feel sane again.

Old San Juan was a world apart from the neighborhood where our hotel was located. That area had been all brown and concrete gray, a cityscape of geometric structures and freeways choked with heavy traffic. In Old San Juan I found the narrow brick streets that I expected to see everywhere, the pastel buildings and the European feel, along with ocean views as far as the eye could see. It was a little windy on our last day, and there was some chop on the water. We encountered bus loads of tourists taking vacation photos at various observation points as we walked the streets nearest the ocean. I had already made up my mind that I would return on vacation myself at some point, and I fantasized about staying here, on the beach instead of inland, where I could enjoy the sea air.

We made our way through town, up and down steep hills, turning blindly down streets without knowing what to expect. Along the way, we saw glimpses of poverty and want... a small dog eating garbage from a box in an alley, a tired-looking man carrying fishing gear, looking as though he had to catch his dinner in order to eat, hand-made signs advertising food and souvenirs. I found it odd that more than one of the souvenir shops were run by Chinese, one of them with a variety of Bruce Lee posters for sale. There were tropical flowers everywhere we looked, hanging from baskets, planted in beds and spraying through bushes in the many park areas. We strolled past an elementary school where the kids were on their lunch break, happily eating fruit as they sat on the steps behind the building, one young girl in a uniformed skirt sitting with her legs spread wide and a big smile on her face, her panties unashamedly on view for all to see.

We stopped for lunch and had skirt steak sandwiches, an appetizer of melted cheese and chorizo with delicately fried slices of plantain instead of the corn chips that usually accompany similar fare in Mexican restaurants. The plantain chips were very good, neither salty nor greasy, but often broke easily when dredging up a glob of the cheese mixture. We washed it all down with a couple of Medalla Lights, the local brew. After lunch it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up our bags and make the trip to the airport.

Speaking Spanish isn't strictly necessary in San Juan, as nearly everybody speaks some English and quite a few of the locals are fluent. I had some French in college, but only limited exposure to Espanol, so it was easy for me to lapse into 'Oui' instead of 'Si', when we first arrived, but by day three I was a bit more confident, tossing off 'Buonas diaz!' with the best of them, and believing that I understood just a little more of what they were saying on the local news broadcasts each time I watched.

On our last trip up to the room we were stuck on the elevator with a crew of elderly cleaning women, the one nearest the buttons barely five feet tall, dressed in her turquoise and white maid's uniform. Since we were staying on the fifth floor, and I was feeling like a true tourist by then, I happily announced 'Cinco' when she looked at me to see where we were going.

She slowly reached down and pushed '2'.