A Month in Puerto Rico: Recap

I don’t really remember why I decided to go to Puerto Rico. I knew that it would be warm in December, there would be mountains so lots of hiking, it was close enough to New York, and had lots of beaches so it pretty well ticked off all of my boxes. I wanted to go somewhere warm because I absolutely hate the cold weather. After a month in Mexico, I figured it would be nice to spend some time in the US though still exciting because I’d never been to Puerto Rico before. I remember the first night I landed in San Juan Airport. It took me 17+ hours to get from Cancun to San Juan, including my layover in Panama. I arrived around midnight and got sorted into my bed, quickly realizing though far more expensive, this was not anywhere close to the luxury hostels I had stayed at in Mexico. The next day I decided to get groceries and go for a walk and I quickly realized that I was on a tropical island in the US and that comes with a pretty steep price tag. I walked all around and came to a few conclusions: 1) I wasn’t sure if my $1,000 budget was going to be enough for a whole month, 2) There’s absolutely no reliable public transportation here, if I want to leave San Juan, I have to rent a car or call an Uber, 3) I was living half a block away from La Placita and I was going to have to get used to party music and strobe lights in my eyes every night.

I’m not a huge drinker and this posed to be quite problematic during my time here. As I said, I was living a half a block away from La Placita and less than 10 minutes from Old San Juan. The night life there is amazing, if that’s what you’re into. Unfortunately for me, it wasn’t. My biggest complaint the whole time I stayed here was my sheer and utter boredom. I tagged along to people’s adventures here and there, but staying in the city wasn’t something I really enjoyed. I only went hiking once, rented a car for 2 days, and didn’t make a ton of friends. I know the island has so much more to offer than what I got to experience, but I felt very trapped in San Juan due to the lack of budget friendly transportation to get anywhere else. The entire hostel would get so quiet at around midnight, because that’s when absolutely everyone would leave to go out to the clubs. That’s just not my scene so I enjoyed the peace while I could. Every night, Reggaton would blast throughout the speakers in the house. I sound like such a pick me here and I really know that, but I just would so much rather get up for the sunrise everyday, which I did. I loved it. I think it was just a lot of party people all the time and it got to be a little overwhelming. 

A major difference between the hostel I worked at in Mexico versus Puerto Rico was the caliber of people. In Mexico, I met so many people who were from Europe or Australia, people who had backpacks bigger than them who were traveling all over the place. In Puerto Rico, it was 90% Americans, most of whom were on a quick weekend trip to escape the cold weather. There weren’t really many people I had things in common with, particularly because of the drinking (or in my case, lack thereof). But enough of that, let’s talk about the reason why I was there: to work at the hostel.

The work was pretty fair, usually I worked the am shift meaning I would start my day at 7:30, walk around to make sure there were no drunk people passed out somewhere they shouldn’t be. Every morning, there would be people coming in at 8am from their night out, and I’m really not trying to shame people for drinking, I just know that I couldn’t handle that. One morning, I found a girl spread eagle, passed out, covered in vomit, with flies landing on her. She looked dead. I checked her pulse, covered her with a towel, and left a glass of water next to her for when she woke up and began to start my work day. The am shift went from 7:30 till 3:30 so during that time I would make breakfast, clean up breakfast, clean all 7 bathrooms, do laundry, check outs, flip the beds, and anything else I could get done in that time. There was never really any down time, always something to do within those 8 hours. The pm shift was a lot easier, you mostly dealt with check ins and finishing whatever am shift couldn’t finish. The work was a lot, they offer $10 an hour which is rare for a world packers, but what they didn’t offer was a free bed. They say $10 per hour but in reality after they deduct taxes and your bed, it comes to less than $3 an hour. It’s not much for all we do, but it does fray the costs of Puerto Rico just a little bit. 

I’m very proud of myself for staying under my $1,000 budget. I spent a total of $959.78, using my favorite app, TripCoin. I spent $336.45 on food, $186.19 on transportation (i.e. rental car), $77.13 on Uber, and less than $50 on each of the other categories, including gifts, miscellaneous, alcohol, activities, and Starbucks. I put things that I consider luxuries, like Starbucks and Uber in their own categories to not sway the numbers of the other legitimate categories like food and transportation. I also started keeping track of my at home expenses like car insurance, phone payment, and student loans because all of those things deduct from my budget as well. Just because they come straight out of my account doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t factor them in as payments or forget about them. 

I had some really nice days in Puerto Rico, like the one day I went to El Yunque, and when I rented that car and drove to Cabo Rojo and Aguadilla. I was able to see Luqillo Beach three times which was so amazing. The sky turned purple and that was the most beautiful night I had on the island in all my time there. I felt like I was just surrounded by purple and warmth, it was amazing. Puerto Rico is so much more than San Juan and should I ever go back I will definitely try to see more of the beautiful parts of the island, and probably skip San Juan altogether. Going to Old San Juan was nice, I learned a lot about the history of Puerto Rico by visiting the castles and walking all around the Old City. I jumped in the ocean every morning in Condado and spent a lot of time writing because it was way too hot to do anything during the day besides go to the beach. So, safe to say it wasn’t really the experience I expected, but I still had a good time. I met some cool people and even some people from my hometown which was surprising. Most of the Americans were just there to drink, maybe go to El Yunque for a day, and then go home. I found myself not having a whole lot of insightful conversations like I did when I was in Mexico meeting travelers from all over the world. 

I found myself falling into a little routine everyday. I would get up early in the morning, jump in the ocean (to face my fears after my near drowning experience in Cancun), go make myself a cup of coffee, write all morning, go for a walk, go to bed. This is why I don’t want to say that I had a bad experience in Puerto Rico, because I didn’t. This sounds like a lovely little day. The only thing was that it was a lovely little day every single day. My experience wasn’t bad, just quite boring. I enjoyed my days, especially when it was smoothie day. I’d buy fruit from local vendors and blend it up for the week on Saturday’s. It was mundane, but very peaceful and quite relaxing. I think I often struggle to just chill out. I’m always looking to constantly one up myself and have a better day than yesterday instead of just finding peace with where my life is at currently. Puerto Rico helped me just calm the hell down for a few weeks and prepare for what’s to come in the New Year. Even though I found PR quite mundane in the moment, in hindsight, it was exactly what I needed. I think on a bigger budget, I would go back again to explore more of the island beyond San Juan. The few days I left the city were the best of my time there, I think I just needed to go and see what’s out there a little more.