Puerto Rico: Day 1

November 3:

 Julie and I enjoyed chocolates and ice cream at the Container mall in Las Vegas before our afternoon flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Waiting in the airport in Houston, Texas for our overnight flight to San Juan, Julie says: "Do you want to wear a fake mask while we play games?"  I asked what is a fake mask?  And she pulls out these black masks with thin mesh in the front.  We were sitting at a table far from anyone, so from a distance they looked real, but still allowed us to breathe fresh air while we sat and waited for our flight. 

November 4: We arrived in San Juan at 5am.  Julie was wise and booked our Airbnb for the night before, so we could go straight there and sleep for a bit. 

We had a simple little 2 bedroom Airbnb was in Isle Verde near Carolina.

After we slept for a bit, we got up and walked to the Bistro Cafe for brunch. 

It turns out that almost all the restaurants in Puerto Rico require you to show at least a photo of your COVID vaccine card and photo ID to get inside.  You also have to upload your vaccine card in the system when you arrive at the airport before you are allowed to leave.  They had people dressed in white hazmat suits in front of the exit doors, looking to scan the barcode that is generated after you complete your traveler declaration with proof of vaccination status.  

The Bistro Cafe did not disappoint!  Everything was delicious! 

I ordered a hot chocolate and it was amazing!  The secret is Nutella and cookie crumble!  It's a whole new way to enjoy hot chocolate that I never imagined before.  It was a fun surprise!

Julie and I ordered eggs, bacon and Nutella pancakes with fruit to share and a croissant drizzled with honey.  It was all really good! 

Some views as we walked to the beach.

I read in a blog that Carolina Beach is the best local beach, because it's not so crowded with tourists.

It just so happened that our AirBnb was within walking distance of Carolina Beach and it was really beautiful and parts of it were very quiet, like this spot.  We waded into the ocean and enjoyed the warm water for a bit and then laid on the sand to relax.

After we left the beach, we decided to walk to the grocery store, which was across from the beach entrance, while we were crossing the street, I saw a cemetery and so we decided to check it out before we had our hands full of groceries.

Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery in Carolina.

We're walking along, looking at the graves and then Julie says, "It that a casket?"

Sure enough, we came across a casket and and open grave!  

Open closer investigation, we found that there was, in fact, pants and human bones hanging out, wedged between the casket and the edge of the grave!  We couldn't believe what we were seeing! 

This was the first time and hopefully the only time in our lives that we will ever encounter an open casket abandoned next to an open grave.  It was so creepy, but without the photos, who would actually believe we came across this scene.  Who knew we would find this on our very first day in Puerto Rico!?

***

I looked up the cemetery while posting this and it turns out that Puerto Rico Memorial Cemetery was the first private cemetery in Puerto Rico and was established in 1935.  It's difficult to know how old the bones are from the grave, because most of them do not list dates, but based on the date of the cemetery, the would have been buried within the last 86 years.

Here's the grocery store, across from the cemetery, the Isle Verde Super Max.