Tuesday, December 15, 2009

fajardo




Chris and I went to Fajardo on Wednesday of last week to go try to fill one of my prescriptions and to go to WAL-MART!!!!  We woke up at 4:45 am, got ready and walked down to catch the 6:00 am ferry. The ferry ride costs 4 dollars round trip and takes a little over an hour, it was nice, however we were very tired and it was also FREEZING! Luckily I brought a long sleeve shirt to keep me warm and to protect me from the sun! I really wanted to sit outside on a balcony but I did not know where it was or if we were allowed to, so we went up the stairs and found two seats by a window. There were also long benches of seats in the middle section but for some reason we chose to sit in the smallest section of seats. We could have gone to the center sections and actually laid down but no, we squished ourselves into the smallest area on the whole ferry and tried to contort ourselves to get comfortable enough to sleep…. Chris had more success sleeping than I did – he got the window seat – so while he slept I just looked out the windows at the sunrise and the beautiful water and just took it all in.  It was nice….until it started to smell like someone had gotten a little sea sick…gross....so I buried my face in my shirt and got out my phone and played games to distract myself until we got there! Finally we (I mean I) saw land and knew that we were almost there, I woke chris up to point out some really colorful houses on the coast.

There were kids on the boat that were going to school, they all had their book bags. So when we saw land they all got up and started lining up by the doors, I guess they have done this whole ferry ride thing a time or two. We waited until the boat actually stopped to get up.  Once we got off the boat we had been warned that their would be publico (van taxi’s) drivers all of the place asking if you need a ride. We thought that we would be able to walk to Wal-Mart  because on my iphone google maps it said that walmart was only 1 mile away. We were ok with that, then i double checked again and discovered that the directions I had were not to walmart, and that walmart was a long way away, a lot further than 1 mile. So we found a publico and said that we wanted to go to walmart. We pilled into this 15 passenger van that was already full so it was a bit of a tight squeeze. And then we were off. We drove away and dropped people off at all different places. Chris and I were one of the last people in the taxi, the rest I think were going to the airport. So finally we had Wally World in our sights I was so excited! We go straight to pharmacy to see if they can fill my prescription….fail….they cannot. So we head to Walgreens that was across the parking lot. They cant fill my prescription either! Grrr. So we went back to walmart, to pick up a few groceries and to waste some time before we had to back to the ferry (I can flat out waste sometime in walmart! I enjoy it! Chris- not so much! He was really bored!) . Everything in Vieques is more expensive so its cheaper to get stuff in Fajardo. Some people from Vieques even take suitcases and coolers on the ferry and go grocery shopping in Fajardo to save money. We finished up at walmart, and we were starving! We saw a bunch of burger kings on the way there and I was sort of craving a whopper. And yippee there was a burger king in the shopping center so we went in to get some food! It was only about 10:30 and I was already salivating over the pictures of all the food especially the whopper, when I realized what time it was and noticed that everyone else was ordering breakfast. My bottom lip curled slowly into a disappointed pout as I started trying to figure out what they had for breakfast. But then it was our turn to order and that sweet lady (oooohh I could kiss her face), said, “desayuno o almuerzo” (breakfast or lunch) my face lit up and we both said lunch! I got my whopper, french fries and we got an order of onion rings to share. Now I will not say that it was bad but it was different than whoppers in the states but that did not stop me from eating the whole thing, all my french fries and while im at it ill admit that I ate most of the onion rings too! I was stuffed but satisfied! We sat for a min to let our food digest and then we thought we would walk back to the ferry. I looked up how long it would take us, we thought it would only take about 40 min max, oh no, it would have taken us about an hour and half! Eek! So then we opted for option #2 to call this taxi driver whose business card dewey gave us. His business card has his name and phone number on it as well as a line saying “ I speak your language,” dewey informed us prior to giving us this business card that the driver does not speak English very well! So when Chris and I looked at the business card we giggled a little. But we called and he did not answer! We were a little panicked as to what to do. So we wandered around a bit, down the sidewalks and through the parking lot, doing our best lost tourist impersonation, and apparently we did a good job because one of the security guards asked if we needed help and what we were looking for! We said we were looking for a publico and he pointed to a building we should stand in front of and we thanked him and walked a little ways and then he and another security guard start pointing and telling us to run…there was a publico driving by the store. So we walked quickly. Chris’ backpack was packed full of all the groceries we had gotten at walmart and was heavy. Luckily the publico driver, parked and was doing a little shopping! We found him and asked, cuanto cuesto a la ferry? He said seven dollars for both! Success!! So we got in the van and off we were. We drove through town a little to drop off another passenger and it was really pretty. I am looking forward to going back to Fajardo for longer when we can actually go around town and see everything. Chris had to work that day so we had to get back as soon as we could.

 We caught the 1:00 ferry, and I had discovered how to get where we could sit outside, so we went out there and found the longest bench in the back (we had learned our lesson from the morning) chris laid down and used my lap as his pillow, not fair, he got to nap on the way there and the way back…but he had to work that afternoon so I let him sleep, I ended up giving him my backpack to use as his pillow and I tried to lay down but then it started raining, we had a roof overtop of us so we were not really getting wet, I was really loving it at first, it was only a drizzle so it was nice, and chris was still sleeping – then it started pouring!- and we were getting wet. I was already soaked and chris somehow managed to not get as wet as I did. So we moved inside and I took a two seater all to myself and laid down finally, I fell asleep so quickly, however it was not a very long nap because shortly after i fell asleep people all started to line up to get off the ferry. So we woke up to stand in line and called dewey to come pick us up. Of course he did not answer his phone the couple of times that we called him, so we had to walk…ugh. But we made it back, took a short nap and then Chris had to go to work. I cant wait to go back to Fajardo when we have more time to explore, it looks like a fun a pretty cool place!

this is the ferry. its a lot nicer than i had imagined it!

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