¡Ganamos! / We Won!

Yesterday, Maria and I rode in our first bicycle tour, the Paws & Pedals 60 mile ride to support Save A Sato. Save A Sato is a volunteer organization which has set out to rescue the many homeless dogs, or satos, living in Puerto Rico.

We did a few training rides around San Juan to get ready for our 60 miles, including one out to Piñones, an area where the locals hangout at the beach and a great place to sample some local foods like bacalaíto, arepas, and pinchos.

Here's Maria on one of our training rides:

We woke up on Sunday at 5 am in order to get ready for our ride. We got our nice new bike Jerseys on, ate some quick breakfast, got our bikes out the door, and began our 2 mile ride over to the meeting/starting area near the Caribe Hilton, the place we stayed when we first visited San Juan last year. We made it in plenty of time for the 6 am sharp check-in time for the ride that was supposed to start at 6:30 am sharp.

This is the sun greeting us at 6 am:

We checked in and as 6:30 came and went, people continued arriving; then 7:00, 7:15, and finally around 7:25 they started the ride. It's a good thing we hurried out the door at 5:45 or we might have missed it.

Aside from the late start, we had a great time. The ride took us briefly into Old San Juan then back into Condado where we live. We then took a turn south onto the route 2 highway and rode into Guaynabo, a San Juan suburb. We then headed north west into Cataño where we made our first stop, then past the Bacardí distillery and into Toa Baja. We then continued the ride along the coastline in Dorado, where we made our second stop, and looped back toward Toa Baja to arrive at the midway point of the ride.

Before we made it to the half way point we had seen a few people on the side of the road dealing with flat tires. I was thinking to myself that Maria and I would be pretty lucky if we made it the whole way without any flats. Well, when you start thinking like that I guess you guarantee yourself an outcome because 4 miles from the midway rest stop I got a flat. I didn't even realize it at first, I just thought the road was a little rough, but I looked down, and sure enough it was flat. I tried calling out to Maria, but she left me in her dust. I started feverishly tearing my wheel apart hoping I could get a new tube in and catch back up with Maria and the group, but before I knew it the SAG vehicle was there to pick me up and told me it was only a couple miles, so I hopped in. But before we could leave, Maria came back to find me. So she hopped in for the ride too!

At the rest stop, I quickly changed tubes and was up and running again with enough time to top off on water and chocolate brownie cliff bars.

The return trip was a slightly modified version of the route out. We were able to ride along the highways and in places we otherwise never would be able to. Our last pit stop was at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum before heading to the park where we started and as luck would have it... I got another flat! This time I got the tube changed before the SAG wagon could get to me. This time I had Maria helping me get it changed. While I was tearing the tire apart, she couldn't help but be in awe of all the stragglers coming in. As I was putting the wheel back on my bike, the SAG wagon showed up in time for me to say, "Está bien."

Needless to say, I was preoccupied with getting another flat in the last 5 or so miles of the ride. I eventually forgot about it and enjoyed the support of the pedestrians as we rode through Santurce and Miramar on our way back to the park in Old San Juan.

Aside from 2 flat tires, I had a good time and I wasn't as tired as I thought I would be after riding 60 miles. The riding was pretty comfortable early in the morning and later in the day some clouds came out to shade us from the sun. The hottest it got was when we were off our bikes at the rest stops not moving or pumping air into tires.

As we coasted back into the park I said to Maria, "Ganamos." She looked at me and said, "What?" I said again, "Ganamos! We won!" She promptly informed me that it was not a race, which was exactly my point. We won, because we finished, because we survived two flat tires and kept on riding.

Here is the route that we rode: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/193406100

We got to enjoy a post ride meal and meet some satos as they recognized a young boy for the work he did rescuing them. We were not even aware that there was going to be a post ride meal, since it wasn't mentioned on the website. There was also a raffle after the meal that we were never informed of until checking in that morning.

Always on the look out for free stuff, we waited around to see if our numbers were called. Many of the numbers called were of people who had already left, and so many of them were so close to our numbers. At one point they called a number so close to Maria's that when the announcer began counting off, "going once, going twice" (in Spanish of course) before assumming the person was gone and pulling another number, she heard him say the raffle number followed by "one" and thought it was her number. Luckily I stopped her before she got too excited.

So we waited and waited, getting excited and then deflated each time a number close to ours was called. I was even starting to think that maybe Maria was right, maybe that was her number that was called earlier, and I told her it wasn't. Oops. But then, 32551. Maria won! She won a super cool bicycle pendant that she promises to wear everyday! We were still waiting around for my number to be called, crossing our fingers, hoping for one of the pairs of sunglasses or the $50 gift cards, or the bike seat bags. But those went to some other lucky people. Then they started giving out DHL airplanes. Not real airplanes but little models or something like that, which I was hoping I did not win.

Then they announced some other DHL thing and something about $50. I looked down at my number as they called out 32501. I looked again and waited for him to repeat it. "Hey that's me." I went over to confim my prize and claim my number. A nice woman took my name and phone number and said, "Do you understand what you won?" I had to admit that I had no idea. Apparently I won $50 in shipping on DHL. A pretty cool prize when you live on an island. With that, Maria and I hopped back on our bikes and headed home, a little happier about two flat tires and our sore butts.

I think we might have to make this an annual tradition!

Fun in the dark

This weekend marked the final weekend of "vacation" time (for me anyway) before officially starting my new job. Nothing too exciting has been happening lately, hence the lack of blog posts. That isn't to say San Juan has been without any goings on...

Earlier last week, there was a power outage. And I don't just mean the power flickered on and off or was just out for a minute or two - because that's already happened up here at our house on the hill a few times before. This time, our power was out for over two hours... and it happened as we were coming home after a sweaty run on the beach and hungry for dinner! As we were driving back from Ocean Park and making our way through the long and windy road to our house, traffic came to a complete halt. Not so unusual on the major highways but quite unusual for the road leading to our house. At first, we thought there was an accident - sometimes we encounter crazy drivers whipping around the curves and always cutting into the oncoming lane. We waited behind traffic for awhile and noticed a truck from the electric company driving up the hill past where traffic had been stopped. Then we realized that some power lines must be down and they were going to remove some branches and debris that had taken them down. We often noticed that the bamboo trees covering the hillside next to the road often become overgrown and sag over the power lines... in an unsafe way. Finally the power lines gave way, causing the power to go out.

Looking up from the car, these bamboo trees are just laying on top of the power lines... waiting for an accident to happen! :-/

First, we had to find an alternate route home - which was nearly impossible because we live far up in the hills. 10-15 minutes later, we finally arrived home to find that we had no power. Second, we had to figure out how we were going to cook dinner... because we were starving! And it was getting dark. Luckily, I decided to pack our headlamps in our luggage (who would have thought we would need them?) instead of packing it up with the movers, so we were able to cook some rice on our gas stove and Ethan grilled some chicken outside on the gas grill, and we had a nice meal. In the dark. It was quite delicious actually!

Cooking some rice on the stove

Grilled chicken, brown rice with pigeon peas, and fresh tomatoes... ¡Bon Prevecho!

Then, as we began cleaning up, the lights came on. Whew! We were worried that we would be without power overnight, and we had just bought fresh milk and yogurt the day before! Thankfully, this night was the worst of it. The following day when we came home just before dinner time, the power was out AGAIN! But this time only for about 30 minutes. Geez! Now we are wishing we had brought our camping gear with us - flashlights, gas stove, and gas lamps! Hopefully, this won't happen as often in our new place in Condado.

Last night, we decided to go out for some Mexican, and we found a nice place called Bartola's in Miramar. What a great place! A cozy and friendly atmosphere with great service and delicious food. We started with some house made guacamole, which we devoured immediately. It was so good, we forgot to take a photo! Our entrees arrived shortly after: I ordered the ceviche tostadas and Ethan got the enchiladas. The black beans were soooo good!!!

My meal

Ethan's meal

After our delicious dinner, we wanted to stroll around a bit and noticed a fine arts theatre just down the street. We decided to check it out and bought two tickets for Lincoln. Only $7.50 each! What a steal! They also had an amazing snack bar! Beer, wine, espresso, charcuterie platters, and gourmet desserts in addition to the usual popcorn and soda. Wow, check out these prices!

What, you can't read the menu? :-) Large popcorn AND soda $5.50  Glass of wine $6 Espresso $1.95 Cookies 2 for $3... not bad compared the prices you see at the movie theatres in the states!

The movie was pretty good (personally, I thought Life of Pi was better... even though Lincoln has more Academy Award nominations) and the theatre was excellent! Large comfortable seats that rocked back and forth and wide arm rests for your food and drink! We are definitely going back.

So that was the last of my "vacation". I actually am very excited to be starting my new job on Tuesday! Hope everyone is having a great New Year so far!