DEliTOUR: A tour of the island

We went out to the famous Nuyorican live salsa bar and watched Magda dance with a succession of hopeful Ricky-wanna-bes, but she was a little disappointed. Rafi had set her up with an amazing dance teacher from the Loiza festival so we know she has a better partner at least to practice with. Rafi made us weird and wonderful drinks in the Candela bar. We relaxed in the hotel, Casa Candela, with Pablo´s collection of paintings of his old record label activities. We saw the San Juan sights, including the kite flying at El Morro, the castle grassland where families unfurled. We thought of the Kiterunner. And took pictures that didn´t capture the kites in all their glory. We stayed up until 3AM drinking every night because it was Old San Juan - we didn´t even make it to the after hours sessions.

And then Rafi. Hee hee hee. He is a cheeky chappy no doubt. Old enough to know better and with the manic enthusiasm of one a little unhinged. Charming, generous, funny. We were very lucky. He came up with the plan for us to go to see his family on Sunday. The morning came and, after about an hour´s sleep, he was too wasted to drive. I took the wheel once we had found the car, and then it wasn´t long before we were on the highway being pulled over by the boys in blue. It transpired that the Rafimobile had rear wheels that looked more like weebles. The rozzers belived his explanation that his telemetry was safe after a bump on a sleeping policeman, and after recovering from the embaressment of not being able to follow the spanish instructions from the police loud hailer as it tried to pull us off the motorway, we were back on the road. Rafi showed us his 700usd of unpaid tickets under the seat, we laughed and sped on.

We drove around the wild forests of El Yunque and eventually arrived at Palmas Del Mar. Rafi´s sister is PR PR, publicist to governers, celebs, musos and the like, and their holiday place for 10 years has been in PR´s exclusive gated community. Big luxury development, glorious beach, happy kids everywhere, Rafi´s nephews running amok, a bit of body surfing, and his sister being a wonderful hostess. We dined out near Fajardo and said goodbye to Rafi, who selflessly drove us around to make sure we had a nice place to stay - well, there was still a lot of love in our hotel but maybe nightly not by the hour.

And we prepared for the real wonders...