Saturday: Pork Highway, and Playa Azul!
Dorks at a ferry!
Up bright and early to pack out, check out of the hotel, return the rental car, and catch the ferry back to "mainland" Puerto Rico. The plane is great when you want to get there quickly (on arrival we'd already had a long day of travel and only had a late ferry available, and I was afraid I'd run out of gas before then). But as long as you're a good sea traveler and are not in a hurry, the ferry is a very, very cheap way to travel between islands. We met both requirements so spent the whole six bucks to transport ourselves and our Vieques luggage. Sadly, there's not an outdoor deck for seating, so while you get splendid air conditioning for the trip, you don't get to see the sea, which I would have enjoyed. (Also, that's why this is not a good option if you are not sea-stable; an internal seat is more prone to trigger seasickness than one where you can watch the horizon.)
Once we disembarked at the Ceiba ferry terminal, we got a taxi from the ones waiting to run us the few minutes over to the airport parking lot, and took off for our next adventure: traveling the Ruta de Lechon, or "Pork Highway." The Ruta de Lechon is a group of restaurants in the Guavate and Cayey areas that specialize in roast pork, lechon, along with several other Puerto Rican dishes. They are popular with both tourists and locals - locals spend time hopping from place to place where there are grouped places like this, eating, drinking, dancing, and having fun, in a process called chinchorreo. We'd seen a video or two on YouTube and were looking forward to this culinary exploration!
I had considered a longer, more scenic route, but there were brief waves of heavy rain (interspersed with sunshine, of course - that's life in the tropics!) and I didn't want to deal with possibly-flooded little roads in the mountains. I'd say that was a good call because the more direct route was still plenty scenic!
Did take one brief detour to see an area that I'd been curious about, the Malecón de Naguabo. There is a seaside boardwalk with several reportedly great restaurants. However, as we got there some of those rain waves came through, so didn't even get out and walk along the shops as intended. I guess that's expected for someplace nicknamed "the soaked city" though! Still, picturesque, and I'd like to get back there someday.
Back on the highway, then a scenic and winding route through the tropical rainforest to the area in Guavate with several restaurants and souvenir shops together.
First stop: El Rancho Original, which claims to be the first lechonera to have opened here along route 184. Here we tried Lechon, or Lechon Asado (Roast pork), with lots of crispy skin; Arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas); and pasteles (plantain tamales cooked in banana leaves with meat/pork filling). Loved the flavor of the meat here - their marinade was flavorful without being too salty. The skin was a little tough though. Enjoyed the arroz but also didn't want to fill up too much on rice since we were on chinchorreo and wanted to compare places! I liked the pasteles better than Toph did, which makes sense given that I like tamales better too. The big differences between pasteles and a tamales are the lack of tomato or heat in a pastele, and that the masa is made with plantain instead of corn. The texture and cooking technique is similar, though. El Rancho Original had live music and people were having fun dancing - but it was crazy hot, for us, and also too loud, for us, so we didn't stick around to people-watch long.
Second stop was Lechonera Los Pinos (where I believe Anthony Bourdain stopped some years back and brought attention to the Ruta de Lechon). Here the meat of their lechon was not quite as flavorful - it was more moist, which while not bad from a tenderness perspective, seemed to water down the flavor somewhat - but the skin, and fatty layer attached? *chef's kiss* Such a perfect combination of crunchy and tender. Toph also noted that a bonus of lechon is that it is from the *whole* pig - so one bite might be like a roast, while another might be more like bacon or pork belly. A culinary treasure hunt! We also tried Plátanos Maduros, fried sweet plantains, as one video I'd seen recommended the contrast between the salty and the sweet. They were not wrong, but again, we were being careful not to fill up on starches because we had More Eating Ahead! Finally, tried longaniza, a chunky sausage similar to chorizo but not hot. It was good, but I was hoping to love it like I loved Hawaiian sausage, and alas, that was not the case. They also had live music and dancing, though in a smaller space - but also quieter music so that was nice for us.🙂
Last lechonera was El Nuevo Rancho; as evidenced by the name, they claim to be the "new" to El Rancho Original's "old". Since this was our last stop and we were getting mighty full, we just got lechon. There was nothing wrong with it - if you hadn't been to either other place, you would still be happy here - but comparatively, it was a bit dryer and saltier than either other place and thus was our third choice. Didn't regret walking down to it though!
After walking back to parking and peeking in a souvenir shop or three on the way, it was back on the road. We were a bit farther than an hour from where we were resting our head that night, but first, one more stop, this time for dessert. Hope we left room in our ice cream stomachs because we had creative things to try at Jendy’s Heladeria (Ice Cream Shop) Artesanal!
There are a few places known for creative ice cream flavors in Puerto Rico. A few are in Lares, which is west-central and not an area we were going to make it to this trip. I was happy to find Jendy's was on our way back from Guavate, in Cayey. Sadly, they did not have ojo (garlic) ice cream available the day we were there, as Toph would have enjoyed that one! But with two tasting flavors and two eating flavors per person, we got to try queso cheddar con nueces (cheddar cheese with walnuts); flan de queso (cheese flan, think if flan and cheesecake had a baby); guayaba con queso del pais (guava with farmer cheese, a popular local breakfast pastry flavor); maiz (corn); cheesecake de Nutella; horchata; ginger; and mango. All were super interesting and fun to taste, and the slightly-less-creative flavors made a delicious dessert.
After our sugar rush, we hit the final leg of our journey to Luquillo. Luquillo is about 45 minutes east of San Juan, on the northeast Atlantic coast of Puerto Rico. While it's a little more working class than more tourist-centric locations like Isla Verde, and nice homes intermingle with abandoned, it's also super convenient to a lot of places (including the pork highway, the Cieba ferry, San Juan, and El Yunque National Rainforest), has great local beaches and food, and has less traffic than the San Juan area, so I agree with those who recommend it as a base for exploration.
We stayed in the Playa Azul condo complex. While I had seen mixed reviews, we had nothing but positive experiences here! For one thing, the first being to greet us (after the friendly parking lot guard) was a cat, which is always a plus for us. 😁 The complex has a large feral colony (which you'll hear me refer to as "the clowder" throughout this trip report) in their parking lot; some were pretty friendly immediately, while others were won over by my cat-whisperer husband soon enough. 😁
Even better, Playa Azul Tower 1, where our condo was, directly faces the beach and provides stupendous views of the Atlantic. Our specific condo was 1708-1- as expected from the number, it was on the 17th floor. It had been recently renovated and was clean and well-decorated, and also fully air conditioned, important in June/July heat! (This varies by unit, so make sure you look for AC in both living room and bedroom if you are renting.) I had never stayed that high up in an ocean-facing unit before, and was gratified to confirm that you can in fact still hear the waves that high up, as that's a big plus for me. (Of course, it was too hot to keep windows open, but that's what you get at mid summer!)
Since we made it to Luquillo before the direct gate between the condos and the beach closed at 7, after settling our things in the condo we went out to take a quick walk along the sand of the Playa Azul beach. Being able to walk out the door and be immediately on the beach was my favorite part of the many fantastic things about this stay!
After our walk, which included a lovely view of sunset, we made a quick run to the local grocery store, Amigos. In retrospect I should have taken pictures there too! It had an interesting combo of Things at Every US Grocery Store and Things Specific to Puerto Rico. I'd recommend the visit if you're in staying in Luquillo; it was very convenient to grab coffee, milk for creamer, bottled water, and a few snacks. (Tap water is actually fine in Puerto Rico but one of the only things the condo didn't have, at least that I could see, was a Brita filter, and I am used to the taste of filtered.) Oh, and we also had to get plenty of cat treats, of course!
Once we returned, we headed over to the Kioskos (Luquillo Kiosks), a set of restaurants and shops along the beach. They used to be actual kiosks, years ago, but now are a strip mall. As with most things post-Hurricane Maria, some were in disrepair, but there was a great variety still and all the options you could want for food and drink. Because it was somewhat late, we picked Eidelweiss as they were still open. No, they are not a German restaurant and I have no idea where the name comes from. 😁 Sadly, this was the most disappointing meal of the trip, surprisingly as I'd seen some good reviews. The mofongo (a dish of mashed plantains, pork belly, and garlic beloved in Puerto Rican cuisine) was very, very dry and stodgy; and the arepas were doughy and dense. The queso frito was great, however - like a cross between farmer cheese and cheese curds, deep fried with a guava sauce for dipping. I enjoyed those. The piña coladas were acceptable as well. 🙂
Closed out the night at Mojito Lab, where we tried some Puerto Rican moonshine, pitorro, (coffee flavored, yum!) And of course had mojitos! On recommendation of a Puerto Rican friend I got the parcha, passion fruit, and was very happy with it. Toph got coconut which was also great. Really, I'm not sure you can go wrong with a thing from here! We also had fun chatting with the bartender and some folks who seemed to be regulars as they were getting... special... pours 😁.
Went back to the condo and fed the clowder in the parking lot before heading up to bed, which would quickly become our nighttime routine. A fantastic and delicious day!
TL;DR - Pictures!
A bright and early ferry trip from Vieques to Cieba, on mainland Puerto Rico.
Once on the road, we tried to stop by the Malecón de Naguabo but Mother Nature had other ideas. Due to raindrops, I didn't even get good photos as we passed by the picturesque shoreline. Note also that it took far too long for me to translate the phrase on the Naguabo sign as "the soaked city" - Google Translate was all *shrug*. You may find this when translating other signs in Puerto Rico where your translation apps fail to catch local usage.
Back on the road! Sunny where we are, but you can see rain falling on the mountains and rainforest (unsurprisingly!)
Orange barrels and orange flamboyan flowers.
Then off the highway and onto south 184, a lush, scenic, winding road through the rainforest, in search of roasted pork! We passed bananas and tropical flowers in people's yards - wouldn't that be fun to have? And in case you weren't sure you were in the right place, every so often there were signs about lechon (roast pork)! (The phrase on the sign pictured below seems to be an idiom and I think it's something like "ask for Medalla [a popular local beer] with your lechon")
We found parking! There are lots of little souvenir shops along with the lechonera restaurants here.
First stop: El Rancho Original lechonera, where you can see The Whole Pig, ready for slicing.
They had a large and scenic seating area. They also had live music but it was a little loud for us.
And of course, the food. Mmmm. Lechon, or Lechon Asado (Roast pork) with lots of crispy skin; Arroz con gandules (rice and pigeon peas); and pasteles (plantain tamales cooked in banana leaves with meat/pork filling). El Rancho Original does it good, and this won our vote for favorite meat flavor.
We walked to our next stop. Again, everywhere in Puerto Rico, there is art.
Stop 2: Lechonera Los Pinos. Smaller than El Rancho Original, but still plenty of space. And their music was not nearly as loud!
And of course, the food! Their lechon won our vote for best crispy skin. We also tried longaniza, a chunky sausage similar to chorizo but not hot, and Plátanos Maduros, fried sweet plantains.
Stop 3, El Nuevo Rancho. Zoom to see the menu. No translations here, so hope you remember them from the previous two stops. 😁 They had cute artwork on the walls. They also had live music but they were on break while we were there so we can't speak to how loud they were. 😁
Since this was our third stop, we only got lechon we got this time. While good, we preferred the previous two.
Back on the road. I've not done a great job of pictorial documentation of this so far but the architecture is interesting in many places in Puerto Rico. Here's some examples in Cayey of brightly colored houses!
Time for dessert: Jendy’s Heladeria (Ice Cream Shop) Artesanal! They had many creative ice cream flavors. I got delicious, creamy, cold Guava and Flan de Queso, while Toph got Nutella and Horchata, a wonderful combination.
The condo in Luquillo in which we will stay for the rest of our trip! Playa Azul Tower 1 is directly facing the beach.
Here is the first of a LOT of cat pictures. Playa Azul has a decent sized "feral" colony, and those who know us won't be surprised that Toph made sure to supply them all with treats every day.
Our condo on the 17th floor was freshly renovated with simple, lovely decor -- and an absolutely breathtaking view!
Looking down from Playa Azul 1708-1 at the swimmable beach which is Right There! (The road dead ends here so is only used for parking; there's no traffic to deal with.)
Looking to the far left you can see other residences. Past the green area is the Balneario La Monserrate, a beach park with full facilities, and just past that are the Kioskos de Luquillo, a well-known group of restaurants and shops.
The path to the Playa Azul beach was right behind the condo.
The beach had lovely golden sand -- with hardly any seaweed!
I had to dip my toes this first night.
It was close to sunset, so all we did was walk down to the point (La Punta, not particularly originally named) between Playa Azul, the swimmable beach, and Costa Azul / La Pared, the beaches that are usually too rough for swimming and are used for surfing.
Then we turned back towards the condo -- and sunset too.
This member of the clowder was apparently a "special" of the condo security guards and was the only one who showed up inside the gates at the back beach door on the regular. 😁 He was very talkative and friendly!
This is NOT what you want to see posted in the elevator when you are vacationing in the Greater Antilles Islands! I'd been watching since before we left of course, being a weather nerd, but I believe she became a named storm shortly before this picture was taken.
From the walkway outside the front door of our condo, we overlooked parts of Luquillo and El Yunque.
Dinner and drinks at Eidelweiss, a restaurant at the Luquillo Kiosks.
Queso Frito (Fried cheese) with guava sauce: this dish, I liked.
🎶 Yes, we like piña coladas! And tried to drink one each day! 🎵
Mofongo with pollo (chicken) from Eidelweiss - since we were sharing, we were avoiding seafood. Too dry, sadly.
After dinner, we stopped at the Mojito Lab, a great place for drinks at the Luquillo Kiosks!
Along with mojitos, we got to try pitorro - Puerto Rican "moonshine". The coffee flavor was delicious!
One of the black cats in the colony outside our condo - we named him King George the Second, since of course George the First was back home waiting on us. [For those of you new here, we have a black cat named George. I'm sure you'll meet him eventually.]
I immediately named this old tortie girl Grizabella, as she looked like she was once a glamour cat.
What a lovely end to the day: Good night, Atlantic Ocean. (Again, the seaside lighting is red in order to not disrupt turtle nesting.)
(You can return to the index to see another day's post, here:
Puerto Rico 2024 Index )
