Puerto Rico reflections #2

Some of you guys have asked about how crappy my hotel was so I snapped a few pics. Hotel Villa del Ray wasn't all that bad. Good people. It was a great way to see Puerto Rico, if you drove off the highway, down a meandering road where natives give you the evil eye in the middle of the jungle.

I drove by the place three times because I could not see this sign. It was face down on the ground when I finally discovered it and I leaned it up against a nearby wall. After I told the owner, the sign remained there for the next 13 days until I checked out.

It wasn't a slum or anything. This was the view from my room. The hotel was basically empty the entire time I was there (except for a few preferred customers).

After one day of staying there, the owner went on vacation with his family. They traveled to St. Thomas, of all places, for their annual summer getaway. I asked him if he wanted to do a house swap deal and he was not interested. He also left his teenage niece in charge, who liked to have late-night parties with her overweight, beer-drinking girlfriends in the pool and of course, none of them spoke English.

So to follow up on my last post: After getting my hair did up, I walked over to this neighborhood bar that didn't even have a name. No one was really inside when I strolled in but they had a big flat-screen TV and the Puerto Rico-Mexico gold medal game was about to tip.

I sat down and watched as the TV cameras kept panning to outside the stadium, where drones of people had gathered to watch the game on a movie screen. To me it looked like one of those soccer riots you see in Europe. "That's right down the street," the bartender told me. After breaking free of the melee just an hour earlier, I knew all too well about the shenanigans taking place.

I drank several Medalla Lights -- the go-to beer in western P.R. -- before I was approached by this loud, bare-foot guy who entered the bar drinking from a Burger King to-go cup. My first thought: this could be trouble.

The bartender welcomed him but you could tell he was hesitant. After the rambled on in Spanish about God knows what, he directed his attention to me.

"So where are you from?" he asked.

Surprised he spoke perfect English and excited about the upcoming conversation, I responded quickly.

"The Virgin Islands."

He did not expect that answer and I sensed immediate street credit.

We continued to talk and I later found out that he had spent some time in Florida and had already been married and divorced twice. He was only 25 years old. He didn't drink either.

"He's not allowed to drink here," the bartender muttered to me.

During our exchange, two rather large women sat down at the bar and started to put back shots of tequila like it was their job. We all sat and watched the P.R. game as passerby's would stick in their heads just to see the score.

"So this is what Puerto Rico is like," I thought to myself. "Good people sitting around a neighborhood bar watching their national team in action..."

Just then, a warm shot was pushed in front of me. Wha??

The ladies motioned to me to take the shot as everyone in the cramped bar was invited to enjoy one on the house. One turned into several and then I realized that these people wanted to test my drinking limit.

The bartender gave me a free Puerto Rico T-shirt, which was cool, but I was no match for these booze hounds. I walked to the bathroom in hopes that these tequila-crazed women would calm down.

Just as I come back, I watched the bartender go back into the kitchen because the ladies ordered some mozzarella sticks. And then it happened.

I watched as the 25-year-old double divorcee leaned over the bar, grabbed two bottles of booze and scampered out the door. The women started to hoot and holler and then the bartender emerged from the kitchen.

He looked at me and I had few words for him.

"It was the barefoot bandit!" I yelled as the ladies burst into laughter.

The bartender started to laugh too and my timely remark seemed to dull the sudden tension in the room. I sat back down at the bar and my empty Medalla Light can had been replaced with a fresh one while I was in the john. The bartender just shook his head and smirked at me.

"That's why that piece of shit is not allowed in this bar," he said.

Right before I left, I grabbed a picture with my iPhone of another guy that walked in later that night. He was related to the bartender in some way: cousin, nephew, fellow gang member.

The symbol shaved into his head was the logo for the Mayaguez CAC Games. He told me he had it done across the street at the barber shop. I assumed he really liked the CAC Games and he shook his head.

"Lost a game of pool," he said with a smile. "Loser got his hair cut by the winner."

It was another satisfied customer.