Road trip!

Ok, it was only a few miles down the road, but there was a road involved so it qualifies.  Our project for today was to take the bus to Condonado, which is another city popular for large hotels/resorts and beaches. With nothing else to do today, we took on the challenge of the infamous PR public transportation system.   

Now, we love public transportation and use it as much as we can wherever we travel.  it's typically such an economical and convenient way to get around a new place.  We couldn't find much info when researching the Departamento de Transportación y Obras Públicas (DTOP) online.  We were, however, able to deduce the following: 

1.  It costs 75 cents to ride the bus and you must have exact change

2.  There is no discernible schedule for when the bus will arrive or leave any given stop

3.  Everyone hates the DTOP bus system

As I said, we didn't have anything else to do today.  We're also not easily swayed by popular opinion, so we opted to proceed.  We set off from the apartment armed with the following information: 

• The location of the bus stop closest to us
• The number of the bus(es) that are reported to go from OSJ to Condonado
• Exact change

It was about 6 blocks from the apartment to the bus stop, which reminded me more of a Greyhound station than a city bus stop.  It was in a large garage-type structure and there were multiple lanes where different buses were waiting.   We quickly found the number of the bus we were hoping for (#53).  There were about a half-dozen other people who also seemed to be waiting for this bus.  There was, however, no driver inside.  Within 5 minutes, a driver appeared and we were on our way.  So far, so good!  

The bus fleet here is just like any city bus fleet you've seen.  They even had air conditioning! 

It took about 15 minutes to get from OSJ to Condonado, and we were able to easily figure out where to to get off - another win.  Within a few minutes we emerged out of the city streets to this:  

Ahhh!

 While we can walk to the ocean in less than 10 minutes from our apartment, our location in the heart of the city with narrow streets and lots of traffic makes us forget that we're near the ocean.   The blue water was a welcome sight and we spent about an hour walking up and down the beach enjoying the view and the sun.  The waves were big and no swimming was allowed in this area due to strong currents.  There were, however, a lot of body surfers enjoying the swells.  Made me sad we didn't bring our suits.  And that I don't know how to body surf.

After our beach stroll it was time for lunch and a chance to cross another location of "the list".  We walked about 1.5 km down the main street in Condonado.  We could tell that the area was geared to tourists - lots of shops, restaurants and spas.  Oh, and this important consumer service! 

  

Does my heart good to see safer sex promotion in a tourist area!

We finally made it to the restaurant - Pinky's.  Andrew had a chicken ceasar wrap and I had a kite surfer sandwich.  Both were good but this place was not quite what I expected based on the rave reviews.   Good service, but the food was really just a small step up from Subway.

After lunch, we walked back in the direction of OSJ and stopped in to a large CVS Pharmacy.  They sell liquor in the stores here and we wanted to get the fixings for mojitos, as well as a couple of bottles of wine to take on to the ship.  Prices are higher here than what we're used to back home, to be certain.  For example, the wine I often buy at home (Apothic Red) for about $8/bottle was $16 here.  Rum, on the other hand, is dirt cheap with a Bacardi distillery nearby.  After about a 10 minute wait right outside the CVS, we hopped a bus back home and were looking at this lovely view a short 30 minutes later!

Overall, we agreed that using the bus was a success and we'd do it again and/or recommend it to others.  It cost us a total or $3 to get both of us to and from Condonado.  In a taxi, it would have been $15 each way (they have set fares here for taxis depending on the region you're traveling to).  The $27 we saved payed for our two bottles of wine and a mickey of rum for mojitos!  Considering time was not a factor for us today, we would call that an excellent trade off.