This is the story of my last trip to Puerto Rico, April 2011. I'd suppose we were slightly reckless. Enjoy:
It was a late April night in 2011, my long time friend friend Josh and I were having a few drinks in an attempt to find a resolution to the boredom of
"just another night". It was finally the end of a long 50 hour week for both of us and we couldn't be hapier. While wandering aimlessly on the
computer I somehow stumbled across an advertisement with great rates to Puerto Rico. I checked the times and found a flight leaving at 6AM and before
a second's hesitation I booked two seats. After all, it was only 3AM, we had plenty of time to pack and get to Denver. "Common, we're going to Puerto
Rico" I said almost in passing, waking Josh up from a deep sleep on the couch. As if this was expected he hopped up and threw his shoes on without a
word, glanced back and said "lemme grab another T-Shirt". Five minutes for me to pack a bag and we were on our way.
I had been to Puerto Rico almost a year before, except the first time I was alone. The first trip was amazing and was the least planned thing I have
ever done. I literally packed a bag and left at 4AM, stopped at the first bar I found and made friends with some locals. "Raffel" and "Pietro", to be
exact, and they showed me a fantastic time. We went to the Bacardi factory, they took me to their family's home up deep into the mountains, to an old
lady's birthday party complete with moonshine and authentic food. It was the best time of my life.
So of course as we threw our bags into the car the words coming out of my mouth were "this is going to be #in' awesome" and I immediately started
calling my friends to let them know we were on our way. With huge smiles on our faces we made our way to the airport. One short flight later we landed
in San Juan, PR.
After grabbing a rental I called up Pietro. He was going to be working for another few hours, what better to do then to talk to some chikas at the
beach? We were out. A couple drinks, a bag of coke (first in years, what the hell? We're in Puerto Rico!), spanish women, beaches and white sand. How
could life get better? Ring ring, it was Pietro.
Having spent some time here before I picked a nice bar in tourist old-San-Juan. It was packed and the energy was high, we couldn't be happier. Our
friends were there waiting, drinks in hand, ready to start the night. The first drink we have is a mojito they had waiting, second is a shot of rum.
All of a sudden I'm dizzy. It all fades away.
Awake. All of a sudden I can hear the voice in my head again. It's screaming at me, we're both confused. Am I blind? No, red light, its dark. Am I
sitting? Who's on top of me? Am I naked? All of a sudden a door which had gone unnoticed thus far flew open, presenting a huge Puerto Rican with an
gun in his hand. With one swift smack to the face with that gun my world started to crumble again. I could hear the voice still, except this time it's
screaming at me: "GET THE # UP!". I'm up.
As I go for the door my senses return, there's crappy American rap music bumping and a naked (slightly stunned) girl in the room, I'm in a strip club.
I made it through the club. As I approached the front door I realize I can step through it, the glass was broken, something big must have happened.
Two steps outside the door I can see Pietro, he looks normal. I start to walk to him before I hear hear "hey, white boy, come here". I looked at
Pietro and said "I'm runnin'", and so I did.
About two blocks away I realize I only have one shoe and my face is streaming blood. As I'm trying to figure out where I am it suddenly hits me:
Where's Josh and what in the hell happened? Logically I couldn't have pissed the bouncer off enough to hit me, I was just sitting there. What did Josh
do? I'm pissed. But more importantly, where the # is he? I search my pockets, no wallet but I have my phone. It's dead. I just keep running.
Some time later (no way to recall) I approach a scene outside of a bank. I can see six police officers standing in a circle, though I can't see what
their looking at. I think "great, maybe for the first time in my life a cop can actually help me" and made my way to the circle. As I get closer I see
what they're looking at, it's Josh. Not only are they looking at them, but one has his gun out and the rest have their batans in hand. I look at Josh,
he's streaming blood from his face, hunched over and everything about him is covered in blood. He's screaming at the cops, "arrest me or make a
report", breaking occasionally to call them corrupt and talk about liberty.
Quickly I assess the situation and approach the cops. "What's going on?" blank stares, no one speaks English. I yelled out to josh but he didn't
respond. We did however share eyecontact and the most brief moment of relief. I busted out my dead phone and pretended to be recording, in an attempt
to keep them from killing my friend. I realize one cop is speaking English to Josh, telling him to put something down (it was a peice of rubar). Right
now my only concern is to keep Josh from being locked up in a strange place with a plane leaving on Monday. Keep in mind I still thought Josh had done
some incredibly meschevious deed and gotten us into all this trouble.
I asked the English speaking cop if I can take him and we can just go. Quickly he says yes and I start to drag Josh away, but not before the officer
reaches out his hand to give me something: it's our rental car key. Without thinking about it I grabbed Josh and we started moving. We made it a few
blocks before two cops: Mendez and G. Lucia approached in their car and kept attempting to get us in the car and asking questions ("Where are you
going? Where's your hotel? ect). Josh yells "no" and starts running as fast as he can, like a #ing panic run.
I catch up to him, it appears he knows where we are going. All of a sudden I start throwing up the contents of my stomach, nothing. No drinks, no
food, nothing but stomach bile. We made our way to the car and got in. Josh starts driving, we're both extremely inhebriated and we haven't spoken
about what happened at all.
At this point he's talking about people chasing us and the bouncers trying to kill him, most of which I thought was delusional. With a slight scrape
on the rental car we were speeding down the streets of San Juan. Our hotel is in Fajardo, about an hour away, so I pulled up the directions on my
phone. On the highway Josh was slightly delusional, apparently a product of the massive concussion he sustained. Going about 95 on the highway in our
little rental Mazda 3, Josh slams the breaks and we skid for about three seconds before going through a toll booth barrier at about 60 MPH. He keeps
going.
Ten miles later there are flashing lights behind us. A non English speaking officer walked up to find two white kids bleeding from head to foot. He's
concerned with our speed, not the toll booth. "you been drinking?" he asks, which to this day I'm sure are the only words in English he really knew.
"Yeah, earlier" Josh replies, and then starts ranting about the cops in San Juan. Obviously confused the officer tells us to have a good night and
we're on our way. Finally we start to talk about what happened. Luckily Josh's memory is better than mine, and he fills me in:
edit on 7-1-2012 by badfish420 because: (no reason given)