It's a delicate art, arranging a successful spring break in Puerto Rico. One must get the rental car, find the right hotel that offers both hot water and beach proximity on a student budget, and plan the lazy days on the beach with a head to estimate the coconut-to-rum ratio.
Okay, so maybe it's not so difficult, but it still felt like an art. It takes a lot of careful choreography to get me to the point where I can finally take a moment to forget about my thesis and fuzzy plans for the future (not to mention the soon-to-be-defunct lease on my apartment).
First off, my laptop has to be about 2000 miles away, all of my textbooks have to be replaced by dog-eared works of fiction, including at least one Truman Capote book, and I must obtain at least one well-mixed piña colada per afternoon. Only then is it a vacation.
Since every waking moment of my life from now until graduation is scheduled to the hilt, I tried to keep the itinerary low-stress and those piña coladas in easy reach. Most of my days were spent reading on the sand covered in SPF 50, and most of my nights were spent enjoying Puerto Rico's finest cheapest beer - Medalla. We never made it to the Bacardi factory for a tour, but the Lush is a firm believer that rum drinks are best enjoyed on the beach anyway. It was relaxing, and meeting up with a large group of Jumbos on the western side of the island halfway through the trip kept things interesting and provided an instant crew with whom to navigate the local beach bars.
But I did have one complaint: the iguanas. The green-striped, sunbathing monsters are to Puerto Rico what squirrels are to Boston. Don't appreciate my contempt for these terrifying reptiles? Try having a four-foot monster play chicken with your rental car some day. They'd do a lot more damage than a squirrel, I'd imagine. Aside from the lizards, the island was delightful - I don't think it dipped below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, even during the occasional rainstorm.
The highlight of the trip was on the final night, but it was also the part of the trip that was the most stressful. Starting on St. Patrick's Day, the shores were experiencing some of the biggest swells the island has ever seen. Waves three stories tall were breaking just hundreds of yards from the shore, and people were coming from all around the island to gather on Rincon's beaches and film the impressive display. Alas, I'd booked a sunset sailing cruise for us Jumbos that Tuesday. The sailing crew called me and had to postpone the trip, advising against setting out in conditions that rivaled "The Perfect Storm." Every day we tried to reschedule, but we were constantly thwarted by the ever-increasing waves and then by a rainstorm.
Thankfully, we were able to arrange a moonlit cruise for Saturday evening - everyone's last night on the island. For a modest sum, 14 of us had a two and a half hour ride around the bay and unlimited rum drinks. And the Jumbos bid a gleeful "adiós" to that Puerto Rican PBR, Medalla - with the skipper's neon-green beer snorkel - scuba certification required, of course.
Once out on the water, countless phone calls, rescheduling and cancellations drifted away like so many pages of an academic thesis. The Lush lounged under a full moon on the trampoline netting of the 32-foot catamaran and later watched the fins of dolphins - yeah, like Flipper - as they swam in our wake. It was the perfectly planned night.
Until someone told me iguanas can swim.
Kate Peck is a senior majoring in English. She can be reached at Katherine.Peck@tufts.edu.
