Pontouf examines Glenda's yellow hat once we are home
In our last installment, Glenda and I had swapped stories and were headed for San Juan. I would be remiss if I did not tell one of Glenda's stories, as it became one of the stories of the trip.
Glenda's bike ride had a beach stop on the French side of St. Maarten Island. What she didn't know until she was off was that the stop was at a nude beach. The group was told before the stop...but thought the guide was joking. He wasn't.
Glenda's Facebook description of the experience
John talked about it at breakfast the next morning, whereupon "just don't look for their race bibs" became a catch phrase within the group. It was also at this breakfast that Glenda received her coveted yellow hat for being the fastest woman in the 10k on St. Maarten.
Seen in the Streets of Old San Juan
Our event in Puerto Rico was an "Amazing Race" which is essentially a teamwork-based race in which you have to find and document various locations. Each location is worth a number of points, and the team that gathers the most points in NO MORE THAN 60 MINUTES is the winner. The timing is important, because it adds a wrinkle to the race. In fact I heard one team got the highest point location, but arrived back 3 or 4 minutes late...disqualified. Our strategy was to walk this one, and go for the low-hanging fruit and enjoy the sights and sounds of Old San Juan. It was the perfect choice for us.
The amazing race was pirate themed and there were a variety of pirate costumes. We had ours too, but with a twist that turned out to be important.
A particular type of Pirates takes to the streets in Old San Juan
What we had not thought about or really realized is that Roberto Clemente played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and he and his son Roberto Clemente, Jr. continue to be very popular here, so the Pirates are well known in Puerto Rico. We got cheers everywhere we went. Not only that, we were stopped by one gentleman who had to tell us about how he'd met Clemente as a kid, as the baseball player was a friend of his abuela. And another stopped us to tell us how Jr. was his friend and customer...and pulled up a selfie on his phone to prove it. We didn't win the race, but we won the day in terms of connecting with the locals and having a fabulous time. And we saw a lot of sights like...
The colorful streets of Old San Juan
This was not an official checkpoint...but it is an important landmark!
The view from a checkpoint at the top of the city (Old San Juan is "hill-ish")
After the race, we met up at Señor Frog's near the port for a Running Cruise Celebration...including food, drinks (who doesn't need a margarita at 9:30 in the morning?), a DJ and various other shenanigans.
We were presented with fashionable headwear
Glenda reminds us not to look for the race bib
Yep, I even got on stage to help lead Sweet Caroline and YMCA...did I mention morning margaritas?
It was an early day in Old San Juan as we had to be back on the ship by 1 pm and off to our next and final port. Originally we were to go to Coco Cay in the Bahamas, but weather patterns did not allow, and we went instead to Labadee, a Royal Caribbean private port, in Haiti.
A view in Labadee
First order of business in Labadee? A race of course! This time a relay. To win this one, you needed to choose 2, 4 or 6 miles and then predict the finish time for your team of 2. Each runner had to run a half mile loop and hand off to the other to run the same loop (continue back and forth until you reach the miles...must be between 30 and 60 minutes). Glenda and I chose 4 miles and made our prediction.
Getting ready to start the relay
Of course we had costumes for the race, as well. We have worn these on a couple of cruises, but they are a favorite.
Mermaids in Haiti
We ran our best and came within a little over a minute off our prediction...not bad, but other's were closer on their predictions. We then received our medals for the cruise and went off to explore.
Artsy shot of the medal, which is also a coaster
Afterward we spent the rest of our time in Labadee doing all kinds of tourist things, like...
The splash pad (HEY, why didn't we run through here on our relay??)
The amazing teal ocean
And the best kind of beach time
On the final day of the cruise, we were at sea. The day started with a wonderful talk by Coach Jenny about her coaching philosophy and ideas about making workouts work with your life. It was very interesting and enjoyable. It was followed by lots of laughter as John told stories about his life as a runner and columnist.
The rest of the day was packing and lounging until the evening when we had our final social and awards ceremony. Always a good time, as we made a final toast to each other and had one last chat.
The end of another great trip! Will we be back next year? You betcha! Already signed up!
