As much as I hate to travel, I wasn't going to miss a chance to see Eli and a couple of the other XC Devo kids race there. We landed in San Juan, and drove to the south of the island to our Air BnB. This was the view driving down the treacherous path to the race venue, which only 12 minutes away.
I didn't actually get any pics of the house itself, but suffice to say it was gorgeous. The Beautiful Mrs. K takes a lot of time scouting places for us to stay on these race trips, and so far this one take the cake. Fantastic sunsets every night.
Puerto Rico is a hot and humid place. It's like Florida on human growth hormone. Lucky for us it was February and not July. But the Missouri boys suited up anyway and did some recon laps of the brutal course. Lots of climbing, and a tricky course with tons of loose-over-hardpack trail surface. Here, Cade, Eli and Carson are going out for another lap in full South Side XC Devo kit.
Cade and Carson did the first race of the week, which was the short track race. Fast, fast, fast. I caught Cade going Mach 5 into the big flyover.
Our house was gated, so we always had to stop at the base of the property to open the gate and drive out. Of course, I skewered my knew on this spikey man-eating plant.
Turns out, the minivan was the perfect rental car for mountain bikes. We must've gone back and forth to the race venue 10 times.
We visited the Castillo San Filipe Del Morro in San Juan on one of the off days. It was a hot one, but we had to do some tourist stuff. Amazing place, built in the 1500's.
It's built right on the sea, made to protect PR from invaders at the entrance to the Caribbean sea. This iguana owned this particular section of the fort.
And yes, there are other critters that inhabit the island. We saw our first tarantula on one day, then another one, dead in the wading pool, the next day. I scooped him out and set him down so I could judge his size. Yep, about the size of a baseball.
Back to the racing. The course was littered with cool features. The boys were excited about the jump line on the way down from the highest point. Eli did a good job of keeping it low. I actually used his bike to do a test loop of the course, and of course, I stayed low too.
The racing was freaking intense. There were many, many riders from the U.S. mainland, as well as riders from central and South America. Eli got in two XC races, the last one was a lot better than his first. Lessons learned.
After a week, we were ready to come home. One last stop in San Juan before going to the airport.
Of course it was hot, so naturally Eli hung out on the edge of the beach like a good American with his hiking boots on and his shirt off. We did a lot more hanging around at the San Juan airport, as they cancelled our flight while we were waiting to board. After getting flown around the country, we got home nearly 12 hours later than expected and being awake for 24 hours. Puerto Rico was awesome. Frontier Airlines, not so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment