My junior year of college, four friends and I spent a week hiking and drinking around Puerto Rico for spring break. We’d found round-trip tickets out of Philadelphia for $250, and you only needed a driver’s license to go, so we all packed in to an SUV and somehow didn’t kill each other on the drive from Columbus to Philly. For two days we camped out on Culebra, an island off the East coast of Puerto Rico, and it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. Once you’ve seen it, Culebra haunts your dreams.
“I just want to make a bunch of money and then go live on Culebra for the rest of my life.”
“Fuck making money first! Culebra’s cheap! Let’s take off tonight. There’s nothing for us here! Nothing, I tell you! We’ll sell Che Guevara jewelry and sleep in hammocks under the stars.”
After a solid day’s worth of twisted effort, which included harassing and stalking small, school children; approaching seedy drug dealers; and walking several miles down the only road; we’d finally gotten weed from an alcoholic local named Mario who illegally taxied tourists around the island for a small fee. Mario had affectionately nicknamed me his little “Idaho potato.”
“Idaho potato! My pretty little Idaho potato!” Mario drunkenly said to me after we’d gotten out of his car at our campsite.
“I’m from Ohio. That’s a completely different state,” I explained.
“I’ll miss you Idaho potato! Call me if you need anything else.”
On the drive back to our campsite from our journey to find “el crepe,” cocktail in hand, Mario had been telling us about his lost love, a 74-year-old Jewish woman who lived in New York City. He hated himself for it, but Mario was still desperately in love, despite having been rejected, and he was drinking away his pain while bouncing around Culebra with tourists hanging on for dear life.
“It’s me, Mario!” Mario had yelled out of his car window earlier as he’d screeched away from the little convenience store where he’d picked us up minutes before. Due more to being a crazy bastard, and less due to lack of space, my friend Joe sat in the trunk, feet dangling, chugging, and throwing empty beer cans behind Mario’s car us as we weaved in the tropical heat of our tiny, island paradise.
Our first night there, I went out to the beach to relax and take in the stars with my two all-American friends; seriously, they’re Barbie doll and John Mayer. Our two other friends, who spoke fluent Spanish due to studying abroad in high school in Peru and Chile, went to a rowdy barbeque with a bunch of Argentines at the next camp. Since the Argentines were leaving the next day, they gave us the rest of their food – we had burgers and hot dogs and plenty to go around.
So the next day, we invited our neighbors over for an afternoon picnic. One of our neighbors was Jonathan, a man who camped out and exchanged favors for food on Culebra for half of the year. The other half, he claimed, was spent in his very nice house back in the United States. We were not sure if we believed him. In exchange for lunch, Jonathan lent us his snorkeling gear, that he’d collected over time as it washed up on the beach, and showed us an untouched underwater paradise filled with bizarre, and beautiful creatures. He’d also given us an unopened bottle of rum that campsite security had confiscated and thrown away from other campers – no glass bottles allowed on the beach.
Our other neighbor was Mimi, a yoga instructor who lived in New York City, worked as a bartender, and never shaved her body. We all thought Mimi was about the grooviest girl we’d ever met. She was camping out by herself for a week and had brought only nuts and berries to eat, so she was excited to have a burger. In exchange for lunch, Mimi gave us some hash and a joint filled with psychedelic dream herbs.
“You all really need to diversify what herbs you smoke,” she counseled us, “You’re cheating yourself by only smoking weed, there are so many great herbs that do different things for you.”
The next morning, after some psychedelic dreaming, I went with Mimi to the beach and did yoga for the very first time. There’s nothing like the ocean waves lapping at your hands and feet as you press back in to your first ever downward facing dog.
