BJJ in San Juan

October, 2022

Spanish, nice food and BJJ

Duration: 6 days, 5 nights

Island: San Juan, PR

Costs: Flight 300$, Hotel 80$ for the first night

Thanks to the invitation of Angel, I made it to Puerto Rico. It was never really on my radar but man I got to come back one day.

Angel is running an academy in Carolina. It’s a very nice and friendly spot with a lot of family members training together.

First stop of my journey in a Spanish speaking country. Figuring out my Spanish sucks . Puerto Rico has some decent food to offer.

Coming in from St. Maarten it only took an hour to get here.

Getting here

I came in with an airplane from St.Maarten.

Puerto Rico is an island so you eihter go by a ferry or airplane.

BJJ

San Juan has a couple of gyms. You can defenetly see Brazilian Jiu Jets is growing.

I was invited by Angel to train in his Gym Carolina BJJ.

The gym is on the top of a lawyer office and dentist on one of the most popular commercial avenues. It has around 100m2 matspace, surrounded by space to sit and watch the training.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday they offer classes. Monday and Wednesday they start with kid’s classes followed by adult Gi class. On Friday is NoGi adults.

One thing that I noticed was that his Team very family orientated. You can see parents watching the kids class and after they will do the Adults class. You can also see family members training together in the same class. The team has a big bonding.

Angel invited me to teach the classes on Monday and Wednesday. It was a cool vibe and I could see everybody was willing to learn new stuff.

I`m looking forward to comeback one day.

Other Gyms in San Juan:

BJJ PR, Behring BJJ and Cavalo Club

Watersports

Puerto Rico has a lot of watersports to offer. I went one day to Isla Verde and found Frank who owns Wind Addiction Kitesurfing School. I took the opportunity to get a lesson and refresh my skills.

Angel took me to La Parguera which is on the other side of PR for a snorkeling tour. Before that we went fishing. It was the first time I did it and it was a bit fun. After we went with Paradise Scuba to a reef to snorkel.

Food and drinks

Puerto Rican cuisine has been influenced by an array of cultures including Spanish and African. You will find a lot of those restaurants in PR and of course restaurant with traditional food. They also have a wide range of street food, a lot of those things are fried. My favorite dish was Mofongo, was my first meal when I arrived and was totally in love with it.

As well you find a lot of seafood. Going out in PR I tried a lot of their local beers. They have a good selection of local drafted beers, definitely something you should try. And of course they serve you a lot of local cocktails made out of fruit juce.

Nightlife

Old San Juan is the place to be. A lot of bars and clubs are in this area and in the night it gets super crowded and everywhere is music. There are playing a lot of Raggaeton, Salsa and all sorts of Spanish and Latin music. La Factoria is a nice club. They have four dancefloors playing different kind of music. Notice: you should may take some Salsa lessons before coming here…

Good to know

Puerto Rico counts a s US territory even they are separate. Thats why I needed a ESTA form. The langue spoken is Spanish, but you can also get by very well with English.

The currency is Dollar.

off to GDL