Lights, mirrors, revolving pay windows, and slamming garage doors: Why Puertorican motels are not your typical roadside way-stations.
Ah-- Saint Valentine's Day. Wine, roses, chocolates-- perhaps a romantic dinner for two and dancing. And if you live in Puerto Rico-- a good chance that you'll be stopping at the motel on your way home.
Motels in Puerto Rico are not motor lodges, nor are they places where kids zip out the front door to plunge gleefully into a swimming pool. They are not even reasonably priced hotels or guesthouses. Motels are for one thing and one thing only. That's right! SEX!!!
And if this conjures up telenovela images of middle-aged executives seducing nubile secretaries, or brazen housewives skimming the pool boy off his regular duties for an hour or two-- you might not be far from the mark. But the simple reality is that many people (including married couples) take advantage of this institution for a number of un-sordid and purely practical reasons.
One very good example is proximity. Puerto Rico is the size of Connecticut (and with a similar population) but with a population that is crammed along the coastal plains, or tucked into isolated valleys. As such, your closest neighbors are usually your parents or in-laws and since many houses are multifamily homes (mom and dad live downstairs and the kids and grand kids live upstairs or visa versa) that closeness may equate to the same building.
Another is discretion in general. Despite the popular concept that Puertoricans and their culture are overtly sexually and provocative-- they're not. If one truly watches Latin dancing for example, you will notice that it is all about romance and the chase rather than submission and the kill. No matter how secular Puerto Rico becomes, and how much younger generations swear they are relapsed Catholics-- the sanctity of the act of love is never far from the glittering surface of denial. Motels (which are basically set up as adult theme parks) allow the perpetrators a degree of plausible deniability, and "plausible deniability" really is the Puertorican motel's stock-in-trade.
In a typical experience, one will drive to the establishment (many of which are located on major arteries along with their lusty competitors) turning into the suitably discrete yet strangely garish driveway (which always has at least one bend early in the drive, so that prying eyes get the briefest possible view of you car and license plate from the highway). Once in the courtyard, you pull into a garage (yes-- a garage) and before you can turn off the ignition, someone, somewhere, somehow has closed the garage door behind you with crash.
Exiting the car, you enter the room-- where you will soon encounter a revolving Lucite tube (like liquor stores have in bad neighborhoods). A distant, disembodied voice will tell you what you owe through a speaker, and you will put that amount in the tube which will spin away and return with any change and your receipt. At that point, a large, red, digital clock will light up, and begin counting down the allotted time of your encounter. Lest you feel you might get caught up in the moment and forget your check-out time have no fear! That disembodied voice will come on periodically (and loudly) to let you know how much time you have left for your rendezvous and any post rendezvous prep.
Motel amenities are a bit different too as you might expect. Besides soap and shampoo, you can anticipate tooth bushes and toothpaste (as well as other predictable amenities not necessarily listed for consumption by the more casual reader, and oftentimes handy in a pump dispenser right by the bed) as well as a whole host of other luxuries to include: private pools; dancer poles; hot tubs; theme rooms, and something we've seen advertised along the way called,"the Love Machine." What this machine does and how it relates to "love" is never described, and I would just as soon not strain my half-century-boggled-brain with discerning it. However, if any readers wishes to elaborate-- please do so privately at ClaraVistaRevista@gmail.com since this is a family-friendly publication. I really am genuinely interested.
If you are visiting Casa Clara Vista, you will find a wide variety of motels along PR 1 between Bayamon and Caguas, and whereas we here at Casa Clara Vista do not judge our guests by what they do in the privacy of their own room, if you really need a stripper pole we would prefer that you go to the motel for a few hours. Using the support of the tea house may be a bit distracting for our neighbors not to mention us if we are trying to watch TV with the cat and the dog in the library.
Have a safe and happy Saint Valentine's Day. And try not to watch the clock!!!