There is absolutely no doubt of US influence on the island. All you have to do is to see all the McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts, Church's Chicken, Walmart, Walgreens, Home Depots, and other US brand stores fly by as you drive. You also can't help but notice the (good) quality of the roads, signage, street lighting, level of housing, and types of cars that show up as you travel. After that, though, the flavor begins to assert itself. There are a lot of ways in which Puerto Rico distinguishes itself.
Tropical with a capital T
There is no doubt you are in the tropics. This is not just Florida hot and humid. This is wringing wet at times, surrounded by the sea and always feeling its effects. It is almond trees on the beach. (By the way, don't sit under them - despite the great shade - unless you are willing to have a knot on your head when an almond in its husk falls on your head. They are heavy.)
It is daily thunderstorm wet. More on that later.
You can even drive through a cloud (and torrential rain) as you go from the south coast over the mountains to the north coast.
Animals
Some are really strange to us temperate climate types. Of course we have all seen frogs and lizards. But these are really big! This guy sat about 5 inches tall. We thought it was the infamous Coqui frog, but it turns out that that one is a little guy (about the size of a quarter). The Coqui is the frog that sings out with a powerful voice each night. We're not sure what this guy was doing, other than sitting there patiently while we took its picture.
The lizards are also pretty big. This guys was one of many, easily hanging on a vertical concrete column, motionless for minutes at a time.
Tropical with a capital T
There is no doubt you are in the tropics. This is not just Florida hot and humid. This is wringing wet at times, surrounded by the sea and always feeling its effects. It is almond trees on the beach. (By the way, don't sit under them - despite the great shade - unless you are willing to have a knot on your head when an almond in its husk falls on your head. They are heavy.)
It is daily thunderstorm wet. More on that later.
You can even drive through a cloud (and torrential rain) as you go from the south coast over the mountains to the north coast.
Animals
Some are really strange to us temperate climate types. Of course we have all seen frogs and lizards. But these are really big! This guy sat about 5 inches tall. We thought it was the infamous Coqui frog, but it turns out that that one is a little guy (about the size of a quarter). The Coqui is the frog that sings out with a powerful voice each night. We're not sure what this guy was doing, other than sitting there patiently while we took its picture.
The lizards are also pretty big. This guys was one of many, easily hanging on a vertical concrete column, motionless for minutes at a time.
There seem to be a lot of varieties of crabs, some of which are edible.
And a retired zoologist showed us his ball python, his friend for a long time.
Beaches
There are tons of them. We were near Rincon, supposedly known for its surfing. Take a look here! No waves! A bit further north there is more of an Atlantic character, though, bringing bigger waves.
The off season seems nice here. The place we stayed was deserted during the week. On weekends the local people book it up a bit more. We had the beach pretty much to ourselves. We couldn't veg for very long, though. About midweek we got going to see a bit more. This is the "surfing" beach near the lighthouse north of Rincon.
The character of the beaches seems to be quite natural, though some that are in cities or parks are tended a little more carefully. Unlike other places, you can still see and collect sea glass here.
Politics
Politics seems to be big business here. We were told that about 90% of eligible voters participate in elections. People are very participative. While we were there, the election preparations were going on. Every Saturday, and sometimes in between, there are parades of cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Some of them, like this one, have HUGE loud speakers on them, blaring out messages in Spanish along with music. While almost everyone here can speak English, the overwhelming everyday language is Spanish.
Other vehicle have people in, hanging onto, sticking out of, and on top of them. Apparently there is no regard for safety! The cops evident in all these parades seem to ignore that.
It is not uncommon to see 40 or 50 vehicles all driving along together, honking horns, shouting, and blaring music in support of their candidate. They double up, they pass each other, they peel out, they take up the wrong lanes; it is just plain crazy!
Old friends
One of the days we met up with one of E's old friends from graduate school. Carmencita is a multi-talented woman, a professor of chemistry at the Mayaguez branch of the University of Puerto Rico , a musician, a talented poet, the founder of the Mayaguez Symphony Orchestra, and a hell of a lot of fun. She and E pal'ed around together in Gainesville quite a while ago. To give you an idea, Carmen once won a wet t-shirt contest without baring herself, just by dancing the rumba island-style.
With Carmen we visited a lot of local places. We started with lunch at a little town called Joyuda, on the beach near Mayaguez.
We ate at El Gatito (the little cat), which had fresh seafood and appetizers that were very good. A bottle of Medalla, the local beer, went really well with that.
Then we went to see San German, the very first Spanish settlement in the Western Hemisphere. This was a beautiful small town with a central square surrounded with gorgeous houses and a restored church.
Carmen got us in to see the church, despite it being closed. She is quite a wheeler-dealer, and knew the historian who happened to be inside.
Most of the roof had been restored. However, the inside columns were original, made of a wood so hard that you cannot hammer nails into it. There were a lot of beautiful artifacts inside, like this tile of the Tower of Babel, situated on the steps leading to the pulpit.
This gives you an idea of its size, as well as showing some of the original columns and an original carving.
We ended the day visiting the University Campus, which has a planting of some 50+ varieties of palm trees spread across the campus.
It also has some really beautiful sculptures like this Tree of Life with Pickle sitting next to it. This is quite an old campus. The government is currently restoring some of the original buildings.
Exploring a bit
Other days we had more adventures. One evening we reached La Parguera on the south coast right after dusk. Here there is a mangrove lagoon that has a bioluminescent character. John's Boat Tours took us out to see the "must see" natural phenomenon.
About 20 of us piled into this boat to splash through the shallows into the lagoon. There a young man jumped into the water and started swimming around in it. Then about half the people on the boat jumped in and swam around, stirring up the water. Then the mosquitoes came and attacked the rest of us!
This is the best picture I took of the phosphorescence. It was VERY pale, almost to the point of SO WHAT? Oh, well, live and learn. For $6 what do you want?
Another day we headed off to see a church in Hormigueros, a small town along the Route 2 expressway. Since we were early in the day we stopped off at a well known bakery for breakfast. Bakeries here are a little strange. They have the obvious, bread and sweet confections. They also have comida criollas (Creole food) and sandwiches. They serve anything from breakfast through dinner, and are open early and late. This one (Ricomini) is really good.
We knew the established route to Hormigueros, but spotted a sign that pointed us along the way much earlier than we expected. It took us onto a tiny (1 1/2 lane) country road that just got smaller and smaller as we drove. Along the way we saw this beautiful horse who clearly expected to be fed something. Unfortunately we were traveling sans carrots.
After a while the road dwindled into one lane and started winding up and down hill, skirting ravines and jungle. I love this kind of thing, and am used to driving on minimal roads. I learned to drive when I was eleven, and drove woods roads a lot. Unfortunately, this is a very scary thing for Pickle, who screeches a lot and accuses me of trying to kill her. So, when confronted with a tree half across the road I turned back, ultimately resulting in a visit to a gomera. We had seen signs everywhere for gomeras, but couldn't tell what they were. You really don't want to know!
This picture should give you a hint! As we drove off the hill we began to notice a thump, thump, thump sound. I stopped twice to look at the tires, but did not notice any problem. Soon enough, though, we knew what had happened.
The timing could not have been worse! Remember the afternoon thunder shower mentioned above? As we were driving through Mayaguez, the afternoon shower began. Soon I had the wipers on full speed. We began to notice flooding on the expressway and streams running down roads. Everyone slowed down to about 10 mph. The thump, thump, thump then resolved itself into a flat tire. I ended up replacing the tire in a freaking monsoon! Seriously, I thought I would get washed away before I could put on the spare. We had picked up metal spikes on the back road. So, the next day I discovered what a gomera was. Gomas are tires, and the gomeras replace or fix them. At least it was cheap ($8 for a patch).
What else?
Sunsets are good here, at least if you can see to the west! If it doesn't rain you should hang out around sunset and see if anything happens.
The farmer's market in San Sebastian is pretty entertaining. It's a bit windy and twisty, roadwise, to get there. The market site is really unusual. They have constructed a long, concrete-roofed, winding market place. It meanders over a couple of acres next to a big parking lot.
There is a lot of stuff that you would not usually see. Some very strange roots are in evidence. There are lots of varieties of yams.
There are about a billion and one kinds of bananas. You can get anything from one to a bunch.
You can get these stubby, thick, vaguely disturbing ones, too. I wouldn't go for that kind, though.
They also have a wide variety of animals for sale, everything from these goldfish...
to baby rabbits, puppies, prize hens and roosters, and these tropical birds.
Food
We were a bit disappointed. There is a LOT of fried stuff here. There is also mofongo, with its sort of ghetto epithet sound. Mofongo is mashed plaintain with other stuff - e.g., bacon fat and garlic. It is often served relleno - stuffed. You can get it stuffed with lobster, shrimp, fish, or chicken. You can even get a gob stuffed with meat and fried - alcapurrias. Edible, but nobodies favorite.
Last day - San Juan
Everybody says you have to see Old San Juan. On our last day we drove the southern route, through Ponce and over the mountains to San Juan. The mountains can be a challenge. Your squirrel cage rental car will be in second gear for a looooong time, creeping up and up and up. Add in a downburst from a cloud that's about 10 feet over your head and you have an unusual trip. Along the way we got gas, leaving the toll road just after paying $1.75 toll. Following the signs back to the toll road we found ourselves - guess where - back on the pay again side of the toll. What the hell?
Reaching San Juan we found parking just at the entrance of the walls to the fort. The fort is pretty impressive, with really thick and high walls. It is a traditional star-shaped fort, able to defend from two directions (star points) against an attack at the same time.
Inside now are lots of buildings, beautiful sculptures, and tourist traps. It was sweltering hot and reaching toward 100% humidity. The thunderstorms we drove through to get there were approaching while we were walking through the old town dripping.
Losing ten pounds of water while walking tended to ruin our curiosity. So we walked down the hill inside the fort toward the harbor and our parking garage. We paid our $1.87 for two hours of parking and left. (I don't believe I ever saw a parking garage return $0.13 as change before.) Sure enough, as soon as we were out of the garage, the downpour started again.
After a brief 4 hours wait at the airport and paying $45 to ship our bags back on the airplane with us we were off to the states again.
Conclusion
While this is an unusual place with lots of attractions, we probably will not go back for a while. There are lots of other islands to see. The only one compelling for us for extra visits is Jamaica, since there is family there. So, go, explore, taste, and enjoy. Make your own conclusions. Be sure to explore, though! There is always something new and different around the corner.
