Puerto Rico
May 2005

In the morning the spitting rain lingered, a bummer since we were off to the beach. We left our hostess to continue her writing and found the highway out of town. The heart of San Juan isn’t nearly as pretty as Viejo San Juan. There are ugly block apartment buildings and public housing projects and strip malls and dilapidated houses. There is construction here and there, particularly in the touristy areas along the beach and new lanes and roads going up all over, giving the illusion of a thriving economy. But it’s just an illusion. According to our hostess, there is something like a 25% unemployment rate in Puerto Rico. Of those who are employed, 55% work for the government, despite the 25-year tax break given to new businesses in an effort to try to get things going. We passed a few factories in the interior of the island, but obviously not enough to employ the families of the thousands of run-down homes we also passed. But at least they don’t have to pay Federal income tax, right?
There's about 4 million people on an island that’s 100 miles x 35 miles, but about half of them live in San Juan so much of the interior is shows few roads on the map and you can still find plenty of empty beaches if you look hard enough.

We sped through valleys surrounded by picturesque hills covered in dense green forests. The northern half of the island catches the moist ocean breeze, but the hills block the breeze and the southern half the island is comparatively arid. We sped West, getting off the highway for a scenic coastal drive overlooking Puerto Rico’s rocky northern shore.

We stopped at a place recommended by our hostess, Cueva del Indio, Indian caves guarded by Richard, a native who’d spent several years in the Navy before retiring home. For a dollar he gave us a great tour of the petrified coral formations, carved by the sea over millions of years. The Taino, natives completely decimated by the Spanish some 500 years ago, used one of these caves as a ceremonial cavern of some sort (though it’s really more of an overhang and archway than cave.) The sea washes in below through a tide pool. The walls are covered in petroglyphs, though some obviously of non-Taino creation. Richard gave a great tour and I regretted not tipping him a fiver or more afterward, so if you visit give him a fin and I'll pay you back. The petroglyphs weren't nearly as cool as the rock formations themselves.

The site also suffers from a common Puerto Rican problem – litter. You’d think some of the 55% government-employed population would be used to clean up the mess but everywhere you go, at least outside the heavily touristed areas, you’ll find the remnants of a population that has little respect for the beauty of their surroundings. It seems strangers appreciate things locals take for granted everywhere I’ve visited, from North Georgia to Italy. Humans are pigs and we’re gonna wreck this planet.

Tired and hungry, we grabbed lunch at Wendy’s. It seems like the only time I eat fast food is in some exotic locale where I should be sampling local fare, but sometimes you need something fast, cheap and predictable, which is why the industry thrives.
We sped on to Isabela on the northwest tip of the island, a town atop a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. Unfortunately, Puerto Ricans also seem apathetic about road signs. Things are often unmarked, or only marked once and not necessarily close to the intersection so you often miss your turn.. In Isabela they’ve aggravated the problem with construction and detours so that we ended up lost and wandered around the countryside a bit in search of our hotel. But eventually we found it, Villas del Mar Hau, a little seaside resort made up of cabins overlooking a lovely bay of crystal blue water lapping at a brown sand beach. $159 for 2 nights for a studio room (no kitchen), mid-week and off-season. Perfect.

They have horseback riding, a volleyball court, basketball court, cable TV, A/C, pool, convenience store, restaurant – about everything you could ask for.
We pretty much spent our entire visit getting wet, either in the ocean, washing the ocean off in the shower, or getting rained on, which was exactly what I wanted.

After a dip in the sea, we headed up the road to Happy Belly’s, a beachfront bar with a great view of the sunset. Unfortunately, we neglected to cover ourselves in deet before we left the hotel and missed the sunset in a return trip for bug repellent. Happy Belly’s menu has a little bit of everything, from seafood to burgers to pasta to gyros. I was hesitant, since I’ve found that places with novella-style menus listing everything and specializing in nothing don’t seem to get anything quite right. So we opted for a local favorite, churrasco, a grilled flank steak you’ll see on almost every menu on the island. Happy Belly’s did a fine job with it, served up with a side of tasty beans and a little salad or fried plantains.
They couldn’t do a mojito right, despite it being a favorite at many bars on the island.
We headed back to the hotel and found a little lagoon just around the corner from our cabin where a reef blocks the waves and the water is shallow and warm even after dark. If only they didn’t have 1,000,000-watt halogen streetlights illuminating the whole fuckin’ sea it would’ve been perfect.