Puerto Rico

Tuesday, 21 Sep 2004

Today we went to Old San Juan...

...Which leads me to talk about what it's like to drive here:

The license plates on the cars here say Isla del Encanto. But it's really the Isla del Traffic, Traffic Jams, Aggressive Drivers, and Bad Road Signs. I realize that I've just come from St. Maarten, a place where if you drive long enough you start to believe that there really is a Brotherhood of Man, but driving here is even worse than driving back in Florida. There are so many cars, so many drivers, such big roads, such huge traffic jams -- basically the same as any big Stateside city. The aggravating factors here are dos: Numero uno, the drivers are very aggressive. Lane changing is accomplished by darting over and counting on whoever you dart in front of to let you in. The really bad thing is I had to drive the same way just to get around. It's hair raising. Especially since I'm still jittery because of the accident in St. Maarten. I was constantly worried about a fender-bender -- I don't know why we didn't see any. At one point I was trying to dart into the lane to the left at the same moment as someone in the lane one over decided to dart into the same lane from the right at the same spot at just the same moment.

Y numero dos: They are really lacking in directional signs here. I mean, you'd think, Old San Jaun is like the biggest tourist attraction around, so you'd think there'd be signs: "Old San Juan ->"; "Old San Juan, Left Lane"; "This way to Old San Juan." You'd think. Well, there aren't. So how does the responsible tourist compensate? By buying a map. But what good does that do, when many if not most of the surface streets are not named by street signs? Kinda makes maps useless.

We found Old San Juan by blind luck. I was stuck in a lane that veered off to the left when I didn't think I should have veered off to the left but I couldn't get out of the lane so I veered off to the left whether I wanted to or not and...

...veering off to the left was the way to old San Juan.

Phew!

Driving here is so not fun.

The City Walls

A sculpture - I don't know what it depicts or represents

El Morro from afar

Okay, back to Old San Juan: The city walls are awesome. The Castillo de San Felipe del Morro (also known as El Morro) is awesome (there are lots of pictures in the image gallery for this day). The narrow streets and shops are awesome.

It was also hot as heck. I would say that we sweat like pigs except that pigs sweat poorly, and we did not. Electricity is still out in some blocks of the old city, keeping some shops and restaurants closed, and others operating without lights or air conditioning, under battery-powered lamps. Bummer.

We did our part to jump-start the local economy. Thank us, El Presidente Bush. Puerto Ricans do get to vote for president. Maybe we improved your chances. And I took tons of pictures. Did I mention that El Morro is awesome?

On the way back we got stuck in traffic. There is so much traffic here.

Lunch was at Senor Frogs in Old San Juan. I don't know what the connection is to the two Senor Frogs in the Miami area -- they're spread throughout Mexico and Latin America, too -- but there must be some. The menu was very different, though. The chimichangas and split tortilla soup were muy bien.

Why do fat people feel obligated to tell us we are too skinny? And why do we not answer as we should: "We're not too skinny; you're too fat?"

Some other examples of driving madness: Motorcycles commonly race between lanes of cars on the highways, sometimes even when the cars are moving. You see this all the time. It's really scary. And, despite frequent signs forbidding it, people speed down the breakdown lanes.

Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise while stuck in traffic: Without warning a flock of colorful bicyclists will fly by with flashes of iridescent blues, lime greens, sunflower yellows, whites, and reds. In less than a second they are gone. But if you wait patiently (and what else is there to do while stuck in traffic?) you will be treated to a straggler or two.

The little coqui frog is the symbol of Puerto Rico. Native only here, the dozen or so species of this small frog (perhaps the size of a quarter) emit, at night, a sound that has been described as leaving you wondering whether you are listening to a bird or an insect.

Sitting on the balcony here at night it's quite noisy, and there are at least two sounds, one high-pitched and one lower, that I would describe as leaving me wondering, bird or insect. At least one must be coquis. Maybe both? The night in Puerto Rico is full of melody and noise.

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