evan

We've had some pretty intense driving around rural Puerto Rico in the last two days. Tuesday morning we hit the road westward from Ponce to San Germán, a small inland colonial-era city known for its architecture. It was a nice place to stop -- we took some good pictures and walked around the towns two plazas. But the unbearable Puerto Rican tendency towards traffic jams made the visit barely worth the trouble. We were glad when we got on the road again, south towards Parguera.

Puerto Rican roads are, to be blunt, pretty bad. In the city, they're usually too crowded, making progress almost impossible. In the country, they're tiny (usually around one car width), bumpy, and poorly-marked. We spent a lot of time back-tracking and re-tracking to find our way.

But it was interesting nonetheless. Puerto Rico's Caribbean coast, on the lee side of the island, is sere and sharp. Cactus and dry grass replaces the luxuriant jungle found on the Atlantic side, and the air is sharper and dryer. The views are pretty amazing, though, and the tiny towns are ancient (many founded in the 18th, 17th, or even 16th century) and chaotic. Not much seems to be geared towards tourist visits.

Parguera is well-known for its pleasant beach and great seafood restaurants. Like most of the cities we've driven into, the drive in put us in a poor mood. By the time we made it to the waterfront, we were all pretty cross, and the few restaurants still open failed to garner much enthusiasm. (Many, many businesses seem to be closed Monday and Tuesday and sometimes Wednesday. Tuesday is a rotten day to go out for a drive in Puerto Rico!) So we decided to move on to Playa Guánica.

That proved to be a good gamble. We buzzed through the cannery town itself and drove out along the point to the Guánica nature reserve. The main beach area was lovely (palm trees, cabanas, ample parking, snack shacks) but unfortunately closes on Tuesday. But we were able to find a nice restaurant at the San Jacinto boat launch. Good seafood, a couple of rounds of Medalla Lights, and some playing in the water brought up everyone's spirits. We stopped at the end of the road for some beach time, and then headed back to Ponce, a little woozy from the sun.

That night we drove around Ponce looking for somewhere to eat. The town was preparing for a huge collegiate athletics meetup this weekend, plus it was Tuesday, so many of the bars and restaurants were closed. We drifted through the waterfront, around the industrial dock area, and then found ourselves out at the Hilton golf resort ("Mofongo Night"), where we all enjoyed an all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Wednesday we saw Jani off in the morning, enjoyed the pool at the Hotel Melia, and then had a relatively restful drive up to our new digs at Luquillo. We drove on the major artery of PR's highway system, number 52, to Salinas (Puerto Rico), which was touted in our tourism literature for its seafood restaurants. It turned out to be pretty small, with a limited supply of small and mostly-closed restaurants. We took the road (701) out to the Marina, which had a decent restaurant and a play area for the baby.

The rest of the ride, back through the mountains, Cayey and Caguas was pretty straightforward. We took rural highway 31 on the backside of El Yunque National Forest then up through Fajardo to Luquillo. When we got here, we met up with Andrew, rested with a couple of Medallas on the balcony of our room at the Luquillo Sunset Inn (very nice view of the water), and had dinner at Lolita's Mexican Restaurant back down highway 3. All-in-all a nice night.

Today we're taking some time on the beach in the morning, then up to El Yunque this afternoon to explore the rainforest. It should be pretty fun.