As dawn broke over the El Malecón waterfront, I stood on the balcony of
our hotel room and watched the sleepy morning commuters arrive on the A.T.M Ferry
from Hato Rey, on the south side of Bahia de San Juan, as a
ginormous Holland America Cruise Ship glided into its docking station in front of the Sheraton like a blue and white
apparition. Below me, limping beggars silently worked the garbage
train with the rat pigeons, staring with hopeful anticipation into the gaping
mouths of the green trash cans along the harbor wall, putting a slightly
different spin on the concept of take out breakfast. No
matter where you go on earth, the poor always bottom feed off of the tourist
areas, but we all like to pretend they really aren’t there. And the
poor oblige us for the most part. They feign invisibility, and in
return, we share our scraps with them. But around the cruise ship
area of San Juan, the street folk were on their best behavior.
And even at this early hour, yellow taxi vans lined the
streets, the drivers shuckin’ and jivin’ in packs as they awaited their next
fare while the black-booted police patrolled the spotless street in
pairs. From my lofty perch it looked like another day in
Paradise.
\
We decided to eat
breakfast before we left, and ended up on the Sheraton’s sunny veranda, watching
the nasty pigeons mob the plates on the empty tables around us. It
was better than TV in a sort of creepy way.
After our adventures on
the west side of Puerto Rico the previous day, we decided to head east, to the
world famous El Yunque Rain Forest.
By now, I had figured out
the best way in and out of Old San Juan. Most folks take L Munoz Rivera
Avenue on the way into town, and De La Constitucion Avenue on the way
out. But the locals know better. Route 1 runs along
the Canal San Antonio on the southern edge of the old city and avoids the
confusing bends and endless lights of the main drags servicing the heart of Old San Juan.
And the yin-yang contrasts caught the eye at every
turn.
We began our drive in the
newly-transformed waterfront with its wide promenades, abstract sculptures, and
glitzy shops.
Next up: three sparkling,
200-feet-long, dark blue and white luxury cruise ships, resembling
SPECTRE villain Emilio Largo’s yacht Disco Volante in the James
Bond movie Thunderball. After asking around, we
found out they were all owned by billionaire Russians. Russian
oligarchs sure love their “I have the biggest” toys and they like to show them
off in some of the world’s sunniest sandboxes.
Then came a pinky, vacant public
housing apartment complex covered in spacy graffiti, looking like the ruins of
the “Walking Dead”.
And then, on the left, was
a bright white high rise where hometown hotty Jennifer “ J’LO” Lopez owns a $4 million penthouse
on the top floor. Or so the story goes
…
We took the bridge over
the causeway separating the old city from the ocean front hotels and condos
along the Condado ocean front. Which brings to mind
something you should always remember about San Juan: Old San Juan is drop-dead
gorgeous, like stepping back into 18th Century Spain, but there is no
place to swim. It’s all rocks and docks. If you want
to swim – and who is going to come to Puerto Rico and not want to get into the
ocean? – then you will need to either stay in Condado, or catch a cab over
there to frolic in the warm Atlantic.
We took the 26 Freeway, a
busy three lane highway that passes by the airport, until we came to the interchange by the sprawling regional
hospital campus where we caught The 66, which turned out to be a really nice
toll road running east through lush farm land interspersed with fancy gated
communities and magnificent estates. And what a difference compared
to the shanty towns on the west side of the
island.
By now, we were totally
comfortable running tolls and laughed when the lights and alarms went
off. We followed the freeway for about twenty miles until we came
to Route 3 which was like a tropical divided highway – lots of
traffic lights and bang-bang shopping opportunities – with roadside vendors selling fresh
fruit, vegetables, meat, and shiny stuff.
I should probably mention
again that distances can be rather deceptive in Puerto Rico. A place that
is twenty miles away can take an hour or more to get to because it is
essentially a chaotic free-for-all on all of the roads. For instance, the
left lane is not the fast lane. There is no fast lane.
People just pick whatever lane feels right at that moment.
And speed limits are at best a suggestion. Folks drive
however fast or slow their little ol’ hearts desire. So, it’s not
uncommon for you to be driving along at sixty miles-per-hour and then hit a long
back up caused by some campesino in a hamster-powered farm truck laden
with coconuts or all of their worldly posessions, puttering along in the left lane, going twenty
miles-per-hour with smoke billowing out the back, the driver completely
oblivious to the world around him. It’s all part of that “time is
a relative concept” thing you have to get used to on the
island.
After the tranquil village
of Korea, we came to an unmarked little town with lots of rundown houses
– more like shacks – and stores with wildly-painted windows. Like
I said before, road signs are not Puerto Rico’s strong suit. One
thing was certain, we had definitely left the rich confines of
uptown east and had suddenly landed in rural Nicaragua.
We were looking for Route
191 and we knew we were close, but we still missed the cleverly hidden turn. We
quickly realized the error of our way when we came to a busy intersection
leading to Carmelita. So we did a Kojak U-turn – something
I was really starting to get quite good at – and then took a quick left down an alley
that had to be Route 191 (and was!) into the small rundown town of
Palmer, where people of all ages dressed in their finest peasant garb stood or lounged by the side of the
potholed road like sleepy statues.
Mangy dogs and cats seemed to be the only animals in town capable of
forward motion. Palmer was just three short blocks and then it was
onward and steeply upward into the dripping rainforest, past zip line
playgrounds, kayak outfitters, the Don Q rum tasting compound, roadside
vendors, banana trucks, colorful shacks, and lush fields filled with happy
cows.
We followed the twisting road that appeared to have been carved
straight out of the jungle to the El Yunque Rain Forest. I
had talked to a local guide a few days before and he had suggested that we get
to the rainforest as early as we could. I figured he meant in
order to beat the crowds. What he had really meant was the forest
receives more than 240 inches of rain a year (100 billion gallons) and you want
to get there early in order to beat the rain that usually rolls in in
the late morning. Our leisurely breakfast back in San Juan had spoiled
that plan, so as we came to the entrance station at the crack of noon and paid
our $4 to get in, the sky opened up like it can only do in a rain forest – hence
the name. We took the narrow winding road through the forest until
we came to the El Portal Rainforest Center. The place was
crowded but not overly so, and there wasn’t a tour bus in sight, which is always a good thing.
We sat in the parking lot overlooking the futuristic metal and glass A-frame nature
center as the rain drummed loudly against our rental car, watching the other
tourons make mad dashes for the footbridge leading to the forest
headquarters.
Inna, as usual, had
ignored the prospect of rain – she’s good when it comes to keeping warm, but not
so much when it comes to keeping dry. She seemed amazed that I
hadn’t brought rain gear for her too. I told her there was a
plastic garbage bag in the trunk, but she didn’t find that very
amusing.
So, that meant we would
eventually have to join the throng at the visitor center where we could pick up
a trail map and a poncho. The deluge ended as quickly as it began,
but showed signs that it wasn’t finished watering the
forest.
El Yunque is a unit of the
U.S. Forest Service and is supervised by the Department of Agriculture.
I worked on the Kaibab National Forest, on the North Rim of the Grand
Canyon in Arizona, for 15 years, and I had often heard of the almost mythical El
Yunque Forest. I mean, how could there be a National Forest on a
Caribbean island? There are several other
rainforests in the National Forest system, including the Tongass in Alaska, and
the Mount Hood Wilderness Area in Oregon.
El
Yunque is one of the oldest forest reserves in the Western Hemisphere, and as
you might expect, the story of its creation is a mixed bag of conquest and good intentions,
starting in 1876 when King Alphonso Xll of Spain set the land aside.
In 1903, three years before Teddy Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Game
Preserve (the precursor to the Kaibab National Forest), the General Land Office
established the 66,000 acre Luquillo Forest Reserve, which morphed into
the Caribbean National Forest in 1935. In 2007,
President George W. Bush, in a gesture of curious goodwill, changed the name to
El Yunque National Forest. And typical of W’s often confusing
antics, no one really knows for sure what the hell the name means.
It might be native Taino, meaning “white lands” – making little or no
sense – or it might mean “anvil” in Spanish, which is equally
nonsensical.
Regardless, El Yunque is a very unique place and home to over 240 species
of trees and plants, and 23 – like the top ten endangered red and green
Puerto Rican Parrott – are found nowhere else on earth. The
forest is also world renowned for its tiny, but loud, Coqui tree frogs
that are always singing for love and are an island
favorite.
The
visitor pavilion was filled with many informative multi-media displays.
Friendly old geezers manned the information kiosks babbling like broken
records about various must see sights in the forest. We checked out the
busy gift shop that was doing a land office business – something I had never
seen on a national forest anywhere in the States – and I bought Inna
an El Yunque poncho which immediately went into my pack, never to be used again,
because now that we both had rain gear, it never did more than sprinkle. Isn’t that always the way?
The forest map was a black
and white, hand-drawn, tri-fold piece of paper – in English on one side and
Spanish on the other. There wasn’t a lot of information on the
simple handout which read like an amateur playbill
– “Nowhere in the world will your eyes observe
a greater wealth of beauty than what is waiting for you in the Luquillo
Mountains. According to Indian legend, the good spirit “Yuquiyu”
reigned on his mighty mountain-top throne, protecting Puerto Rico and its
people. The name Luquillo is derived from the god spirit’s Indian
name. Many of the sights you will see today are the same as those
that dazzled the first Spanish explorers more than 500 years ago.
You’ll see 1,000-year-old trees, strange plants and exotic
rainbow-colored flowers, and thick vines with great masses of lush red blossoms
waving in the cool breeze. From the heart of this breathtaking
beauty you’ll hear the incessant, yet delightful, two-note chanting of the
“Coqui”, the chattering of unseen tropical birds and, if you are lucky, the
squawk of the endangered Puerto Rican parrot. And while you have
already seen all the other wondrous sights this world has to offer, you will
never forget the enchantment of … The El Yunque National
Forest.
We decided to drive to the
top of the forest and then work our way back down the mountain. It
will take you at least four hours to adequately explore the forest, and you
could easily spend a whole day. But all of the key points of
interest are located off the main spine road, Highway 191, and unlike the rest
of Puerto Rico, everything is well signed so you usually know where you are and
what you are looking at.
It was about 8 miles to the end of the
road where the trail to the Mt Britton Tower began. The
2-mile roundtrip trail is essentially straight up, rising 595 feet in a mile and
ending at an elevation of 3,087 feet.
What made the hike like no other I had ever experienced was that
the entire trail consisted of embedded blue
stones meticulously laid a few inches above the natural terrain, a
3-feet-wide ribbon winding through the Sierra Palm forest, crossing two rushing
mountain streams and leading steeply upward through the Cloud Forest until it
reached the Mount Britton peak. Given the
daily downpours, the trail would have been a muddy mess that would have
eventually just washed away if it wasn’t paved in this unique manner.
It made for easy walking and the jungle vegetation was like a green
explosion of color. But I couldn’t even begin to imagine how
difficult it would have been to build the jungle trail.
The trail to the tower
was pretty busy, including quite a few younger folks hiking barefoot, which
seemed crazy as hell to me but didn’t appear to be causing them any
trouble.
The oddest thing about
El Yunque for me were its tall, brown brick circular towers. They
immediately reminded me of the Anasazi towers at Hovenweep in the American
Southwest and seemed completely out of place in a jungle rainforest.
Our destination, the Mt Britton Tower, dates
back to the 1930s and was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and
named after botanist Nathaniel Britton and his wife Elizabeth who discovered
many of the native tree and plant species in the Luquillo
Mountains in the 1920s.
It took us about 45 minutes to get to
the tower which was perched above the jungle like the stone turret on a Scottish
castle. We climbed up the interior steps to the tower’s
observation deck and while we might have been standing at one of the highest
points on the island, we found ourselves enveloped in clouds with very little to
see. I gazed over the battlements and had a strong urge to pour
some boiling oil over the side onto the heads of some silly, bedwetting English
pigs. Slowly, the clouds blew away like mist in the
wind and there before us lay panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean, the
Caribbean Sea and the lush farmlands and ranches of the coastal plain. Other
hikers came and went, but we stayed there taking in the swirling sights until
the clouds returned and we found ourselves covered in soft
dew.
By the time we returned to
our car the sun was back out and it was closing in on two o’clock.
We could either keep exploring the forest or head back down to the coast
highway and zip over to the nearby Luquillo Beach.
We opted for the La Mina Trail, which led to the most popular
waterfall in the park. By this time, the crowds had greatly
diminished and we pretty much had the trail to ourselves. To be
honest, there was nothing special about the trail that followed the La Mina
River through a narrow gorge, dropping over 500 feet in the course of about
a mile. It was slippery and muddy, and there were several small drop-offs, culminating at the
crown jewel La Mina Waterfall where a large number of people frolicked in the pool below
the cold cascade. I’ve never been much for swimming in a small
pool with lots of other people, so Inna and I snapped a photo and then headed
back to the car. What struck me the most about the trail were all
of the elaborate picnic shelters, many of which had been built by the Civilian
Conservation Corps. There were at least thirty of these attractive
wood and stone pavilions, each with a picnic table, benches and barbeque
grill. I could easily imagine hundreds – if not thousands – of locals, picnicking and
god knows what else, along the La Mina Trail on weekends and holidays, undoubtedly making for
a fear and loathing scene. But every picnic shelter was empty on this quiet weekday afternoon.
We noticed another trail on our way
back to the car that led to Baño
Grande and
Baño de
Oro, two small bathing lakes adorned with
several sturdy CCC structures, including a native stone bathhouse and dam. The
CCC was America at its finest, and there was nothing they couldn’t build.
Their masonry and wood-working skills always stand out, even where you least expect it, like
a jungle forest in the wilds of Puerto Rico, and their legacy lives on with a
style and grace that always makes me smile. Thank you,
FDR!
There were other interesting places to
stop, like Juan Diego Falls, La Coca Falls, and the ever popular
Yokahú
Tower, but Inna and I had walked our tails off at that
point and it was getting late. We still had a long drive back to
Old San Juan and it was time to hit the road.
We got back to the Sheraton in about an hour without
incident and after changing our clothes, we walked over to a very
hip block of small restaurants along
Calle del Recinto where every cuisine under the sun was well
represented. We ended up dining at an outdoor table in front of an
outstanding Japanese sushi bar called J-Taste where we downed another
fine local beer called Magna and toasted our good fortune.
February weather is always a crapshoot
in North America and we had decided not to take any chances when we booked our
trip back in the Fall. We intentionally planned to arrive four days
before our cruise and that was a great call because we ended up just missing a killer winter snow storm that
cancelled thousands of flights and left passengers living in airports up and
down the east coast for days on end. Our friends Richard and Olga
from D.C., who were joining us on the cruise, were stranded back in Maryland,
trying to find any flight south. Two days after their scheduled
departure date, they had been reduced to options like flying north to Boston in
order to catch a flight to Florida. They ended up arriving at two in
the morning the day our ship sailed and felt lucky because many other people missed
the boat. There were still poor souls arriving with their luggage on day
three of the cruise, down in
Dominica.
