Zen and the art of Hyundai rental maintenance

I can view the power of my position, and my eyes can see more than anyone in any place. I’ll play the game, and never ever lose.

Gentle Giant, “Playing the Game”

He stumbled into faith and thought, “God, this is all there is?”

Regina Spektor, “Blue Lips”

When you’re road-tripping west on 22 with Gentle Giant blasting out the open window, or standing atop the world’s biggest single-dish radiotelescopio, or having pinchos on the shores of Rincón, or weaving through the central Cordillera on la Ruta Panorámica, or navigating Guánica’s cactus-covered dry forest, or touring a 15th century Taíno sports complex, or sharing limitless conversation with a friend while leaning on the railing outside a lighthouse as the sun sets on the Caribbean horizon, believe me – you feel like you’ll never, ever lose.

All of it, in the span of two days.

Puerto Rico is about the same size as Connecticut, but way out of proportion. One evening you’re looking out on the aurora lights:

…and the next thing you know you’re on your way through the foothills of the Rockies:

Mojave in the morning:

…Appalachia in the afternoon:

It all started Saturday, 7 a.m., Punta Santiago in the dust. Destination: the Arecibo Observatory. Among karst upon karst:

…we eventually found ourselves victim to the staggering ease of getting lost in the Puerto Rican backcountry. Google Maps, invincible? So we thought, aimlessly scaling the slopes of a cliff-side town, Arecibo, Minas Tirith, metropolis of the tropics.

Two cans of Chef Boyardee later, we were rejuvenated, straight-shooting, on a two lane road, the widest I’d felt I’d ever seen, wide enough, 46 years ago, to fit endless truckloads of perforated aluminum panels, 40,000 in all, in the service of an enormous structure, straight out of Endor:

Later we arrived in Rincón, which means “corner” and appropriately lies at the very northwest of PR, but was actually just named after some guy named Rincón. Lots of reggaeton, a passable beach, and an absurd abundance of pizza shops.

A drive to Guánica, a night’s rest at Burger King, and we were wandering the trails of the dry coastal forest, in the land of the cactus:

…some adorned with gumdrops:

…others gracing el Guayacán Centenario, a 1000-year old tree:

From there, with colorful Yauco behind us:

…it was a northward jaunt through the rural home of the jíbaro, the authentic (…simple, humble, noble… nationalist, nativist) Puerto Rican. As you go up and up and up, the homes become more and more isolated – all the better to hog the panorama:

And all the more fulfilling when you finally hit civilization, even if it was effectively wiped out 500 years ago, now a museum and botanical garden, El Parque Ceremonial Indígena de Caguana.

At this point, numb from travel, 500 years was unfathomable, cultural exotica incomprehensible, one big blur, adventure on overdrive.

I’m glad I’m getting this all down, because there’s just so much of it – a single chunk in my memory, a single, incredibly long day, Burger King just one stop among the rest.

Amid the onslaught of novelty, each experience replacing the one before it, the essence of Puerto Rico, my subjective image of it, is no longer tied to a particular time and place. Instead, it’s the collective conscious, the interdependent act of experiencing itself – that which acknowledges, as Alex did, at the lighthouse on Rincón, that “you know, life is pretty good” – which defines Puerto Rico for me.

Out there, cruising on the autopista, it was me, Alex, and Regina Spektor, talking about cognitive science, about our lives, and about life. If central PA and central PR are any indication, I could go on a million road trips, have a trillion best conversations ever, and listen to those first few tracks from Far a quadrillion times. It doesn’t matter where; Puerto Rico is just as good as Connecticut, or Pennsylvania, or anywhere else.

...without food, water, or toilet

There’s something odd about writing a travel blog after you’ve comfortably settled into a place for an entire two weeks.

At this point I have a pretty set weekday autopilot: wake up at 6:05 (or 6:15 … or 6:25), catch the boat at 7, work on Cayo until 2:30, come home, and then chill out until bedtime at 10.

Of course, when work consists of strolling around an uninhabited island recording monkeys’ reactions to puppet shows about morality that you perform for them (ask me about it), life is never actually boring.

On the boat:

Big Cay looking down on Small Cay:

And there are plenty of hot tropical attractions here, including natural swimming pools on the outskirts of the rainforest:

…and, in San Juan, statues (this one of San Juan himself):

…Congress:

…and weird spiky things:

Nonetheless, these are just punctuations in my Puerto Rican experience, and traveling requires a critical mass and someone with a car. To defend against the wrath of the hedonic treadmill that makes everyday life in PR just like anywhere else, you need novelty that’s sustainable.

Two weeks in, I’ve found two forms.

First, the people here are great. Most of them are older than I am, a good mix of undergrads, grad students, and post-docs, from all over the place – including Germany, England, Canada, South Africa, Chicago, Dartmouth, Duke, and … Harvard. Whether in CT, PA, or PR, there’s nothing better than kicking back and enjoying good company, especially with new demographics. Even the Harvard people are cool (tolerable)!

Second, routine never comes easy if you’re up for a run down the beach.

Yesterday I decided to go barefoot to Palmas del Mar, a collection of resort villages about 6 miles down coast of Humacao. Having discovered on Wikipedia that there’s a casino in town, I packed fifty-five dollars and a pair of socks.

At high tide, the beach is kind of like New Haven – by now I’ve run it plenty of times, and sans novelty and running partner, you have the noise to keep you company.

You head down the sand, through the woods past the old army base, the mangos, and the reserve, and then a few more miles beside the surf before the beach ends again, at the Rio Humacao. I had run about this far once before, but this time, the river overran its bounds. One of the oddest things I’ve ever seen – the beach literally ended, tapering at a 3-foot cliff atop a murky floodplain. I felt like I was at the edge of a flat world – or on the Oregon Trail, but with no oxen to show for.

Amid quicksand and fear, I resolved that Las Palmas was too good to pass up, and forded.

Past an idyllic grassy lookout:

…a lonely, rusted tank:

…and an abandoned house covered in psychedelic graffiti:

…I arrived on coffee-colored, garbage-less sand, a local paradise for Puerto Rico’s well-to-do:

…fit with water-slides:

…signature golf courses:

…sea turtles:

…and albino dogs:

The bouncer at the casino was a nice guy, but unfortunately you can’t get in with socks alone. When he told me I should go back to my room and get some shoes, I politely nodded, keeping my cover – even on the beach, or on the road, let alone the lobby of the Sheraton resort, I felt like some illegal (and sweaty) rogue from Punta Santiago, the chronic trespasser from Gulliver’s Travels, in a mystical land, with English road signs, clean shaves, starchy Hawaiian shirts, and (no joke) $2.50 soda cans.

The next thing I knew, it was 7:00 p.m., and little time to make it back before early sunset. After a short sprint down the beach, I cut inland across the golf course, hoping to make it to some main road and high-tail it back to Punta. Forty-five minutes later, I was lost on a random fairway in the pitch black, threatening Jurassic Park -esque predatory birds screeching above, and eventually made it back to the clubhouse, out the driveway, and into a (confusingly) gated community. A man and his two daughters were just getting in their car when I asked them how to get back to the resort, where Kelly could pick me up, and not only did they get me a glass of water, they drove me the several miles there, and we had a pleasant conversation about Yale and Michael Jackson!

A fortituous, unexpected end to a bizarre day. This guy would've fit in quite nicely:

The enchanted isle

Today we had to drop off Cora at the airport, so, in lieu of the usual monkey business, we traipsed around Old San Juan.

Puerto Rico’s tourism industry really plays up the old part of the city, and rightly so – it's like a colonial Spanish village, set off from the concrete and traffic of the city, a promontory looking infinitely into the Atlantic.

The most unique element of Old San Juan is that it’s protected by a 3-mile-long stone wall – one of a kind in the Americas. The sentries are gone, but the Spanish missionary flavor is still there:

Fortresses guard the city at various points along the wall. For a handy five bucks, you can tour San Cristobal and San Felipe del Morro, which comprise a complicated arrangement of roofs, passageways, and courtyards – kind of like Ezra Stiles College at Yale, but I never knew off-white walls and off-90 angles could look so good!

Here’s the main deck of San Cristobal, whose internal walls have been renewed to mirror how they looked 250 years ago:

A view from within:

A chamber to spy for enemy ships:

Across the bay to the mainland (Old San Juan is actually an island):

El Morro is equally dominant:

…assertive:

…capacious:

…and picturesque:

Step aside, Harkness Tower and SSS. Yale University never had to shoot cannons at Dutch galleons.

After surveying the rest of Old San Juan, it becomes pretty understandable why so many people like it.

Besides the blue-stained cobblestone streets:

…there’s a grotto fitted with roosts made just for pigeons:

…of which there are many:

It’s kind of like stepping into the Rotor at Lake Compounce amusement park, a small circular chamber inside which you spin around and then the floor drops out and you keep spinning – you just kind of have to trust that the ride isn’t out to kill you.

There’s a cultural institute and a nice handful of art galleries, including a small one with some aggressive graphic art:

…a tree that was just too cool to leave in the rainforest:

…and the second oldest cathedral in the Western Hemisphere:

I’ve realized that if you really want to get a feel for a place, you have to check out the local church. The Cathedral of San Juan, just like its location, is somewhere in between the awe-inspiring Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul in Philly and the quaint and friendly St. George of rural Mifflinburg, PA. Unfortunately mass was not in session on Thursday at 4 p.m., but usually you can figure out the local religious psychology by checking out the church bulletin, in this case El Visitante, the Periódico Católico de Puerto Rico. Best 50 cents since yesterday’s GOYA beans!

As far as identities go, Old San Juan is a juggling act. Some parts, like the church, speak autonomously for a historic culture that is, in some ways, visibly safe behind its century-standing walls. Other things unabashedly announce the village’s dignified tourist appeal – classy hotels, restaurants with Spanish names but English subheadings, piña coladas for $7.70 (compare to $2.00 in Punta Santiago), and, in one bookstore, a translated copy of Steven Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought (in Spanish, it’s actually Las Palabras del Mundo) for $45.95!

Still other elements are a mixture of the first two, and I think it’s this third set that best represents Old San Juan – that is, the remastered buildings, the well kept cobblestones, and the castle roofs now covered with sod. Old San Juan has managed to maintain its flavor without becoming a blatant consumerist commodity. Once a sought-after strategic naval outpost, it still can’t help but grab attention – but instead of meddling with or masking its personality, it makes the most of it.

Listen up, Times Square!