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.