Back to Fajardo and the rental car I go, to find it freshly side-swiped. No time to cry in my Medalla beer, I get on the road and head south now along the eastern coast of Puerto Rico toward more serene and less utilized beaches. At Playa Hucares I imagine Paul Kemp, Hunter Thompson’s fictional character in The Rum Diary, downing a rum and writing his stories for The Daily News of Puerto Rico. (This coconut-lined shore was a filming location for the recent Johnny Depp movie.)
Southward I go, hugging the curvy coastline under the shade of green velvety mountains. Soon I’m climbing through Maunabo and Patilla with their pretty cliff houses and sea view restaurants. The sun lowers toward dusk and the rosy sky turns the palms purple along the highway. The environment has changed on this stretch of the island, without sprawling cement malls and fast food drive-thrus, but instead lots of green between the occasional seafood café, Bed & Breakfast or elegant home. Here and there are earthy remnants of mossy wooden structures decaying in the tropical breeze. Shabby Chic is the coined name for the rustic and weathered look. Waters of Youth
In and Around Ponce
The express toll highway gets me into Ponce in no time, and to my surprise, it’s an easy entry. I quickly find a parking space for the rental car and tote my things to the vintage Hotel Belgica off the central Plaza Las Delicias where the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe’s spires provide a nice directional marker for the newby in town. Ponce, La Ciudad Señorial or the Noble City, is known for its mountains and shade trees, cattle-raising, and sugarcane because of its fertile flatlands, and in the old days, maritime contraband because of its location on the Caribbean. Today, Ponce seems a well-rounded commercial hub with much more than just tourism to keep it going. The architecture is grand, and even the forlorn and crumbling back streets reveal an extraordinary past in every stately column and ornamental Victorian cornice.
The Hacienda Buena Vista coffee plantation is an historic site that sits just above Ponce in the fertile and shady hills. I decide to take a look, and am lucky to get a personal tour by Luz, the most sweet and knowledgeable guide. She takes me up the trail in the forest canopy, pointing out various plants along the way, to view the extensive water canal system built by slaves in 1853, when the coffee processing company was established. It is ingenious engineering, with filtration systems and tunnels and even a showy oxygenation shoot that creates fountain-like waterworks at the entrance to impress visitors and officials. 
There is a coffee bean processing machine run by waterwheel, and a corn grinder that turns by hydraulic turbine. The Barker hydraulic system was made by the West Point Company in New York and this machine is the only remaining system of its kind. I watch, fascinated as the docent lets the water work its magic! Luz then takes me past the fermenting chocolate beans, which have a strange and pungent odor, to the restored residence where the family of the hacienda’s founder, Don Salvador de Vives, would spend their summers. In Ponce Centro I meet Nelson, history expert at the Museo de la Historia de Ponce. Immediately we are engaged in a fun conversation that starts with the phenomenon of Puerto Rico being on its own independent tectonic plate with the deepest marine trench just to the north, and how that may very well contribute to the “Bermuda Triangle” effect that stumps ship captains and aeronautics experts to this day. We then continue on to other topics including Taino Chieftan smoking ceremonies that were thought to bring solutions from the spirits about everything from finding a plentiful food source, to healing sick tribe members. The museum is dazzling in its coverage of pre-Columbian to modern day history.
The most profound mural depicts the pre-United States influenced Puerto Rico, with hunger and joblessness, to the productive period of US-enabled building and engineering feats, and on to modern day over-consumption, Burger King sign apparent in the background. Nelson and I talk at length about the idea of progress, and saving a culture that’s slipping away. Nelson targets me as a “Natural Explorer” and I say “It takes one to know one!”As I ready to check out of my wonderful Hotel Belgica room, Dolores the curious housekeeper introduces herself and inquires about my travels. She hopes to take her first plane ride to visit her son in Florida later this year. We wish each other “Buen suerte y viajes seguros!"
In La Parguera, a seaside vacation village for locals and lazy expats, I succumb to the nightly show at the carnival-like waterfront. A Caribbean salsa band gets couples, toddlers and grandmas dancing in the street, and vendors sell their conch shells, plastic jewelry and pinchos, or kabobs. After the sun goes down I board the glass bottom boat to see the bioluminescence in the nearby bays. While loud Latin pop music blasts from speakers, families carrying ice creams line up along the boat’s rails. Motoring slowly through the darkness, past mangrove islands and lit-up fishing boats in the hot thick night feels like an adventure. Our boat stops in a little bay and two divers jump from the boat and splash into the sea. They swim under the boat’s glass, kick their feet and wave their arms to provide a lightshow. Soon we’re back at the dock and I’m ready for bed. Next, I’m off to the land of surf and expats on the western coast…
