every country or bust!
the company town of aguirre in southern puerto rico is home to a massive sugar mill that was in use until the 1990s. the mill is now completely abandoned, and has the most post-apocalyptic vibe i’ve ever experienced, especially at dusk. it is fenced off, so we needed to climb through the window of an abandoned building to access it.
the hippest neighborhood in san juan, puerto rico!
an atmospheric old city!
among other things that happened in old san juan, ann and i were sauntering around when we heard screaming from a balcony. turns out some tourists had been partying a bit too hard in their $2000/night airbnb, and a guy had overdosed on heroin. we told them i was a physician and went up to their apartment, and he still had a pulse and was breathing. we were about to try to go find some naloxone at a pharmacy when an ambulance arrived. we then got some gelato – this was supposed to be a vacation, right?!
el morro is a massive, spanish-built fort at the tip of the peninsula that is old san juan, puerto rico. in front of it lies a huge open field, always filled with people relaxing and flying kites in the stiff atlantic breeze. the fort was closed when we were there due to the covid pandemic, but it is a great place to walk around, with a lot of history.
in central puerto rico, we drove through aibonito, the town with the highest elevation on the island, which has a nice central square and great views.
at my urging, we spent one evening in the hot thermal waters of the coamo thermal springs.
and definitely one of the highlights of the trip was visiting the ruta del lechon, or the pork highway, in guavate. after driving up a valley, there are many restaurants all specializing in lechon. we tried multiple, along with hundreds of other meat lovers.
we drove out to the very southwestern-most point in puerto rico, a peninsula called rojo cabo. here there are atmospheric cliffs and a lighthouse called faro los morrillos.
a little further north, the seaside village of boqueron had some of the freshest (and least expensive) oysters imaginable!
further east, we spent a few hours at santa beach, regarded to be the best beach on puerto rico’s south coast. here we also did some jetskiing!
that evening, we had some dinner in la parguera, then went on a boat ride to la parguera bioluminescent bay, the largest of 3 such bays in puerto rico. luminescent zooplankton glow which disturbed, which is an amazing sight to see.
my friend jake came down to puerto rico to hang out for a week! our first stop was ponce, puerto rico’s second city. i’ve worked with a number of people in the continental united states who attended medical school here. jake and i stayed in a nice airbnb and went on some daytrips. downtown ponce didn’t seem to be doing very well unfortunately.
the crumbling town of st. german in southwestern puerto rico was once the island’s second most important city.
yauco is a regular little town in southern puerto rico which has fashioned itself into a street art destination!
mayaguez is the third largest city in puerto rico, out on the west coast. i spent 2 nights here, and worked a bit on my research for fellowship. i stayed in the creaky hotel colonial in what used to be a convent, in the essentially deserted downtown. it has recently been 3 kings day, which occurs in january in the spanish-speaking world and is almost as big as christmas.
the biggest thing that happened to me in mayaguez was a motor vehicle collision, and it was my fault. thankfully no one was injured. the very nice woman i accidentally ran into and i had to go down to the local police station, and a lot of bureaucracy occurred in spanish. i spoke no spanish and she minimal english, so she called in her boyfriend. i though “oh no.” but he was a really nice guy, and used to live in pennsylvania, and we hit it off; she may have even regretted calling him because he wanted to be my friend more than talk about the accident. it all ended up working out ok, and her car got paid for.
