3:00 snapshot #881
Much of December 30th was spent in the car.
We started the day driving on tiny narrow city streets on a hillside trying to find Cruceta del Vigía. It's not a memorial or a shrine or a church, it's basically a municipal visitor's center. They should make it a little easier to find.
Then I got it in my head to see Toro Negro State Forest, located on scenic Highway 143. Highway 143 winds through several thousand miles of mountains, which is pretty good trick considering the island is only a hundred miles across. It was a lot like mountain roads in other places I've been: very narrow and windy, with grand views and sheer cliffs, and locals driving twice as fast as you would ever consider going, and giant trucks suddenly appearing here and there. When we got to the Toro Negro visitors center it was closed (holiday week) and it was pouring rain. We moved on to many more miles of slow dangerous driving, hoping desperately for a way off to a major road. The above picture was taken in the BBQ place where we stopped to eat. My Spanish absolutely failed me at this point, and these folks didn't do as others had (winced at me and asked me to "just...speak English") so I communicated through pointing and stammering. We ended up with two giant plates of rice with DELICIOUS pork ribs on them. I'm guessing that they were pork ribs because the only animals we saw cooking were whole pigs and whole chickens. Did I mention that the meat was DELICIOUS? Also the panorama was pretty great, and it was nice to see it without my white knuckles spoiling the view.
This anole watched us eat.
The worst part of the drive (not preserved in a photograph, alas) was a "short cut" I took on the advice of my GPS. After what I suspected was a wrong turn, I requested that the machine take me to San Juan. It told me to turn around. Only, it didn't tell me to turn around, it told me to take the next left, which would bring me back to the road I left, heading the right direction. The next left was a road even more narrow and winding than the one I left--it may have been a little less winding, actually, since instead of serpentine turns around the steep hills it went STRAIGHT UP THEM at the most acute angles I've ever driven. At one point my tires were slipping on the (rather nicely paved, I must say) road because we were at such a steep pitch. At blind corners, which there were many, I beeped my horn to alert oncoming traffic--because even though the "road" was barely wider than my tiny rental car, it was two-way. We were probably on it for a total of 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour, not knowing if we were going to have to ford a stream or if the paving would give way to pineapple field or something. Lots of breathless swearing occurred, until we finally got back to the "main road" which now seemed very broad and safe. Many hours later, we were back in Old San Juan.
We decided to stay in a convent.
Our room had a window with convenient access to the man endlessly singing "Guantanemera."
We could also see "Gata Girafa" and the other cool sculptures from our first day.
Evening began to fall in the convent, so we headed out to Old San Juan.
We experienced the narrow cobblestone streets of the city with a new appreciation.
Xmas lights in the square were particularly beautiful that night.
This xmas tree nicely mixed Pagan and Christian imagery.
I think this little girl and I agree that this is an uncommonly spectacular nativity.
We had a piña colada at Marilyn's place, where Tabo works.