Dried up river bed, Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park

In a piece for Fathom, one of my most favorite travel websites, writer Kate Donnelly wrote, "The new Mexico sky never has a bad day."  So true!  Montana is known as Big Sky Country (also true), but there is something different about the New Mexican sky, in whatever part of the state you're in.  Both my husband and I have been to New Mexico previously, though not together, and it had been a long while; so in May, we went to Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos.  Here are some brief notes and highlights:

Las Cruces, 41 miles from the U.S./Mexico border (nearest airport is El Paso, 53 miles away) has 320 days of sunshine a year.  Founded in 1849, it has a population of 113,888 (it's New Mexico's second largest city) and is at 3,9000 feet elevation.  It's not charming like Santa Fe or Taos, but it is not without things of interest, notably Mesilla, the historic community that is part of the Las Cruces metropolitan area.  The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 attracted early settlers to Mesilla - the Treaty effectively ended the Mexican-American War, and Mexico ceded 55% of its territory (including the present-day states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming). Mesilla was established as a colony by the early 1850s, around the time that the U.S. and Mexico settled the boundary dispute that arose from the Treaty.  The settlement, known as the Gadsden Purchase, was agreed upon in November 1854, when the Mexican flag was taken down and the U.S. flag raised.  In July 1861, 300 Texas troops led by Confederate Colonel John Baylor captured Fort Fillmore, just outside of Mesilla.  After defeating the Union troops, Baylor named Mesilla as the capital of the new Confederate Territory of Arizona.  The Civil War ended in Mesilla in 1862 after Baylor and his troops retreated to Texas.  By the 1870s, Mesilla was in its prime, and it attracted lots of businessmen as well as men like Billy the Kid, who was tried and sentenced to death by hanging in 1881.  At one time, Mesilla was actually the largest U.S. town between San Antonio and San Diego, but when it was decided that the new railway would be built in Las Cruces, the town was no longer thriving.  Many Mesilla residents today are direct descendants of its early settlers, and they are a true representation of the community's Native-American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American heritage.   

Due to its historical significance in the state and the nation, Old Mesilla Plaza was declared a New Mexico state monument in 1957.  It was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, and in 1985, all of Mesilla's historic district was added to the Registry.  The basilica of San Albino was built on the plaza in 1855, and the original church was adobe and had only one steeple.  The church there today was built in the early 1900s around the adobe church, so when it was finished, the old church was dismantled inside the new church and carried out the front door.  The Mesilla Official Visitors Guide, copies of which are available just about everywhere, includes a One Mile Historic Mesilla Walk About and it features nine stops around the plaza.  Other properties around the historic town may be found on the MyMesilla app and at the Town of Mesilla site. 

There are chain hotels aplenty in Las Cruces and not any distinctive lodgings that I found, so I think the only thing to do is stay at Casita Azul, less than a minute's walk from the plaza in Mesilla.  It's a VRBO property that is charming, authentic, historic, and perfectly located.  The host is wonderful and she's a descendant of the noteworthy Taylor family of Mesilla. 

Las Cruces is an official food desert, so the only smart thing to do is eat New Mexican or Mexican food (the differences between the two are subtle).  Perhaps the major difference is the chile (a plural word, like sheep in English), which is the state's official vegetable as New Mexico is the chile capital of the world.  New Mexico is also the only state with a state question, which is, red, green, or Christmas? (it refers to the diner's choice of sauce.)  It's hard to overestimate the importance of chile as it's as indistinguishable from the day to day life of New Mexico as water, air, or sunshine.  Hatch is synonymous with green chile while Chimayó is known for its red chile.  In Mesilla and Las Cruces we enjoyed drinks and meals at Andele's Dog House, Dry Point Distillers, El Chanate, La Posta, and The Bean at Josefina's Old Gate Cafe.  Dry Point Distillers is especially fun because the folks here use New Mexican products in their spirit blends, which include vodka, gin, whiskey, bourbon, tequila, and mezcal, as well as local beers.  

The Mesilla Book Center is a great bookstore, and Heart of the Desert Pistachios in Las Cruces is the place to buy a variety of nuts (and other culinary specialties) because both pistachios and pecans are major crops in New Mexico - the top three pecan-producing states are Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas.  Unfortunately, both pistachios and pecans require a lot of water, more water than New Mexico can likely provide on a regular basis, so time will tell if all the nut growers will survive.  

The Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park is well worth a visit.  It opened only in 2008 as New Mexico's 34th state park, and provides an oasis for many species of plants and animals as well as for people with its garden and nature trails.  The Spanish word for forest is bosque but in New Mexico it refers to the plants and trees that grow along a river.  Scientists who study river ecosystems estaimte that more than 95 percent of these native areas along the Rio Grande River are gone, making it a priority to preserve the ecosystems that remain.  Here in the Mesilla Valley the bosque and the Chihauhaun Desert come together within the park to form an ecotone, an area rich in its variety of plant and animal life from both ecological communities.  As a result, a diversity of the flora and fauna abound.  The park also lies on one of the main north-south flyways, so birding is one of the prime activities.  New Mexico has approximately 500 species of birds and 60% live along the Rio Grande.  The park's walking trails are considered easy - they are basically flat - and the park is open 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. year round.   

Albuquerque was our next stop where we stayed with friends in Placitas, just outside of the city.  Much has been said about crime in Albuquerque and apparently there are areas where it isn't particularly safe to wander; but certainly the historic section around Plaza Vieja (Old Town Plaza) is fine, attractive, and interesting - Albuquerque was the main commercial center for the Rio Grande valley until the 1880 arrival of the railroad, one and a half miles east of the plaza.  The area around the plaza is representative of a traditional Hispanic city, and most of the buildings date from 1870 to 1900.      

 San Felipe de Neri Church and Rectory (1793), on the plaza

We enjoyed looking around the Romero Street Gallery, an enormous shop featuring a wide array of artisans in an old building with distinctive architectural details, as well as visiting the Albuquerque Botanic Garden, which is quite large and lovely.   The Kaktus Brewing Company, in nearby Bernalillo, has a full schedule of live music and there's lots of outdoor seating and the vibe is very chill and fun.  

From Albuquerque we visited Santa Fe only for an afternoon and evening - had a fun time at the bar and a very good dinner at The Compound on Canyon Road - and the following day, when we had a great lunch at Cafe Pasqual's.  Strolling around the famous landmark hotel La Fonda is fun even if you're not staying there, and I love these painted windows (below) at its La Plazuela restaurant.  La Fonda, open since 1922, was recreated in the Pueblo Revival style on the site of previous hotels and has hosted movie stars, monarchs, and plenty of regular guests, too.  

The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is a must-see, and among my favorite canvases there are 'Red Maple' (1922) and 'My Front Yard, Summer, 1941.'  At the New Mexico Museum of Art, I really liked her 'Chama River, Ghost Ranch' (1937) as well as 'Santa Fe Hills' (1917) by Leon Kroll. 

The Palace of the Governors is the longest continually occupied public building in the U.S., and inside is the New Mexico History Museum which is fantastic.  I recommend setting aside several hours for this as all the sections are incredibly well presented.  

We drove on the high road from Santa Fe to Taos, which is so pretty.  When I had previously driven it, my friend and I stopped at Rancho de Chimayó for lunch at its restaurant, definitely a highlight.    

In Taos we stayed at Palacio de Marquesa which is a short distance from the historic center.  I think having a drink at the bar in the Taos Inn is de rigueur and there is a happy hour.  We had a great dinner at La Cueva and a good lunch at Orlando's. The Social Club in Taos is an outpost of Dry Point Distillers and is a great place to while away an evening. The Harwood Museum of Art is excellent and I especially like its permanent collection, with works by The Taos Society of Artists; but the story of two paintings that were stolen from the museum in 1985 captivated my attention, and it turns out that only a few weeks after our visit the two works were returned to the museum by the FBI.  The full story appeared in Smithsonian (and in ArtNews, among others).  I visited the Millicent Rogers Museum on my first visit as well as Taos Pueblo, both of which are excellent.  The surprise of this trip is that I discovered the Rio Grande Gorge, which I somehow did not know about the first time I was here.  This seems impossible to me now, but there you have it.  The Gorge was the highlight of the entire trip (some photos below)...

Yes, this sheep really was that close!

The bridge is often referred to as steel arch bridge but it's more properly a continuous steel deck truss.  It's 565 feet high and is 1,272 feet long, and was fabricated by the American Bridge Company and erected by J. H. Ryan and Son in 1965.  In 1997, the bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Gorge at this location is approximately 1,200 feet wide and 600 feet deep and it's just an incredible site to see.  The Rio Grande followed the lowest and least resistant path in making its way over 1,885 miles from the San Juan Mountains in Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico.  The river flows south down the Rio Grande Rift through a series of long narrow valleys from Alamosa in Colorado to El Paso in Texas.  For 82 miles, from Lobatos Bridge, Colorado to Velarde, New Mexico, the river cuts into the rift to form the Rio Grande Gorge.  There were not many people here when we visited, and when we set off on one of the paths along the rim we passed only about six people.  After we saw the sheep, I told two women who were approaching that the sheep was just ahead.  I didn't know they were locals who are fortunate to be able to walk here whenever they want, and they told us that there used to be a lot more sheep "until all these people started showing up."  !!  When we left, we noticed that were about twenty sheep hanging out in an area next to the parking lot.    

We ended our trip at Los Poblanos, a wonderful inn about six miles from Albuquerque.  It's a 25-acre, family-owned business dedicated to preservation and sustainability, and it's one of the most historically significant properties in the Southwest - its buildings were designed in 1932 by the region's foremost architect, John Gaw Meem, the "Father of Santa Fe Style."  Los Poblanos, ranked by Bon Appétit as a 'Top 10 Hotel for Food Lovers in America,' is best known for its Campo restaurant and for its lavender.  Campo's menu features many items grown on the hotel's farm as well as provisions sourced from longstanding local farmers and herdsmen.  Bar Campo features the largest selection of spirits in New Mexico, and its mixology team includes a full-time botanical distiller who creates infusions, bitters, liqueurs, syrups, aperitivi, and small-batch barrel-aged spirits. Campo's wine list was voted Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence since 2021.  The lavender fields at Los Poblanos bloom from late June to early August, depending on the year, and among the products made from the plants are body lotion, soap, essential oil, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, hair serum, lip balm, and salve, the number one selling product to this day - it was created as an intensive treatment for hard-working hands around the farm, and it contains only five ingredients.  The on site farm store is fantastic, a destination in itself, with an excellent curated selection of items (some great for gifts) as well as baked goods, sandwiches, biscochitos (the cookie of New Mexico), packages of pecans, condiments, cocktail rimming salts, etc.  Los Poblanos is a special place that I highly recommend.  It's quite popular so if you're thinking about going, don't wait until the last minute to reserve.         

Side note: we didn't have time to visit the Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio, in Abiquiu.  This is her adobe house is exactly as she left it when she died in 1986, and I hear it's incredible and very much worth the $65 admission fee. I read Portrait of an Artist: A Biography of Georgia O'Keeffe by Laurie Lisle (Atria, 1997) many years ago and loved it and I don't believe another work has surpassed this one.  Another great read is 'Georgia O'Keeffe's Vision' by Calvin Tomkins (The New Yorker, 25 February, 1974).  At the time Tomkins visited O'Keeffe in Abiquiu, she was 86 (she was born in 1887 and died in 1986), and among the many revealing quotes in the piece is one where Terrie Newsom, the woman who looked after O'Keeffe, said that when people ask whether Miss O'Keeffe has only one dress, she explains that "Miss O'Keeffe has a hundred dresses, but they're all alike, except that some are black instead of white."   

    

 

Before I finish up my big fat Portugal post, and another on Dublin, and still others on Italy and Provence, here is one on Puerto Rico, where my husband and I went in early January.

These photos show the views from the great rooftop terrace of the O:LV Fifty Five Hotel in Condado Beach. We had reserved at the sister hotel, Olive Boutique Hotel, about a 2-minute walk away, but as the terrace there was under renovation, we were granted access to the roof at LV (clever that LV are the Roman numerals for fifty-five).  These Olive properties (there are three others, with a fourth opening in 2028) are members of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group, and we really enjoyed our stay at Olive Boutique.  There is a nice casual but classy-cool vibe throughout the hotel and our guest room was large and also had a private outdoor space as big as our room.  The service by everyone we encountered was welcoming and excellent, especially by the reception staff.  The complimentary breakfast could have been better but all in all I would stay here again in a heartbeat.  The rooftop scene at O:LV was really terrific, with lots of tables for dining, a great plunge pool, a jacuzzi, and some private seating areas like this one below. 

 This part of our trip was at the end of our visit.  When we first arrived in San Juan we stayed at the stylish Alma San Juan, which also has a nice rooftop with a good restaurant, Mar y Rosa.  The Alma's location was excellent as it was on plaza Colón, just steps away from the Castillo San Cristóbal but away from the heart of Old San Juan (and its potentially noisy bars at night).  The ground floor restaurant, Andaluz, was Puerto Rico's first restaurant to receive a James Beard Award nomination (we never made it there so I can't say anything about it).  The hotel also has the Café at Alma, open for breakfast and lunch.  Our guest room was a nice size, and I loved the sustainably made, light wood furniture and the eco toiletries.  However, we had a connecting room (that we didn't request), which meant that we could hear the people speaking in the other room.  I have no idea if the walls in the other guest rooms were as thin, but they may be.  The clientele at the Alma skews younger, which may partly explain why the building next door had signs posted on its facade stating that the Alma was a mal vecino (bad neighbor) - I was told that there were some previous issues with late night partying, but we didn't experience any of that and I was also told that the Alma had addressed the concerns by closing its dining venues earlier.  Perhaps the signs are unwarranted, perhaps not, but travelers thinking of staying here should inquire.  

The Hotel El Convento is a well known favorite in Old San Juan and is also a member of the Small Luxury Hotels group.   It's a converted convent dating back to the 1600s, and while we didn't stay here, we did spend time at the atmospheric bar which is a lively and fun, indoor-outdoor space with great bartenders.  I hear the rooftop plunge pool is especially nice.  On one of our walks through Old San Juan we passed the Decanter Hotel, which looked like it would be worth considering for a future visit.  

I did struggle a bit with the food on the island because pork is a specialty (I don't eat it) and it's everywhere and in many dishes.  Mofongo - mashed green plantains with garlic, olive oil, and usually pork rinds or bacon, is another island specialty.  However, I did find some good - sometimes delicious - things to eat, notably at El Vino Crudo in Old San Juan and at Santaella in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan (Jose Santaella is the author of Rizzoli's Cocina Tropical: The Classic and Contemporary flavors of Puerto Rico).  We enjoyed great rum drinks at La Factoría (which was named 'Best Bar in the Caribbean') and JungleBird (a tiki bar by the same owners, conveniently located catty-corner from Santaella).  There is a drink on JungleBird's menu called 'Adios Pantalones' which we thought was incredibly funny.  The drinks here are not run of the mill, and we had the Boriken Green Swizzle made with carypton, a boozy mix of rum, lime, sugar, and herbs produced by Angostura in Trinidad before Prohibition.  The bar food choices here are great - try the tortalitos.  Café Cuatro Sombras is a really good place for coffee and breakfast, and Café Manolín is a classic, old school place similar to a diner with all the Creole specialties on the menu at very affordable prices (I had read that this was a favorite of Lin- Manuel Miranda and it did not disappoint).  We also had dinner at Carli's Fine Bistro & Piano, which serves perfectly executed fine dining dishes, but this meal was not our favorite.  The owner, Carli Muñoz, toured with the Beach Boys for some years (note the framed gold album hung on the wall) and he often plays with his jazz trio, sometimes accompanied by singers and musicians who are in town.  The later you go, the better the music is.  The piña colada, by the way, was invented in Puerto Rico, though by whom and where is still contested.  Three bartenders claim the drink as their own, two of them at the Caribe Hilton Hotel and the third at Barrachina in Old San Juan.   

Also in Old San Juan we went on a very enjoyable culinary walking tour with Spoon Puerto Rico.  Our tour was led by the vivacious and friendly Desi, and she took our group of about ten people to four different stops, beginning with coffee at Don Ruiz.  The coffee is very, very good (and bags of beans may be purchased there) and it was the perfect place to begin our food-centric morning.  Desi was able to satisfy everyone's dietary preferences, including mine, and at every stop we had something delicious to eat or drink (or both).  One stop was at Deaverdura, which serves some of the best comida criolla in town.  Another stop was at Cortés, where we had gone previously for coffee so we were already familiar with it - it's a fourth generation, family owned, bean-to-bar chocolate company founded in 1929.  A few of the chocolate bars have this great retro packaging: 

Food stylist and cookbook author Camille Becerra (Bright Cooking: Recipes for the Modern Palate is her latest book) was born in San Juan and she recommended some of her favorite places to eat for YOLO Journal last year.  Becerra wrote that after some years of farmers' markets being supplanted by huge supermarkets, today the local tropical ingredient culture is vibrant once again and thoughtful chefs are incorporating the best local produce into creative fare. "Now everyone is flocking to the food scene in San Juan - dare I say it's the new Miami!"  I thought that since we were visiting after the festive season it wouldn't be necessary to make restaurant reservations much in advance, but I was mistaken.  All the restaurants Becerra defined as those committed to locally sourced products were fully booked, at both lunch and dinner, on all the days I tried to reserve.  Clearly it isn't only tourists who want to eat at these places, which include Vianda, Cocina al Fondo, La Casita Blanca, and Celeste.  

A few shops I liked:
Just-Reyes Arts, with some really nice artisanal items including handmade bookmarks and frameable cards, nearly all made in Puerto Rico.  

Casa Bohème, with tabletop items, furniture, and home goods.  Very few items are made in Puerto Rico but it's an appealing and unique shop nonetheless. 

7Ven Seas Jewelry & Art Gallery (206 calle Fortaleza): even though this is the official name of the store, we stepped inside because one half of it is a liquor store with a nice selection of local rums and tobacco.  The rums stocked at the local SuperMax market (on calle de la Cruz) are cheaper but the very helpful sales assistant at 7Ven Seas will explain the differences between all the rums.  She told us that Puerto Rico is the only place in the world with a quality seal for rums.  We bought bottles of both Ron Barrilito and Don Q, both founded in the 1800s.  According to Charles Coulombe, author of Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink That Conquered the World, by 1667 the sugar cane-derived spirit was already known as rum in English and ron in Spanish, just over a decade after it was first reported in the West Indies, in Barbados.  It's believed to originate from rumbullion or rombustion, a "great tumult." 

MOTA handbags at See U Soon (calle de San Francisco).  It's the handbags - which are handmade, bright, fun, and colorful - that I like, not necessarily the store (which is fine, just not distinctive).  MOTA bags are also found at Chroma (Mall of San Juan), Local Story (Dorado), The Makers (Caguas), and at a pop-up store in plaza Las Americas.  

Libreria Laberinto, a really nice bookstore.  I bought a copy of Stories From Puerto Rico - Historias de Puerto Rico, a bilingual book of eighteen legends that include a tale about creation and stories from the Spanish colonial period and from the twentieth century.  The Spanish-English stories are presented side by side (lado a lado) so readers may easily see the Spanish words and the English translation.  There is an English to Spanish vocabulary and a Spanish to English vocabulary at the back of the book, as well as an appendix on the Tainos, the indigenous people who inhabited Puerto Rico at the time of the first voyage of Columbus.  According to the authors, Robert Muckley and Adela Martinez-Santiago, fifty years after the first Spaniards arrived, the Tainos had disappeared almost completely.  "Exploited cruelly by the Spaniards, only about 60 remained in 1542, the year in which a royal decree granted their freedom.  In the years that followed, the indigenous population became totally assimilated."  The authors go on to say that the language of the Tainos has not been preserved in its entirety; it disappeared before it could be studied by missionaries and scholars.  But some Taino words have come to form part of the Spanish spoken in Puerto Rico, Spanish in general, and other languages.  These include the English words canoe, hurricane, and hammock, as well as the name the Indians gave to the island: Boriquén, which means "land of the brave lord."   Boricua (pronounced bo-ree-kwa) refers to a native of Puerto Rico or someone of Puerto Rican descent, and is a way of life.  

We went to a baseball game and it was big fun!  The teams were both from San Juan - the Cangrejeros de Santurce and the Senadores de San Juan - and they were meeting each other for the third game in the series.  Cangrejeros means crab fishermen, and whenever the team scored a run or otherwise did something good, the fans held up their hands and moved their fingers up and down as if they were crab claws - it was really funny, and we couldn't help but do the same.  Palancas Arriba! (pincers up)  Bad Bunny (Benito Martinez Ocasio) is an investor in the Cangrejeros. 

The Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico is really nice - the Museo de Arte de Ponte is more renowned but the San Juan museum is definitely worth a visit, both for Puerto Rico Plural (the permanent exhibit) and the sculpture garden behind it (which is free for anyone to walk around).  

A mural in the garden.

A selection of mascaras (masks).  

The centerpiece in Puerto Rico Plural is the 14-panel painting 'La Plena' by Rafael Tufiño (known as the Painter of the People).  It's fantastic and not to be missed.  There are two numbered, explanatory panels on either side of the work, which is 15 feet x thirty feet. 

 

A close-up of one of the panels. 

We visited both of the forts at either end of Old San Juan, Castillo San Felipe del Morro (El Morro) and Castillo San Cristóbal.  Both are operated by the National Park Service and both are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and they're interesting and worthwhile.  El Morro was built to protect San Juan Bay's deep harbor from attack by sea.  It was the first good harbor and the first major island with fresh water that ships encountered as they sailed west from Europe.  San Cristóbal was built over 150 years to protect El Morro and the city from land attack, and it's the biggest European fortification in the Americas.  El Morro is popular for weekend picnics complete with kite-flying, and walking on La Muralla (the ramparts of the fort) affords great views all around.  

The Spanish Colonial architecture in Old San Juan is well-preserved and pretty... 

...and the blue cobblestones are found only here: the story is that before the ships left Spain for the New World, they were filled with stones cast from furnace slag (waste from iron smelting) as ballast, to make the empty vessels more stable.  When the ships arrived in San Juan, the stones were taken off and then all the gold, sugar, and other valuable materials were loaded on.  The road builders used the leftover stones to create the cobblestones for the streets of Old San Juan.  The blue color is due to age and moisture. 

Some things we missed (it happens) (next time!):

The farmers' market in Old San Juan on Saturday morning.  As Camille Becerra writes in her cookbook, "The first thing I do when traveling is find the local farmers’ market, one of the biggest areas of culture within a city…Even if I don’t need to buy anything, I go.  Every farmer's market throughout the world helps you understand its culture.  It shows you how people eat, convene, and get along, and it introduces you to ingredients you might’ve never seen before."  She likes to buy the local, tropical  flowers there and put them in her room, which sounds like a nice idea to me.  

A salsa performance.  Puerto Rico is the home of salsa, and it hosts a National Salsa Day every year.  The salsa radio station Z93 produces the event, which is held at Hiram Bithorn Stadium (the baseball stadium) in San Juan.  While salsa has its roots outside of Puerto Rico - it was first used in 1937 by Cuban composer Igancio Pineiro in his song, 'Echale Salsita' - the island is directly responsible for the rhythm known by this name.  Salsa's roots can be traced back to Europe and Africa, and its emergence was deeply influenced by musical forms from Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean as well as by diaspora Puerto Ricans living in New York.  Among the most important of these mainland musicians was Tito Puente (1923-2000), who composed 'Oye Como Va' which was a big hit by Carlos Santana in 1970.  "The history of salsa is the history of the new world," a guidebook states.  "In salsa, there's evidence of rhythms from past ages, as well as the musical history of our own time.  Salsa isn't a "pure" musical form, but represents - like Puerto Rico itself - a mixture of rhythmic elements, adapted by the inhabitants of the new world."  Two other distinct but closely linked Puerto Rican musical traditions are bomba and plena, both tracing their roots to the African slaves brought to the island starting in the 17th century. 

El Balcón del Zumbador, which features live bomba music (Thursdays apparently are especially great).

A performance at the Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A. Ferré, a great venue for theater, small concerts, dance, and Puerto Rico's symphony and philharmonic orchestras. In January 2019, Lin-Manuel Miranda famously hosted a 24-performance run of 'Hamilton' at the center - it was a fundraiser for the restoration of arts and cultural programs in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria.  The funds were distributed by the Flamboyan Arts Fund created by Lin-Manuel and the Miranda family in partnership with the Flamboyan Foundation.   

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Not far from San Juan is El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. national forest system, and it encompasses 28,000 acres and reaches an elevation of more than 3,500 feet.  The forest receives an estimated average of 200-240 inches of rain each year. The forest is home to some endemic plant and animal species, notably the Puerto Rican Green Parrot (the only one native to the island and one of the world's rarest birds) and the coquí frog (a tree frog known as the island's national symbol; male frogs sing and their song has been measured at 90 to 100 decibels, making it the loudest existing amphibian - a writer for the island's tourism website notes that "Like the coquí, many Puerto Ricans are smaller in stature, but exuberant when speaking.  The saying is, "I'm not yelling, I'm Puerto Rican"...small island, small frog, BIG VOICE.").  In this link from Anthropocene magazine, you can hear a recording of a coquí, and the accompanying article is really interesting - it's an excerpt from The New Wild: Why Invasive Species Will Be Nature's Salvation by Fred Pearce.  Waterfalls are the thing at El Yunque and two of the best are Juan Diego Falls and one at the Angelito Trail Head.  While the temperature in the forest doesn't budge much beyond 73 degrees, be sure to come prepared for rain (though it didn't rain at all when we went).  

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After three days in San Juan we drove west all the way out to Rincon, site of the first World Surfing Championships in 1968.  We don't surf, but we went for the laid-back vibe and the beaches.  We spent two nights at Villa Montaña, in Isabela, and two more nights at Casa Isleña, not far away.  Of the two, I preferred Casa Isleña, though the Eclipse restaurant at Villa Montaña was a real draw.  

The beach at Casa Isleña.

We liked Playa Jobos, where we had lunch at Tabla Salá.  Just down the road a bit from Villa Montaña is Ola Lola's, a fun, outdoor place with good drinks and food.  The Beach House in Rincon is a good place, especially if Billy is playing guitar and singing.  Cafe 413 in Rincon is a great breakfast place (we went twice). Ola Sunset Cafe is, as the name suggests, a great place to watch the sunset and is big fun besides (it's at the lighthouse in Rincon).  For $15 we had gigantic cups of mojitos, and a well-known and quite good Grateful Dead cover band, Half Step, was also playing.  We didn't make it to Reina Mora, which apparently is an excellent restaurant, because it's only open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and we needed to be back in San Juan on Thursday (reservations are required).  Jack's Shack is a good food truck in Rincon.  Jake's Java, near Casa Isleña, is a good coffee place and is where I learned about Dylan Smith (there is a Dylan Smith Way street sign hanging on one wall at Jake's).  There is also a framed newspaper article about Smith, who was from Rockaway, New York and during Hurricane Sandy, he rescued at least a dozen people using his surfboard.  Two months later he died while surfing in Rincon, at age 23.  A documentary, 'Seven Miles to Shore,' was made about his heroic efforts.  Playero, a local, family-run company founded in 1977, has a shop in Rincon.  This beach lifestyle brand is really appealing, and we had to stop in (one T-shirt and a pair of sandals later). 

The view from The Beach House.

To Read:

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson (Simon & Schuster, 1999).  One of Thompson's few works of fiction, though he spend time on the island.  It was made into a film, starring Johnny Depp (2011). 

The House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferré (Plume, 1996).  A finalist for the National Book Award, this novel is about a house, and it's on a lagoon, but it's also a many-layered family saga set within actual events in Puerto Rico's history.    

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago (several editions; I read the Vintage edition of 1994, but a newer edition, published by Grand Central Publishing in 2006, includes two forewords by Jaquira Díaz and Julia Alvarez).   A beautiful memoir - named by Oprah's Book Club as one of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" - that is beautifully, honestly written and is by turns heart breaking uplifting.  She writes that when she was a teenager and leaving the island to come to New York, "For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.  The Puerto Rican jíbara [female form of a person from the countryside] who longed for the green quiet of a tropical afternoon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting."  When Santiago began writing the book, she had no idea it would result in a dialogue about cultural identity.  She spoke to many immigrants who have returned to their countries, only to discover how much they have changed by immersion in North American culture.  "They accept and understand the irony of the past tense in the title, the feeling that, while at one time they could not identify themselves as anything but the nationality to which they were born, once they've lived in the U.S. their "cultural purity" has been compromised, nor do they feel one hundred percent comfortable as Americans."  When she returned to Puerto Rico after living in New York for seven years, she was told she was no longer Puerto Rican because her Spanish was rusty, her gaze too direct, her personality too assertive, and she refused to eat some traditional foods like morcilla and tripe stew.  "I felt as Puerto Rican as when I left the island, but to those who had never left, I was contaminated by Americanisms, and therefore, had become less than Puerto Rican.  Yet, in the united States, my darkness, my accented speech, my frequent lapses into the confused silence between English and Spanish identified me as foreign, non-American."  

Thrillist recently featured an interview with iLe, a Puerto Rican singer, who shared what makes for a perfect day on the island. 

A Puerto Rican playlist might include Bad Bunny, Luis Fonsi, DaddyYankee, Marc Anthony, Pedro Capo, Ferruko, Residente, Wisin & Yandel, Rick Martin, and Don Omar.  And the island's classic, 'En Me Viejo San Juan' by Javier Solís - here's the backstory from NPR.  Puerto Rico Tourism has created two good lists on Spotify, 'Borikén is Calling' and 'Boricua Roadtrip.'  

The Puerto Rico Tourism Site has some useful information and The Culture Trip has a good summary of some Puerto Rican myths, legends, and superstitions. 

Puerto Rico has still not yet fully recovered from Hurricane Maria in 2017 - the island receives absolutely nothing from FEMA - though San Juan has bounced back in a big way as it is such a source of tourist dollars.  The island is a real place with real people living on it (as opposed to just a pretty picture postcard), and while it may be true that life is a bit simpler there, it's also a bit complicated: there are 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico, which means there are 78 mayors, and it remains an island with an unresolved colonial status.  I hope the island won't be in limbo, so to speak, for much longer, but in the meantime, it's an interesting, beautiful place to visit.  The entire time I was on the island I had a promotional tv commercial song in my head from the 1970s - the main lyrics were 'Come on and go, to Puerto Rico' ... 'You'll love it so, in Puerto Rico' - and I intended to provide a link to the commercial here (because it was a lively song with a catchy jingle) but I cannot find a single reference to it anywhere online, which seems strange to me.   It's possible that the tune may be an actual real song; at any rate, it's disappointing that I can't find it, but you should come on and go!