The other side of Puerto Rico
Originally published May 11, 2008
By Jim Breuer
Special to the News-Post (Maryland)
The flight from Baltimore/Washington Interntional Airport to San Juan takes a little over 3 hours. Upon arrival you are greeted by sun and light and affable, enthusiastic people.

Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport is on the island of Isla Verde, on the northern, Atlantic side of Puerto Rico, the very spot that is host to scores of high-rise hotels, gorgeous beaches and world-class restaurants.

For many of us, this is where the journey ends. After all, you're within a stone's throw of stirring Old San Juan, an easy drive to El Yunque National Forest and some of the best golf courses you'll ever play. So why bother driving an hour south to the Caribbean side?

For starters, it's as different from the northern side as the jungles of Queensland, Australia, are from the hills of Oregon. The backbone of Puerto Rico is the Cordillera Central, a range of mountains running roughly east to west that's high enough (5,000 feet) and steep enough (most grades over 50%) to engender a couple of microclimates: mountainous and wet in the north, mountainous and dry in the south.

It's in the south that we find Ponce, the island's 2nd-largest city, multiple funky little towns, and Guayama, to the east of Ponce by 45 minutes or so. There we find El Legado Golf Resort, home of its founder, golf pro Juan "Chi Chi" Rodríguez.

Chi Chi's legacy, El Legado

(Photo: Jim Breuer) El Legado's beautiful pool and apartments are seen on a beautiful day in Puerto Rico.Rodríguez, 72, is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, and winner of eight PGA Tour championships and 22 senior tour matches. Unlike a lot of guys on the PGA tour, Rodríguez didn't come from money. In fact, as a kid he cut sugar cane, backbreaking work considered one of the island's least desirable jobs.

El Legado itself occupies 285 acres on the fairly flat lands close to the Caribbean. The name means "the legacy," and it's clear that Rodríguez means it to be his gift to his native island. It's a complex consisting of a golf course, a swimming pool, beautiful apartments and eventually a hotel and casino. In all, it's a $100 million project.

The course is a fairly wide open one, with a surprising amount of water. Designed by Rodríguez himself, it plays 5,670 yards from the red tees, 6,369 from the whites and 7,262 from the blues. If that's not enough challenge for you, there are also yellow tees set an average of 30 yards behind the blues. The fairways are durable Bermuda grass.

The course's signature hole is the par-3 No. 1, where players must hit over a pond that's shaped like Puerto Rico to reach the hole. Carts are required, and it's a good thing, because the course is laid out over such a wide area that walking would be nearly impossible (think Greencastle Greens in Pennsylvania), especially in the hot Puerto Rican sun.

The villa apartments range from 1 - 3 bedrooms and are available for sale or rent. They feature fully-equipped kitchens, 8-foot ceilings and tile floors. The pool is a magnificent kidney-shaped affair with continuously running fountains and adjacent kids' pool and Jacuzzi.

Driving and shopping on the island

You'll be disappointed if you expect driving conditions like those in Guatemala, where the roads have more potholes than road, or the Dominican Republic, where traffic laws are considered suggestions. Here the roads are considerably better than the ones in Pennsylvania, and drivers are, for the most part, considerate. From a safety standpoint, if your choice is to drive Route 52 from San Juan to Ponce or U.S. 15 from Emmitsburg to Frederick, jump on the former without hesitation.

Grocery shopping in Guayama is just like that in Frederick (Maryland) in 1956. You can have any kind of lettuce you want, so long as it's iceberg. Want a baguette? "Fugeta-boutit", in fact, ditto for rye, pumpernickel, bagels and pretty much everything that's not the local version of Wonder Bread.

The best coffee available is Yaucono, which beats Maxwell House, but isn't exactly Starbucks French Roast. Your best bet to take advantage of next time you're in San Juan is the "Pueblo Supermercado" on Isla Verde. No promises, but at least they serve a more upscale and varied clientele.

Guayama: Frederick of the Caribbean?

Guayama and Frederick (Maryland) have their similarities. They have similar populations (Guayama 44,000; Frederick 59,000) and founding dates (Guayama 1736, Frederick 1748). In both cases, the old parts of the cities are the most interesting, and both are surrounded by "Anywhere, USA" streets where one can find a Wal-Mart, a Radio Shack, a Marshalls, etc. Frederick has probably done a better job at attracting and retaining interesting retail establishments to its downtown, yet Guayama's old city is not without its attractions.

Where would any Latin American city be without its central square, in this case the Plaza de Recreo Cristóbal Colón? Its ornate central fountain, brought from France in 1918, is surrounded by 16 gardens that feature unusual trees, many of which were planted in 1895.

The beautiful Church of San Antonio de Padua is the only church built in the Neo-roman style in Puerto Rico. The inspiration to construct the church supposedly came from the appearance of the saint over a guava tree at the site where the church now stands. Its Swiss-made clock strikes each day at exactly 11:30, the hour at which the church was consecrated.

The Casa Cautiño Museum is a study in ornate elegance. Also on the central square, the museum combines a turn-of-the century facade with neoclassical architectural design mixed with native architecture. It was completely restored by the Puerto Rican Cultural Institute in 1987.

Interestingly, Guayama is also home to significant pharmaceutical manufacturing, the densest concentration in the world, according to John Terry, automation engineer for Niro Pharmaceutical Systems and Frederick resident. Many impressive (if slightly unsightly) factories line the coast. Originally attracted here in the '60s and '70s by tax incentives, the industry is currently experiencing a bit of a downturn. As elsewhere, consolidation is happening. There have been a few plant closings and the laid-off workers have a hard time finding comparable jobs on the island.

Restaurants in Guayama: Good news, mostly

No one who visits the Guayama area should miss the Casa de los Pastelillos in Pozuelo. Situated beneath the palm trees on the Caribbean beach, the open-air restaurant boasts 26 varieties of pastelillos -- fried turn-overs filled with anything from flank steak to mud crab. Both are delicious, especially when washed down with a "Medalla", the local beer -- way better than an American lite beer but not up to Heineken standards.

For good local fare, try Vino y Candela, La Fuente Town Center, 787-864-256. They specialize in the ubiquitous "mofongos relleno"s, a plantain-based dish that can be combined with just about anything. They also serve a variety of grilled meats, seafood and "comidas criollas" or local specialties. Happy hour with live music takes place there on Fridays.

The best steak in town can be had at "Doble Seis", right on Route 53. It used to be a restaurant for the attached hotel, but it became a sports bar, complete with multiple TVs on ESPN and the like, and also plenty of video games lining the walls. However, the chef is still the same. If you like or can tolerate the sports bar scene, it's the place for you.

Highly recommended to us in Salinas was "Puerta al Sol", which sits right on the ocean, and where you can dine on the water in an open-air veranda. Salinas is one of the aforementioned funky towns between Guayama and Ponce, and the atmosphere of the town is worth taking in.

Ponce, Pearl of the South

Ponce, the 2nd largest city in Puerto Rico outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded in 1692, and has a population of 186,000. It is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the grandson of Juan Ponce de León, he of Fountain of Youth fame.
The city's vibrancy was portended by the fact that it was a favored immigration destination for not only Latin Americans but also Spain and much of the rest of Western Europe - one of Vanna White's ancestors was mayor of the city once (White is the co-host of the game show Wheel of Fortune). Up until the turn of the 20th century, Ponce had more inhabitants and its many financial institutions were better capitalized than those of San Juan.

Many of the immigrants from Spain were Catalonians, and much of its architecture reflects the quirky attributes of Barcelona. Foremost among these is the firehouse-turned-tourist-center "Parque de Bombas". The building, with its striking red and black facade and clunky yet somehow pleasing shape, can serve as your jumping off point for a walk around the pretty downtown area.

Conveniently, you are located on the "Plaza de las Delicias", the old city's central square. It features several fountains (namely the "Lions Fountain"), and the Ponce Cathedral, in addition to the "Parque de Bombas". Other buildings around Ponce's main plaza include "Casa Alcaldía" (city hall), the oldest colonial building in the city, dating to the 1840s.

Not to be missed (especially if you speak Spanish, for the English blurb they hand you is inadequate) is the Ponce History Museum. As North Americans, we tend to think most of Western Hemisphere history revolves around the U.S. Visiting a place like this can be a refreshingly Copernican experience.

After taking in the museum, have a meal just across the street at Café Tom's (corner of Mayor and Isabel streets, 787-841-4768). They specialize in Creole and seafood cuisine, but try the steak Tom's.

The Ponce Museum of Art is the only museum of international stature on the island, housing the most extensive art collection in the Caribbean. Its best-known painting is "Flaming June" by Frederic Leighton. For those of us whose knowledge of the visual arts is rudimentary, it's a great place to visit. Informative placards accompany most works of art, and it is the kind of museum that you can tour in an hour without feeling like you've shortchanged yourself. Try that at the Prado or the Louvre.

Another planet: The dry forest of Guánica

To the west of Ponce lies the Guánica State Forest Designated (Natural Reserve Area), a United Nations International Biospheric Reserve. Here average annual rainfall is a scant 35 inches compare with 15 feet deluging the mountain forests each year. The result is a dwarf forest consisting of various species of cacti and semi-deciduous plants, many of which have been twisted by the harsh micro-climate into fascinating natural bonsais.

Ironically, though it seldom rains here, it is water that shapes this forest of over 700 plant species. When rains do come, they tend to occur in short bursts. What water isn't evaporated in the hot tropical sun rapidly percolates through the limestone bedrock. Here Puerto Rico's 200-million-year-old volcanic past is evident just by looking down. The rain-pitted and broken limestone is readily visible everywhere. Here, too, is one place where one finds some ecological good news: although much of the dry forest was destroyed for agriculture before the 1940s, those areas that have been left alone have recovered rapidly, so that after 50 years forests that had been used for charcoal production recovered to the point where they are now indistinguishable from much older forests.

Somehow there's an analogy for Puerto Rico itself here. Just as early 20th-century American politicians tried to make the island into something it was not, sometimes we tourists are guilty of the same in our minds at least. The key to appreciating a place like this is to avoid trying to mentally align it with our expectations, the tropical paradise of the tourist brochures, for example. Puerto Rico will be fine, just as it is.
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