Planning Your Trip to Puerto Rico


Despite debate about the island's future, Puerto Rico has been part of the United States for a century, and Marin International Airport in San Juan (SJU) operates just like any other US airport. There is no passport control between SJU and the US mainland. (There is a federal X-ray machine for all checked bags on your way out, operated not by Customs but by Agriculture. So get your sticker outside the terminal before boarding the return flight.) The currency is the US dollar. Puerto Rico is area code 787 and you can charge calls to a telephone card. There are public phones in big cities with lamp-post signs advertising $0.25/minute (minimum 2 minutes) to anywhere in the US.

The language is Spanish, but the upper class in San Juan takes pride in speaking half English in each sentence. Moving between hotels, ballparks, and outlets of American stores and restaurants, you'll never be far away from an employee who speaks English.

Renting a Car

The real beauty for travelers is that Puerto Rico is the one place in Latin America where driving is inexpensive and without special risks. (For example, driving into the interior of Mexico requires a permit, you face heavy penalties if unable for any reason to remove the car on schedule, and a very foreign legal system in the case of an accident, despite mandatory, expensive temporary insurance at the permit station.) In Puerto Rico, your personal car insurance should cover you in your rental car. (My policy specifically covers Puerto Rico. But it might be worthwhile to pay a waiver fee to ensure you aren't nickeled-and-dimed on exit.) You can book a car from the mainland.

Most US chains are present (not Alamo). Those on the airport grounds add a 10% "concession fee" to your bill (a racket widespread in the US). Some chains insist you buy their insurance if paying with a debit card. To leave the car at a stadium parking lot, ask for a model that isn't flashy. This may minimize exit hassles, but the shocks, steering, and brakes will be worn, and you will not have enough acceleration either to be assertive with the local drivers or to maintain speed on the mountain crossings. But the air conditioning worked fine. Accompany the agent during the enumeration of scrapes and dents and keep a copy certifying the initial condition of the car.

Roads

The road system is built to familiar US standards. Route markers are changing to a system that relates to the mainland--colored signs (but not exactly "Interstate") for expressways, black and white signs for trunk roads, and plans for blue and yellow pentagons like our county road signs for secondary roads. Of the three digits of numbered secondary roads, the first digit tells you what part of the island you're in; the others are essentially random. Four-digit numbers mark alternate routes by repeating the first digit of a related road.

Most expressways are toll roads; a typical toll is $0.50. That does not mean that the toll the other way will be $0.50. Toll collection is inefficient (use the exact change lanes) and traffic enforcement is nonexistent. Drivers are macho, impatient, and indecisive.

Signs let you reach any city either by expressway or by trunk roads; but they aren't perfect. On the expressway south through Caguas, all exits are numbered but there is no telling what goes where. On the secondary roads, you can easily get sidetracked by following a straight line instead of the good pavement. PR-14 between Aibonito and Coamo is beautiful, but twisty and unmarked for fifteen miles. Speeds are in mph but distances and exit numbers are by kilometer. (Changing the speed limit from 55 mph to 90 km/h would surely produce an epidemic of accidents as drivers envisioned an easy excuse for the cop.)

Maps sold in the US are all out of date and don't accurately describe the class of each highway; some expressways listed as "proposed" are already built.

Hotels

The biggest disappointment is that Puerto Rico lacks the US system of motels at expressway exits. (Beware the word "motel"--as opposed to "hotel," this rents by the hour. The manager of Bardo's in the Caguas stadium says the several "hotels" on PR-1 toward San Juan are in fact "motels.")

US chains have all amenities but retail in 1999 was around $400. The Embassy Suites near the airport is a treat and I got a rate of $260 that included the parking fee.

Out-island economy hotels for tourists are called "paradors" ("stoppers"). The government inspects them and regulates the use of this term. A night in a parador might cost $75-150.

There are bargains, but they aren't on the Internet or in the travel agent's catalog. Mario's Hotel in Isla Verde near the airport runway is $60 a night plus 9% tax ($70 in the high season, which starts in December), with free, lighted, off-street parking (adequate except on weekends); rooms are adequate with private bath, everyone speaks a little English and some people speak a lot. The air conditioner, run all night, blocks out most of the street noise. The horns and car alarms do calm down at night, pretty early for Latin America.

San Juan is the most expensive place on the island. Since parking at the ballpark is a breeze, you could stay outside the city and drive there after the game. But if your goal is to see the Spanish-colonial Old City with its fort, or the good beaches, driving and parking could be a problem (the government wants to move to a system of rented golf carts) and you might want to stay in San Juan. There is a city bus system and there is supposed to be an elevated rail line in 2002, though in 2001, newspaper columnists were talking about its pillars as the "ruins."

Food

Puerto Ricans aren't pretentious people and you need not go to a pretentious place to get the best Puerto Rican food. Local food (comida criolla) includes orange rice with vegetables, habichuelas (pork and beans, hold the pork), various fried and baked dishes of plantains (platano, like a banana), and the sorullo (or smaller sorullito), a sweet corn-meal fritter. Yuca is cassava root; fried (yuca frita), it's like french fries but tastier. Mofongo is a baseball of baked plantain (bananas). It will give you diarrhea. Instead, in the city, order mofongo de yuca. (In the hills they look at you funny if you ask for it.) Fruits are tropical, like mangoes, but familiar melons are also available. The only spicy food is shrimp enchilado at a Chinese restaurant, or Peruvian food at Chim Pum Callao (this is a Peruvian cheer before downing your drink) west of Bithorn Stadium on FDR Boulevard. On the south side of Route 37 in Isla Verde there's another Peruvian place, a Cuban place, and Bohio Criollo ("Mofongos Famosos") for mofongo de yuca. In 2001, it showed signs of life but was never open for lunch.

There is a fine criollo buffet in Ponce on PR-123 (formerly shown as 10 or 14 on some maps) that looks like a converted Bonanza and is called "Criollismo," but the big surprise is that the salad bar at a real Bonanza (like the one on the PR-1 strip leaving Caguas to the north) is cheaper and also has all the criollo specialties and gringo salad fixings. And, in the Carolina shopping center off Route 3 on your way to Clemente stadium, the food court has a fabulous place called "Arrocito Con..." (A little rice with...) where you can get white or criollo rice and toppings that change daily, even sometimes bacalao, fish dark meat stewed with peppers and onions. There's always yuca and twice I saw it wrapped in turkey and tied down with bacon strips; this was baseball-sized but not a mofongo.

In towns too small to have known-good places such as chains, look for places with lighted (and not hand-lettered) signs and parking well away from the travel lane; a wide storefront on a main road but not a hole-in-the-wall. The number of parked cars (especially truckers and cops) indicates quality.

FDR Avenue half a mile east of Bithorn Stadium has a variety of foreign restaurants. To the west there's another Bonanza. All the big US chains exist in all the big cities, especially chicken (KFC and Church's) and hamburgers. Subway is everywhere and identical to mainland franchises.

There are many bakeries (panaderías), as elsewhere in Latin America, but they're not as cheap because of US sugar price supports. There are no unique delicacies. Corn bread, sometimes with frosting, is a recurring offering. Donas (doughnuts) are there, Dunkin-style. The word also refers to zero runs in a half-inning. A big surprise is that 7-11 stores in San Juan have bread ovens; you can get a half-pound French loaf baked that day for $0.55. If nothing else works, buy sliced meat and the crumbly white Puerto Rico cheese and make sandwiches. Subway in 2000 introduced a variety of distinctive breads baked hourly on the premises; it's scandalous that headquarters prohibits them from selling them separately. Rum and booze are sold in supermarkets, bakeries, and convenience stores.

If you find you miss the criollo rice when you get home, go to that funny aisle of the supermarket and pick up a box of Goya sazón (the coriander-and-annatto variety). A packet mixed into white rice, with veggies stirred in, is it exactly.

Do As I Say

If crime strikes you, it won't be solved. But you can avoid crime. Nothing bad has happened to me but it was close once or twice. Don't drive a motorcycle. Don't take romantic evening walks. Solitude is dangerous; parking an ordinary-looking car in a crowded lot is fine (unless you fiddle around with bags in the trunk before you walk away). Dress for a minor-league ball game, not the theater--even if you're going to the theater. Don't flaunt wealth, don't carry a camera except perhaps a digital or APS you can hide. If you must carry lots of cash, wear it near the skin, not in a bulging wallet; and you need not carry cash because there are ATMs in all the cities. Don't look for short-cuts or rear entrances, don't duck across the street from Garcia stadium for a beer after the game (the street is so dark you can't see the gate back to the stadium plaza), don't pick up hitchhikers. (I picked up a shapely girl, who by the time she entered the car was a boy with lipstick; he refused to leave the car until I took him to his neighborhood--where surely his friends would outnumber me. Fortunately I also refused to let him light a cigarette in the car during this standoff and he left in a huff.)
Copyright © 2000, 2001, Spike, Brentwood, N.H. All rights reserved.
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