June 14, 2008

June 14, 2008 – The Rain Forest

This morning we toured one of two tropical rain forests managed by the US Department of the Interior. The other one is in Hawaii, and fortunately the government hasn’t managed to screw this one up too much. It turned out to be exactly the kind of tour that we like.

First, we got on our AIR CONDITIONED tour bus at the hotel. Big clean windows, padded seats – this is the way to travel to and through a rain forest. Our driver was Carlos, who kept up a steady chatter of trivia about Puerto Rico (“Rich Port”) throughout the trip out there.

The island is 110 miles long and 35 miles wide. You can traverse it by car in about 4 hours, and it has a population of 4 million people, 500K of whom live in San Juan. It being Saturday, they were not all on the road, but on weekdays it apparently seems that way.

There are 78 towns on the island, of which San Juan (i.e. “St. John the Baptist”) is both the capital and the largest. Some things we noted are universal. You could tell exactly when you were travelling through “the projects”, subsidized housing that looks remarkably bland and depressing. Pre-9-11, Puerto Rico had an unemployment rate of about 7%. Post it’s closer to 13%.

Carlos tried to convince us that the iron bars we saw on the windows and around the houses were because of hurricanes. While that may in some small part be true, (a) iron bars don’t keep out water or rain; (b) hurricanes happen above the first floor, but frequently there were no bars above that floor; (c) bars, fences and gates were often around areas where there were no doors or windows, like carports; and (d) hurricane precautions do not require spikes or concertina wire on top.

Carlos went on to try and entice us to participate in the local economy. One suburb of San Juan, Carolina, is the birthplace of baseball player Roberto Clemente. The largest mall on the island, with 380 stores, is also there. I’m not sure which they’re more proud of.

Bacardi rum distillery is on the island and produces 100,000 gallons of rum daily. That’s a LOT of Pina Coladas’!!

Historically, Puerto Rico was discovered by Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage. At that time, there were 60,000 native inhabitants, indigenous tribes mostly from Venezuela and that part of South America, that weren’t necessarily waiting around to be discovered. Unfortunately for them, Columbus went back, did a book tour, brought attention to what a great vacation spot it was and the Spaniards came.

Long before there was the “ugly American”, there was the “super ugly Spaniard.” When they came on their little cruise boats, the natives thought they were Gods because they’d never seen white skin, blue eyes, or horses. They thought the horses and shields that the Spaniards carried, like some of the Luis Vitton bags that lady tourists sometimes carry, were a part of the person.

The Spaniards quickly snapped up the best real estate, developed beachside time shares and established the Fort at Old San Juan and the City of Ponce (named after the first governor of the island, Ponce de Leon, who is most famous for having retired to Florida like so many other Senior Citizens, snarled traffic driving 27 miles an hour in the fast lane and subsequently died without finding the fountain of youth, but having discovered a great tan.)

During the time that the Spanish ruled the island, it withstood 5 attacks – 3 British, 1 French and 1 from Holland. Eventually, after the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Spaniards decided that rental property located so far away was a pain and they suckered the US into taking that property off their hands.

Like a puppy that follows you home, once the US started to feed Puerto Rico they had to keep it. In 1917 all Puerto Rican residents became citizens of the US who get to vote in the primaries but not in the general election. It was, I’m sure, just a coincidence that they also got to serve in the US military afterwards, including participating in the draft. The sinking of the Lusitania, of course, had nothing to do with that.

In 1952 they got their own constitution and the military government established was released in favor of an elected government. In the true mixing of cultures, between Federal holidays and local holidays, which are also observed, government employees get a whopping 22 days off a year, plus the governor can declare additional ones if he thinks nobody’s going to show for work anyhow, like the last time that Miss Universe came from Puerto Rico (in 2001).

The main industry in Puerto Rico is not tourism, as one might expect, that coming in second with 2.5 million tourists annually. It is instead pharmaceutical manufacturing with 36 companies located here. Third is Agriculture, which is kind of surprising.

After 45 minutes of talking, we were at the entrance to the Rain Forest. Like all other national monuments, it has a visitor’s welcome center that looks somewhat underfunded and in need of repair and (surpise, surprise) a gift shop! We didn’t contribute to that economy, either, but there were some local craftsmen with little tables set up on the plaza. After watching a man throw tiny little vases on a pottery wheel for a bit, I bought a ceramic frog that’s about an inch across and will make a fine Christmas Ornament. Shopping completed.

The rain forest is truly beautiful. It was more of a “sprinkle forest” for us, since we didn’t see any of the 200 average inches of rain that it supposedly had, but then we’re not sure how much of that is measured as humidity in the air, either. It’s possible that much of it happened the day we were there without a raindrop ever falling if our sweat-factor is to be believed.
Spain, in an attempt to revitalize their rental property when they owned it, established a forestry service there in 1875, and declared 12,500 acres as forest reserves in 1876. After the US got it in 1903, we realized that wasn’t such a bad idea and continued the program.

Like every good tourist destination, this one has an observation tower. And, like most of the cities we’ve visited in Europe in the past, we climbed the tower. Compared to the 600+ steps to the top of the Duomo tower in Florence it was nothing – 97 steps. Think about that humidity, though, and you’ll understand why they didn’t build it any taller.

One of the plants that grows throughout the rain forest is bamboo, which was introduced from Asia to help with erosion control. Like Kudzu, it got away from them. It has a similar impact on the local flora.

The tower at the top of the mountain (the 10th highest on the island, at 3583 ft. above sea level) provides a pretty amazing view. Although it was somewhat cloudy for us, you could see the ocean several miles away as well as up into the mountains. It was green everywhere.

Thinking ahead, the nice people with the forestry service had put bathrooms in the base of the tower. Being on a budget, they didn’t allow any money for repairs over time. They have nice plastic signs up warning us about the need to vigorously wash our hands to prevent the spread of disease (in 2 languages, no less). The faucet produces a trickle roughly equivalent to that of a holy water fountain in church. At least, we’re hoping that’s what it was, so that it’ll ward off the disease because it sure isn’t coming from washing your hands there.

This is next to the sign that says “Don’t pet the Mongoose” because they have rabies. You wouldn’t think that a sign about that would be necessary, but then again in Comanche County they lose a tourist every couple of years because they decide to pet the buffalo. Darwin’s theory in action, possibly?

On the way down the mountain, we stopped at a short walking trail. You climb a flight of steps to see a pond that is very obviously one of FDR’s CCC projects. Gotta love him – many projects, 1 set of plans. It’s not really clear why they needed a pond there in the midst of a rain forest, but nonetheless there it is and I’m sure that a lot of unemployed guys learned to lay rock on account of that pond. They also created a paved footpath with rock edging that seemed to have about as much uphill as downhill in it. Bobbie Jean opted not to walk the path with us, but instead rode the bus down to the pickup point and made friends with people there.

The last stop on the way down was at a really pretty waterfall, right next to the road. The wisdom of years dictates that those of us who are approaching the half-century mark observe from the roadside while the young (and foolish?) climb the slippery rocks to pose for photos.

It was a great adventure for us. Started out after breakfast, ended in time for a late lunch and most of it was indoors in the air conditioning. We spent the rest of the day poolside at the Marriott, with only occasional trips into the casino to see how luck was working there. Saturday night was not bad, but Sunday morning they’d screwed those things down tight and nobody was winning anything.

We packed up and went to a Japanese restaurant next door for supper. One of those where they cook on the grill in front of you. We had a wonderful lady chef that put on quite a show for us, and convinced both Caleb and Taylor to try and bounce an egg off a spatula and cut it in half mid air like she did. Fortunately, the eggs stayed OVER the griddle during that experiment. It’s harder than it looks.