Ponce, west coast, and a minor incident

costa sJ

vista desde el tejado

la carpa dorada

coastline towards SJ

arecibo from outside

karst

rincon beach

ponce beach under moonlight

ponce historical district

Jan 13

Last night I drove from ponce to san german and stayed in some neighborhood next to the university. The following morning I had plans to scanter my way to Rincon, Arecibo, and the cuevas de camuy, but even with an early start it turned out to be the only bad day on my trip so far. The bad days, work in mysteriously good ways in that they make the good days that much better. If you didn’t understand that, it’s ok.  Ni modo. I drove to Rincon, the California of PR, and I would like to say it was a nice place.You could still see the local Boricua shops and fruit stands, which made me happy that their culture hadn’t been drowned out by American tourism quite yet. It seemed, though there many Americans living here, that they just absorbed into puertorican culture rather than changing the culture of this place. It was pleasant and the beach was nice. Next I drove my way over to browse some surf spots and small local beach towns I stopped in some random one, parked my car, and someone hit me. I was in a rental car with no insurance, so I was to pay for the damages. It seems everytime you get insurance you never have an accident, but when you don’t, luck can run out. It was my last day driving, and this had to happen. Like a flash flood of despair, I felt the stress and anxiety flow through my body, but after 30 minutes things settled down, and I had to think. First I tried hiding the scratches with mud, but that proved pointless to a carwash, until I remembered I could get damage insurance anytime, but they had to inspect the car. Feeling less than ballsy after already taking a big risk and losing, I ultimately decided to be honest and fess up, paying for the damages.  But this took an insane amount of thinking in my exhausted brain.  I didn’t want this new element in the mix to ruin my day any further, so I worked up the courage to go to the cuevas of camuy. However, mayhem continued as the caves and the Arecibo observatory were closed. Through all the stress that day, I look back and still find some good-hey, I know what it’s like to deal with traffic, never get anything done, and get my rental car dinged up. At least by not seeing Arecibo or the cuevas it gives me a reason to come back. That night I had a beer at a local beach bar and drove to the new Wal-mart and passed out.

The following day I returned to san juan and isla verde beach where I ran the beach with some local baseball players and did some pushups. After I was ready to tell the rental company the news at around 12pm. When they inspected the car they didn’t even see the damage, so I had to tell them, which makes me think I could have passed the inspection for the damage insurance and then washed the car when I returned it, but that would be illegal. With everything behind me I was ready to relax finally after a frantic week around the island driving in stressful situations.