Down and Out in Ponce

This is a bit of an old post, but my computer has been down all week (Never, ever buy a computer from Dell. They are of particularly low quality).

This past weekend, my mom came to visit me! We spent most of the weekend at the beach or at the pool, and I spent most of my time reading a book that mom brought for me: The Power Broker, by Robert Caro. The book, which I have not finished (it is well over 1000 pages) is about Robert Moses, the Parks, Planning, and Construction Commissioner for New York for over forty years. Moses is responsible for many of the parks and parkways we now know today - the Northern State, the Southern State, the Belt, the Westside Highway -- and either the creation or the renovation of many of the parks we now know today (apparently, Central Park was in such bad condition when he took it over that men with shotguns had to be placed outside the zoo to shoot escaping animals). It's an interesting look at power and how it is wielded, and it is a fascinating insight into what New York (the state and the city) were like prior to the depression. I recommend it for anyone who likes a good history read.

We also made an attempt to visit Hacienda Buena Vista, which is a coffee plantation supposedly located in Adjuntas, which is near Ponce, PR. Ponce is on the southern (caribbean) side of the island, which is in striking contrast to the north (atlantic) side of the island, where I live. Whereas much of the northern half of the island is covered in lush vegetation and towering palm trees, the southern half of the island is basically a desert, covered in scrubbrush and, in some areas, cacti:

[Adam, on an earlier visit to Guanica state park]

Our trip out to Ponce, however, was marred by a series of bad directions. The hotel staff told us that we would be able to connect to the appropriate road in Downtown Ponce (wrong); the signage in Ponce pointing the road led us in a series of interminable circles; and the one gas station attendant who we asked suggested that we should just go back to San Juan. This is probably a result of a general unfamiliarity here with road numbers; many people here refer to roads by names that have not been used in many years, or give directions with reference to locally known landmarks. Needless to say, we did not make it to the coffee plantation.

We did, however, enjoy a very pleasant afternoon in Ponce, which is a lovely city. It has tons of old colonial houses, and a very pretty central square. In this sense, it looks much more like "Latin America" than does San Juan, which often resembles Miami. Of particular note, there is a firetruck museum on one side of the square which is painted in brilliant black and red colors:

[Parque de Bombas = Fire[fighter] Park, more or less]

Across from the Parque de Bombas, there is a great ice cream place called King's Cream. I had a guanabana (soursop) milkshake, my mother had a scoop of pineapple ice cream. Delicious!

The town square also has a really beautiful old church:


. . . and a series of nice fountains. The fountains, oddly enough, seem to turn off whenever you try to take a picture of them, but we managed to get this picture, with my mother sitting on the edge of the fountain:


So our day in Ponce wasn't a complete bust. On Sunday, we also went to the Museo del Arte de Puerto Rico, which is a really neat art museum in Santurce, right across the highway from Condado. The Museum focuses on Puerto Rican art and has a particular emphasis on modern Puerto Rican art. The Museum is particularly noteworthy because the guards in the rooms are very well versed in the paintings, and often will give you a mini-lecture on the origin of a painting. One of my favorite works is a photograph by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla called "Seeing Otherwise." It's a photograph of the skyline of Old San Juan and Hato Rey taken from the shore of Cataño at dusk. Cataño is a really industrial town (it is where the Bacardi factory is located), and you can see the detritus of manufacturing along the shore from where the picture was taken. It's an impressive study in contrasts. Unfortunately, I can't find an image of it online, so you'll have to go and visit to see it for yourself.

Next: I'm going to DC tonight! Expect more posts next week.