Puerto Rico. The Paradox of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has the look and feel of an independent country. With 143 islets, cays, and islands, including the main island, the territory is located more than 1,600 kilometers southeast from the tip of Florida. To reach Puerto Rico, air or sea travelers must pass the Bahamans, Cuba, Hati, and the Dominican Republic. Although the territory has two official languages (English and Spanish), most residents speak Spanish. So why does Puerto Rico continue to be a U.S. territory? The question of independence has been considered through five island-wide referendums that each resulted in a majority voting to remain part of the U.S.
With an area of 13,800 km2, Puerto Rico’s population of 3.3 million is comparable to the state of Iowa. Nearly three-quarters of the 160-kilometer-long main island is covered with hilly terrain. We launched our road trip from the island’s capital city of San Juan (population 340,000). Founded in 1508 by Juan Ponce de León as Ciudad de Puerto Rico, San Juan functioned as a stopover for Spanish ships traveling between the Americas and Europe. In 1539, the Spanish began building Castillo San Felipe del Morro to protect the entrance to San Juan Bay. With eight bronze cannons, the fort survived attacks by Englishman Sir Frances Drake in 1595 and Dutch privateers under Boudewijn Hendricksz in 1625. Today, visitors can still see gun emplacements of the fort’s Santa Elena Battery that were equipped with powerful Ordóñez cannons during the 1898 Spanish-American War. The war ended in December 1898 with a treaty granting the U.S. possession of Puerto Rico as well as Guam and the Philippine Islands. Southeast of the fort is Old San Juan. Connecting 16th and 17th century buildings are narrow cobblestone streets such as Calle de la Tanca.
Before leaving San Juan, I visited a McDonalds restaurant where I asked for café sin leche (coffee without milk). I was handed a cup of coffee with milk, so I asked again for coffee without milk. When the second cup had an even larger quantity of milk, I concluded that there was no sense trying a third time since it was my destiny to drink milk with my coffee that day. Departing San Juan in our rental car, we drove east on Highway 22 with a planned stop at the Arecibo Observatory. Completed in 1963, the enormous Arecibo radio telescope was built inside a natural limestone sinkhole. The telescope was designed as a 1,000-meter-wide parabola covered by 39,000 aluminum plates that reflected energy to a receiver suspended 150 meters above. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to see the telescope. Damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017, the receiver and parabola experienced a total collapse in 2020.
After touring the telescope, we explored Empalme Sinkhole, located near the town of Camuy. The sinkhole is part of Parque Nacional de las Cavernas del Rio Camuy (Camuy River Cave National Park) and connected to a network of more than 200 limestone caves. We entered the sinkhole from a cave passageway near its bottom. Looking 137 meters upwards to the surface, we could see vegetation clinging to the sinkhole’s rocky sides. Because of its depth, sunlight reaches the bottom for only a brief period each day.
We continued west towards Rafael Hernández International Airport. The airport and surrounding area have special meaning because my father lived nearby in the early 1940s while my grandfather supervised construction of runways, hangars, and other facilities at the U.S. Army’s Borinquen Field. Constructed to protect the Panama Canal from attack by Axis air and sea forces, the airfield was home to a squadron of Douglas B-18 bombers that flew anti-submarine patrols between 1940 and 1942. Renamed Ramey Air Force Base in the late 1940s, the airfield was later used to support the U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Air Command. When Ramey became a civilian airport in 1973, one of the giant hangars my grandfather helped build was converted into a passenger terminal. Departing the city of Maleza Alta, we drove to Ponce. When the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, Ponce was the island’s largest city with a population of about 22,000. Today, visitors can see the unique Ponce Creole architectural style in the city’s historic mansions.
Our final stop was El Yunque National Forest, located on the east side of the island. Established by Spanish King Alfonso XII in 1876, El Yunque is among the oldest protected areas in the U.S. At just 113 km2, it is small for a national forest. El Yunque also holds the distinction of being the only tropical rainforest within the U.S. National Forest System. Home to more than 200 species of plants and trees, it averages 304 centimeters of annual precipitation. We followed the La Coca trail to some ponds and then climbed the Yokahú Observation Tower for views of the forest and distant Caribbean Sea.
