Daniele Somenzi's Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico The American Airlines plane from Miami to Puerto Rico breaks down, so instead of arriving at midday on the Caribbean island I arrive at 3 in the night; the airline, to apologise, flies me in business class and puts me up in the first 5-star hotel of my life, The Sands, right on the beach; I'm so happy I don't want to sleep so I can enjoy it. Then I crash and wake up around 11; too bad because I have to leave the hotel by midday, but before leaving I have a nice swim in the pool.

So I take a rental car (the second of my life; the first I took in Namibia). I venture into the interior of the island on small winding roads, reaching the other end near Ponce; the jungle is lush and there are enormous bamboo canes; it reminds me of my uncle Nando who uses them for fishing. Here there's a lot of humidity, it rains often. I reach the other side of the island and notice that people are quite poor here, even though it's a region of the United States.

I stop for a while and then decide to return towards San Juan.

Since I don't have much money to spend on a hotel and I have the car for a whole day, I decide to sleep in the car. With the humid heat there is, it wasn't a good idea; the car seats aren't exactly comfortable.

Anyway the next morning I take the chance for another little ride, this time on the north coast heading east, where I then stopped at a shopping centre for breakfast, and here I see that some American soldiers are recruiting new recruits; the poster says join the navy, join the air force etc etc, but all that glitters isn't gold. Then afterwards they end up in Iraq and never come back.

Here Spanish and English are spoken and the currency is naturally the US $. San Juan has a thriving port for cruise ships; indeed from here many ships leave for a week with an itinerary of the southern Caribbean and back; some even arrive from Miami and make only one stop.

I return the car to the airport rental and do all the check-in procedures at the airport and then board the American Airlines flight, a three-engine Boeing 727. bye bye