Old San Juan and Escape from La Perla: Part Four: The Jeweled Isle

La Perla, the tarnished pearl of San Juan, aerial view

Dateline: Friday, July 15, 2011, Old San Juan PR– (Daughter)Stephanie McMann at the wheel–(Son) Mike Massey navigator

Finally, we were going to see Old San Juan, at least part of us. The Rick Cooglers had taken off in exploration of underground caverns, and the Billy Cooglers, relaxed by the pool. My son-in-law Clay stayed behind nursing his back after a day on horseback.

The remnant army of Nana (that’s me), Stephen, Joy, and Faith McMann, Stephanie and Mike set out to explore the old forts of San Juan. Nelson, my Puerto Rican PT, had given me warnings about where not to park and the direction to walk. Nelson had been forbidden as a child to ever enter the neighborhood of La Perla (English:the pearl). Nelson is 50 something and still heeds that warning when he visits. As we stood looking at this crime ridden slum area, I remembered Nelson’s words, don’t walk into the cemetery at night and stay left as you look out toward the water, to the right was La Perla.

The day was lovely, the temperature around 84. My daughter rented a large van for sightseeing. Stephanie is a great driver, but the driveway adjacent to the historic site  is a challenge for the best of drivers. Buses carrying a group of day campers were parked in the narrow driveway, leaving enough room for a snake. Somehow, Stephanie managed to slither through with Mike’s directions.

Kite vendors do a brisk business in the fort area. The crosswinds skirting the island provide great lift for a kite. It was this concept that made Fort San Felipe del Morro, (El Morro),  Castillo de San Juan de la Cruz (El Cañuelo), and their sister Fort San Cristóbal a formidable line of defense against its enemies. I have a vivid imagination and a great love for history.  I could see the crosswinds  carrying the bullets of the enemy astray.  My imagination captured the ping and spray of spent shells and cannonballs falling useless to the sea. El Cañuelo, a small fort now closed to the public, provided the left side of the three pronged attack, with El Morro in the middle. With firepower coming from El Morro, San Cristóbal and El Cañuelo these forts stood as the first bastions of defense against the Spanish armada and pirate ships.

Our visit was a miracle given the fact that my children used to create distractions in the car when we approached a historical marker. As children, their plan was to avert my attention so that their dad wouldn’t have to stop for me to read the raised lettering of each marker. This time they let me scramble over old cannonballs, ancient army barracks, and touch the oldest door in the Western Hemisphere.

I am a sucker for lighthouses and now own the $19.95 version of the El Morro Light complete with blinking light. All roads, ancient or modern, lead to a gift shop. We did our best to support the local economy. At the end of our exploration of El Morro, it was time to get out of the narrow parking place we were wedged into. Parked on an incline, our choices were to back out of a curved driveway into the oncoming Puerto Rico traffic or drive toward La Perla, its single lane tunnel and turn around very close to the danger zone. However, there was another choice we didn’t know about until Stephanie literally started squirming.

A Puerto Rican man miraculously appeared to help us for a fee of $1.00. He ran in front of our car to be sure nothing was coming, ran toward the police barricade of La Perla, then helped us turn around. As we reached the tunnel again, he once again, gave up his body for what could have been ongoing traffic. We managed the rest of the way out with help from another impromptu ‘parking guide.’ Hey, for two dollars we escaped La Perla and still had our heads!

As we turned on to the city street, there were six policemen guarding another barricaded area of La Perla. City construction workers were repairing a nearby sidewalk, we figured the policemen were protecting them. According to Nelson, the hand man, the police are afraid of actually going into the neighborhood themselves after losing many colleagues there. Drug and child trafficking infests the beauty of this neighborhood with beautiful vistas nearby.  There were two huge drug busts while we were there in another seamy neighborhood and the “Osama Bin Laden” of child traffickers was caught. As in any area you plan to travel, check the travel advisories in that area and use good common sense. Even Seneca, SC has crime.  There are many beautiful and safe sites in this gem of a country; it is not to be missed.

Here are some timely tips for the Old San Juan traveler:

• Only visit the cemetery near El Morro in the daytime, drug trafficking is common at night.
• Don’t park or stop near the street of Calle Norzagaray, La Perla rests at the bottom of the slope of that street. You cannot see the slope until you are right on it, then you can’t turn around without going into the bowels of the neighborhood.  Prohibido!! Verboten!! Forbidden!!
• Ask questions inside the fort areas or wherever you’re shopping, never ask in an area near La Perla.
• Get into San Juan early due to the traffic, especially in the summer.
• Take plenty of water. However, we were pleasantly surprised that throughout our stay, the temperature was in the 90′s in Greenville, SC and mid 80′s in PR.

The fort areas are open 9-6 daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Day.

Stay Tuned for Part Five: The Jeweled Isle: The Conclusion

Stephen and Uncle Mike in a Guard House (garita in Spanish)

Fort San Cristóbal,flags of Spanish Armada, Puerto Rico and U.S.