To anyone who lives in Puerto Rico, even just a few years, hurricanes become a fixation. In other places, it could be earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, life-threatening diseases or, as it is here in the Inland Northwest, wildfires. Perhaps true of most disasters, awaiting a hurricane involves a swirl of excitement mixed with the uneasiness, and surviving it confers more than a few bragging rights.

Hurricane over Puerto Rico, courtesy Navy

A hurricane figures into my not-yet-published novel, The Irony of Tree Ferns.  A main character, Pamela Palmer, makes a remarkable discovery in the middle of one storm. I recently reread the chapter, and it brought back memories.

In the following paragraph, Pamela prepares for the hurricane:

Pre-hurricane

When my hurricane pins confirmed the storm’s Caribbean trajectory, I sprang into action. Islanders take hurricane watches seriously, especially those of us who live a block from the beach and park our cars in the street. At the local supermarket, I stocked up on water, batteries, and non-perishable foods. Once the winds touched land in the Lesser Antilles, I moved my car into an elevated parking lot; filled the bathtub and five-gallon jugs with water; and retrieved flashlights, portable stove, and battery-operated radio from storage, depositing them on the dining room table. The loss of water and electricity would be a given.

Before long, the storm strikes:

Post-hurricane, courtesy USACE

… Cracking open a window, I peeked out. In spite of the dangers, hurricanes are a force to behold. Bushes spun like dervishes while palms bent parallel to the ground. Fallen leaves and other street debris levitated away, and rain descended in diagonal curtains. The wind sounded like an immense fan turned to its highest velocity. Branches screeched as they scraped against each other, and untethered lawn chairs crashed into the sides of houses. A lizard lost its battle with nature—ripped off a branch, it slammed it into a nearby wall. I closed the window. No need to watch a stray dog or cat meet the same fate.

Carolina after Maria, courtesy USDA

Neither Pamela nor I ever suffered through a hurricane as disastrous as 2017’s Hurricane María. I considered one week without water and electricity—no air conditioning or ceiling fans, no baths, primitive conditions for cooking and cleaning up—a great hardship and can’t imagine how islanders dealt with those conditions for weeks, even months on end. When I returned to Puerto Rico in March, a year and a half after the storm struck, I mainly stayed in coastal urban areas, from Old San Juan to Isla Verde. Life there seemed to have returned to normal: most buildings were repaired and repainted, debris removed. Restaurants flourished and people partied. But underneath the normalcy, many spoke of the still-ongoing power outages and a lessening of faith in the island’s future.

I probably won’t experience a hurricane again. A relief in most ways, yet a part of me misses them with the sharp nostalgia of memory.

Now, back to the Inland Northwest, but I’ll return to Puerto Rico in the future.

In spite of hurricanes, economic crises, births, deaths, and other milestones in life, some things in Puerto Rico never seem to change. Sadly, one of them is Iglesia de San José in Old San Juan. When I left the island in 2013, the church was wrapped in scaffolding, and when I returned this past March, the scaffolding was still there.

Iglesia de San José, March, 2019

At the turn of this century, the archbishop of San Juan closed San José Church due to extensive deterioration and structural damage that made him fear for the safety of the parishioners. Shortly after the closure, renovation efforts began. In 2004, the church was placed on a World Monuments Watch, which helped it receive conservation funding. For some reason, the efforts didn’t seem to take because in 2013 San José made the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Even the strongest winds of Hurricane Maria proved no match for the thick massive walls, but the resultant months of unrelieved heat and humidity most likely took their toll.

Does it matter if San José doesn’t survive? Well, yes. Begun in 1532, the original church, named Saint Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican order of San Juan, is the second oldest in the Americas (the oldest is in Santo Domingo). It was built on land donated by the explorer Juan Ponce de León, whose remains were buried in the crypt under the church until moved to the nearby Cathedral in the mid-1800s. Though relatively small and simple in scope, it represents one of few examples of Gothic-influenced religious architecture in the New World and includes Gothic vaulted ceilings. Over the centuries, the church was renamed, altered and redesigned, first by the Jesuits, who came up with the current name and redecorated in neoclassical style, then the Vicentian order. Several chapels were added, and paintings and statues decorated the interior. With its simple beauty, its history, its architectural pedigree, and its centuries of religious communion, San José deserves to remain with us.

Wikipedia Commons

I had my own communion with the church. From time to time I would step into the narthex. Looking down the aisle at the dark-wood pews, the white walls, arched ceiling vaults, statues and alcoves gave me a sense of spiritual tranquility. Perhaps my highlight visit was sitting in one of the pews listening to Handel’s Messiah performed by local choruses and musicians. A celebration of the senses.

At present, visitors to San Juan can view the outer walls of San José and read up on the restoration work, explained on posters tacked against the walls. Sporadically, the public is permitted to enter the church and visit the crypts, final resting place for some 5,000 souls, including the celebrated 18^th century painter of religious works, José Campeche.

I hope the preservation efforts prove successful and the next time I visit Old San Juan I will find San José Church open and free of scaffolding.

Adoquines in front of the church

When I wrote for travel magazines about Puerto Rico, a few decades ago, tourism in San Juan consisted mainly of high-end hotels and resorts. There were few offerings for budget-minded travelers. It seemed a shame the island wasn’t courting those of more modest financial means. Perhaps they wouldn’t spend as much on any one visit, but there were a lot more of them.

Caribe Hilton Hotel, reopening this month

Out on the Island:

Beyond the metropolitan area, the situation was somewhat different. A scattering of reasonably priced lodgings could be found; unfortunately, many of them were motels. For most North Americans, the word ‘motel’ conjures up images of unadorned lodgings next to highways, station wagons, exuberant kids, and undersized pools. However, in Puerto Rico it evokes private garages leading to rooms, drinks and bills (calculated by the hour) appearing through slits in the doors, and lots of mirrors. In short, a rendezvous for extra-marital affairs. Excluding motels, the pickings were much slimmer.

Parador Villas Sotomayor, Adjuntas

In the mid-1970s, the Tourism Company inaugurated a network of small family-run country inns. Known as Paradores de Puerto Rico, they offered authentic cultural experiences at attractive rates. Although the program has seen its ups and downs, it endures. In spite of the devastation of Hurricane Maria, there are still a baker’s dozen paradores found in lovely places along the coast and in the mountains.

Back to San Juan:

After the hurricane, San Juan languished for months with spotty electricity at best. The big hotels had no choice but to close down, powerless as unbridled heat and humidity damaged the interiors. Some were still closed when I visited Puerto Rico a month ago. At the same time, local entrepreneurs could get their own or vacated homes ready for short-term rentals, primarily through Airbnb. Currently, Airbnb has over 10,000 listings in Puerto Rico. In the San Juan metropolitan area, the greatest concentration is found in Old San Juan, Miramar, Isla Verde, and my old neighborhood, Ocean Park. Prices range from $20 for a spartan room to over a hundred for a luxury apartment.

Ocean Park entranceway

The two weeks I stayed in Ocean Park fell squarely during spring break. As I explored my old haunts, I was surrounded by friendly packs of light-haired, pale-skinned college-age visitors speaking English and wearing the latest styles of beach shirts, shorts, and sandals. It seemed strange – when I lived in Ocean Park, I was part of a small minority of U.S. Americans on the island, but during my visit I heard more English than Spanish on Ocean Park’s streets. Dozens of doorways displayed lock boxes, indications that a home or apartment was functioning as a short-term rental. My former home, which had been streamlined beyond recognition to look contemporary Mediterranean, held a lock box.

The old, the new, and power lines everywhere

Undoubtedly, short-term rentals of apartments, houses, and rooms have helped local people survive in post-Maria Puerto Rico, and — at long last — they have opened up a niche for students and other budget-minded visitors who want to spend time on the island. But as I wandered the streets, I wondered how this will affect the fabric of Ocean Park as a community. The same concerns have been voiced in other neighborhoods, particularly in Old San Juan, where entire buildings have apparently been bought up to serve as short-term rentals.

Veremos – we’ll see.

No return visit to Old San Juan would be complete without a look at the ships. I don’t mean the large cruise ships that dock in San Juan Bay. I mean ships on a much smaller scale, artistic endeavors created under the starkest of circumstances.

Old San Juan: unscathed city walls and damaged pier

In general appearance, the seven square blocks of narrow streets and colonial buildings that comprise Old San Juan seem little changed after the hurricane. In fact, Old San Juan has changed little since its time as one of the most important cities in the Spanish Empire during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, surviving any number of hurricanes. Founded in 1521, it is the second oldest permanent European settlement in the New World, site of brightly painted urban mansions, sprawling government buildings, lovely churches and cathedrals, carefully laid out squares, and massive fortresses and city walls.

Tourism is alive and well.

The day I was there, passengers from a cruise ship made their way around the city, visiting the forts, shopping in boutiques, and enjoying refreshments in outdoor patios and small air-conditioned restaurants. Roofs had been repaired and buildings appeared freshly painted. The most notable hurricane damage was a damaged pier and buckled cobblestone streets, apparently due to flooding.

San Cristóbal sentry box

After looping around the city, I decided to make a final detour into San Cristóbal Fortress before hailing an Uber back to Ocean Park. A small fort in the mid-1600s, by the late 1700s Castillo de San Cristóbal was transformed into the largest fort built by the Spaniards in the Americas. Protecting the city from land attack, it featured a multi-level maze of small forts, moats, tunnels, gunpowder magazines, trenches, mining galleries, barracks, a chapel, and cisterns that could store more than 700,000 gallons of rainwater. Much of that remains for visitors to see today. The hurricane was no match for the fort’s massive walls, made of stone, brick, and mampostería, a concoction of limestone, sandstone, and clays.

The intense tropical sun beat down on the batteries and glistened off the ocean. With relief, I headed down one of the dimly lit tunnels. Partway down, a small side tunnel dead-ends at a wall with a narrow slit that lets in a pinprick of sunlight. This is the dungeon,  perhaps four feet by 12 feet, cramped quarters for the fort’s wayward soldiers and other law breakers. Here, some unlucky soul with an artistic bent drew several ships on the whitewashed walls. It is fascinating to realize that his attempt to pass the time in the dungeon – no one knows for how long – provided a piece of graffiti that is admired by hundreds of fort visitors every day.

One of the ships

I lived in Ocean Park for many years. A small seaside neighborhood, it is wedged between the better known tourist districts of Isla Verde and the Condado in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Skirting the edge of Ocean Park is McLeary Street, bordered by modern upscale condominiums and a small handful of lovely old mansions that haven’t yet met the wrecker’s ball. Paralleling McLeary, one block farther inland, is Loíza Street.

A new bar/restaurant on Loiza Street

Loíza was my street in Puerto Rico, the setting for hundreds of daily tasks: The small post office, where mail was sent, packages received, and good-natured customers waved me to the front of the line when I was pregnant. The two drugstores, one local, the other a chain, where you could find far more than medications, everything from beach flip-flops to Christmas decorations. The hardware store, where the owner could procure just about anything you might need to solve a household emergency, its counters home to a couple of overfed, contented cats. The bank where I mastered the art of using an ATM machine. The corner house which metamorphosed into a jazz club, and, years, later, an upscale boutique. The grocery store that closed and reopened as a seafood restaurant. Streetside fruit and vegetable stands. Flower shops and a sprawling craft store along a warren of streets connecting to Loíza. The commotion of pedestrians, faces coated with a delicate sheen of sweat, some moving with purpose, others gathered outside doorways. A trip to Loíza Street always had the feel of an adventure.

Yes, the street had its flaws. Buildings lined up in a hodgepodge of concrete and wood, most in need of a fresh coat of paint. Power lines draped in tangled garlands, and sidewalks rippled with cracks and dips. A patina of dirt and baked-in heat encrusted the neighborhood, begging for some supernatural force to wipe it all clean. Stray dogs and cats scrounged for food in scattered garbage, and the occasional homeless person slept on cardboard under building overhangs. One extremely decrepit bar operated under rooms of ill repute. On especially hot days, the air smelled of rotting fruit and rancid meat.

Rundown, bustling, and convenient – Loíza Street offered an intriguing slice of life in San Juan and was one of the places I most missed when I moved away.

After Hurricane Maria plowed its way across Puerto Rico in September, 2017, I got periodic updates about the state of the island. Curiously, the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak picture was Loíza Street. People told me it had undergone a renaissance of sorts, becoming a magnet for small trendy restaurants. When I returned to Puerto Rico last month, I checked it out.

Areyto, exterior

The street does feature a number of new restaurants that have appeared, phoenix-like, in buildings where businesses were struggling even before the arrival of the hurricane. The walls of many of them have been painted in colorful designs, and the interiors upgraded with hip décor. I found artsy hole-in-the-wall eateries, bars, upscale bistros, and outdoor patios. Mix and match cuisines from Italy, Mexico, Asia, and the Caribbean. Steaks, seafood, small plates, and vegetarian dishes. Most were crowded with college students on spring break and locals enjoying lovely tropical evenings. Yet the neighborhood retains its rundown charm, with the trendy superimposed on the Loiza Street of old. I just wish I’d had time to try all the new offerings.

Areyto, interior

Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical forest in the US Forest Service system, a small (28,000 acres) but rich patch of land featuring hundreds of species of trees, ferns, orchids, and bromeliads along with impressive numbers of lizards and tree frogs. For well over a century, scientists have carried out investigations here, making El Yunque one of the most studied tracts of tropical rain forest in the world.

View to Mt. Britton Tower

Being the author of a book on El Yunque, I’ve been asked by many people about its condition following Hurricane Maria’s path of destruction across Puerto Rico in September, 2017. I give them a stock answer from the hurricane chapter in my book. Though these storms are devastating to manmade structures, they are just another event, a series of factors the forest grows up with and adjusts to, an ever-repeating cycle of life that aids in the grand diversity of a tropical rain forest.

However, when I returned to Puerto Rico in mid-March, several people intimately connected to El Yunque told me how much it has changed, how skeletal it looks compared to the forest of old, how sad it is to go there. I began to fear what I would find. One day I visited and saw for myself. Following are my observations:

Bamboo

El Yunque is still lush and green. Leafy shrubs, tall grasses, and liana vines intertwine close to the road. Creaking bamboo remain, but the perky pink impatiens have vanished. Sierra palms are everywhere. During a hurricane, they tend to lose their fronds, and the slender trunks stay anchored to the ground with fingerlike prop roots. Wherever I look, newly grown fronds up to twenty feet long tangle above the forest floor.

Most noticeable is the absence of the forest canopy, the leaves and upper branches of the tallest trees. All that remain are vine-covered trunks and severed branches pointing upward. In windward patches of ridge, gray branches of deadened trees predominate. The forest is more exposed, with wide expanses of sky and coastline and views to stone towers and massive rock formations. Light-loving pioneer tree saplings shoot up in the sunny openings.

The forest is quieter, with fewer bird chirps and frog chants. Only two of El Yunque’s 56 Puerto Rican parrots in the wild survived the hurricane (others survive in captivity and in another forest.) The grassland coqui frog species have fared better than their relatives who prefer shady forest. But the streams still ripple down the mountainside, and pools beckon sweaty hikers.

Visitors have returned to El Yunque. However, the manmade infrastructure – roads and visitor centers, trails and restrooms – is only partially ready for them.

El Yunque is starting out on a new cycle of growth. The pioneer tree species will mature, shading the forest and paving the way for more majestic canopy species to follow. Perhaps in twenty years those who become acquainted with El Yunque now will bemoan all the trees blocking farflung views to towers and coast. Who knows?

Sierra palms

My first novel (The Irony of Tree Ferns, as yet unpublished) starts off in a rain forest on the island of Puerto Rico in the year 1942. A teenage boy discovers the body of an American woman in a remote section of the forest. Who was she, and why was she there?

El Yunque National Forest

When I began that novel, in the 1990s, two possibly clichéd guidelines came to mind – write what you like to read and write what you know. I liked books wrapped around a mystery. And I knew Puerto Rico, having lived there for many years, and particularly knew its famous El Yunque National Forest, having written a nonfiction book about the place (Where Dwarfs Reign: A Tropical Rain Forest in Puerto Rico).

Five years ago, my husband and I left Puerto Rico and moved to the city of Spokane in the state of Washington to be closer to his aging father. For a couple of years, it seemed important to stay in Spokane year-round, to adjust to those four distinct seasons, even the cold winters. Yet after all that time in the tropics, when a winter day shines bright under a blue sky, it’s still difficult for me to understand why the sun is so ineffective in raising the temperatures.

El Escambron Beach, San Juan

Then Hurricane Maria hit, and Puerto Rico plunged into more than a year of infrastructure nightmares and uphill recovery efforts. Even when the island returned to a sort of normalcy, I hesitated. It seemed strange going back as a visitor – without a home, without a car, without a schedule of things to do on the island. The first trip back would be the hardest. Armed with that awareness, I nudged myself to make plane reservations to Puerto Rico for the last two weeks of March.

So here I am. The place where, during World War II, the teenage boy, Eduardo, discovered the body of the American woman and took often perilous trips from his home near the forest to Old San Juan, to the mountains, even to Mona Island, obsessed with solving the mystery surrounding her death. Where, decades later, an American woman came to the island to teach and found out about a long-buried family scandal connected to that very woman. The place where I spent much of my adult life.

Heliconia

For several blogs I’ll chronicle my current trip to Puerto Rico. Then I’ll go back and forth, from present to past, alternating the worlds of the Inland Northwest and Puerto Rico in the same way they alternate in my own mind.