Puerto Rico: Old San Juan, El Yunque & the Caribbean's Oldest American Territory

Puerto Rico is the closest thing the United States has to a Caribbean of its own. It is an American territory, and has been since 1898, and its people have been American citizens since 1917, which means no passport, no customs, no currency exchange, just a flight into San Juan and the sudden feeling of having crossed into somewhere older and warmer and more vivid than anywhere a domestic ticket usually delivers. The island sits at the eastern end of the Greater Antilles, and within a single morning you can walk the 500-year-old walls of a Spanish colonial city and stand under the canopy of the only tropical rainforest in the entire United States.

Old San Juan

Old San Juan is a walled city of blue cobblestones and pastel facades, founded by the Spanish in 1521, which makes it the oldest European-founded city under the American flag. Its streets climb past houses painted in every shade of the tropics toward the twin fortresses that guarded the harbor for three centuries. Castillo San Felipe del Morro, begun in 1539, rises over the sea at the tip of the headland; Castillo San Cristóbal, the largest Spanish fortification in the New World, guards the landward approach. Together they form the San Juan National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service, and a walk along the grassy esplanade in front of El Morro at sundown, with the trade winds coming in off the ocean, is one of the great free pleasures in the Caribbean.

El Yunque

Forty minutes east of the city rises El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the national forest system. It covers nearly 29,000 acres of mountainous terrain on the slopes of the Luquillo range, and it is dense, soaked, and deafeningly alive with the calls of the coquí, the tiny tree frog whose two-note song is the soundtrack of the island. A short trail leads to La Mina Falls, where the reward for the climb is a pool of cold mountain water deep enough to swim in; the Yokahú Tower offers a view that takes in the whole rainforest and the coast beyond. The forest is managed by the USDA Forest Service, and it is, after Old San Juan, the most visited site on the island.

The Table

No visit is complete without the table. Mofongo, mashed green plantains laced with garlic and pork cracklings, is the dish that defines the island; lechón asado, whole roast pig over hardwood, is the Sunday ritual. A piragua, a paper cone of shaved ice drowned in tropical syrup, is the thing to eat while walking the hot walls of El Morro. And the coffee, grown in the mist of the central mountains, is among the finest in the Caribbean.

Getting There

Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU) is served by direct flights from New York, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Chicago on American, JetBlue, Delta, Southwest, and United.

Reference Links:

- Discover Puerto Rico (official): discoverpuertorico.com

- San Juan National Historic Site (NPS): nps.gov/saju

- El Yunque National Forest (USDA Forest Service): fs.usda.gov/elyunque

- Old San Juan (Wikipedia): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_San_Juan,_Puerto_Rico