Location | New York City

*Note* This letter is a work in progress. May have new additions and be edited at any time… I also don’t mean to offend anyone. Don’t kill me.

Dear Puerto Rico,

You, the most random of travel destinations, are like the bastard child conceived from the union of Los Angeles and Detroit. You are the wasteland of American territories. For you, I’d like to outline a few issues I encountered on your island and perhaps some solutions to some seemingly easy-to-solve problems. I hope that this letter does not come as a surprise to you or is too complicated to understand.

Signs

A visitor is driving along, reading their guidebook, when they realize that the directions to a location is something to the likes of “Carretera 110, km 8.7.” This is one of those moments when I’d like to express that I am not a person that gets easily lost. In fact, I have an excellent sense of direction and am also skilled in reading maps. So why on earth are your landmarks impossible to find? Probably because there are, in fact, no well placed signs found anywhere in the country. Firstly, you must spot the small kilometer sign. 1 kilometer. 1.5 kilometer. … and so on. Where’s 8.7? Well it’s not marked. Where’s that lovely mangrove you wanted to visit? Well that, it’s DEFINITELY not marked.

I could make millions on becoming a sign consultant in your country. With some well placed (and possibly well-lit) signs, the island could stand to make so much more in tourism revenue! The best signs we found were to Arecibo Observatory, yet, you definitely didn’t want you to leave, because there were no signs pointing you out of the mountain forest of winding roads back to the main road.

If there are signs, the signs are overly descriptive. Want to know that it’s a bus stop? A picture of a person standing under an awning with a bus.

What about the rainforest? Would you like to know what a rainforest is like in a sign?

Turning signals, right of way, speed limits, from what I could tell, none of these things were observed in Puerto Rico. Taking a nice drive along the road, often you’d find yourself in a situation where you couldn’t locate the lines defining the left lane and right lane. You’d find yourself in roads so narrow that you’d have to pull off to the side to allow another vehicle to pass. Want to get into a gas station? So does half of the other cars on the road. Want to turn around in the middle of the road and block traffic, go right ahead! We’re in Puerto Rico! You can do anything here! Car stalled on the side of the road? Well, don’t mind me as I drive 2 miles per hour to gawk and block traffic for 6 miles behind me.

Emergency Vehicles

Is there perpetually an emergency in Puerto Rico? With your red and yellow siren lights always flashing, I would think so. Even as you are behind us, lights flashing I wonder, should I move out of the way, but it doesn’t seem as if you are in a hurry to get anywhere. In fact, you are driving slower than most of the other traffic.

Suggestion? Save the light bulbs. Why… WHY!? Would must you continuously flash your lights?

Underwhelming Beaches

Somewhere in a guidebook I had read about white sand beaches with crystal clear blue water. I’m wondering if the tour book author actually went to Fiji instead and confused it with Puerto Rico? I mean Puerto Rico kind of sounds like Fiji. Kind of. Or not at all. Or perhaps the west coast of Puerto Rico should just be described as “regular brown sand and regular blue-green water that isn’t that clear.”

Maybe all the photos online are photoshopped? Or maybe I’m suffering from some sort of color disorder. I must have been hallucinating when I saw pictures of bright blue water.

Giant Empty Parking Lots

I left for your small island with the understanding that it was the low season for tourists, but I did not expect to find myself one of 5 tourists there. Arriving at one of the “most secluded” beaches, there were 3 parking lots the size of 3 football fields.  In the parking lot sat 2 other cars. Where are all the people? From what I have seen, there is no tourism.  When you say “low season” you mean “ghost town.”

Fast Food Mecca

Have you read Fast Food Nation? I’m pretty sure your island is obsessed with it. Or why else would the left side of the road have a Church’s Chicken… and oh! the right side of the road has one too! Go a few more feet, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell… I predict major health problems…

Fried food? Fried potatoes, fried chicken, fried fish, fried dough, fried… anything else. Like the shrimp soliloquy from Forrest Gump, only with fried food and you’ll get the national foods of Puerto Rico.

Roaming Dogs + Chickens

Drive carefully, or you may run some poor dog or chicken over. More than once did we run into the occasional almost-accident with a stray dog that just sauntered out into the middle of the road (and then proceeded to chase us as we drove away). Also, chickens on the side of the road?

Oh, that’d be dinner if we hit that.

Now I’m a little hungry, but I think I’ll stay away from the fried food mecca of the world and save my stomach. Thank you very much.

Puerto Rico, I’m not sure I have hope for you, but I do hope that there is hope for you somewhere… out there.

Sincerely,

Joanna Lin.