Ponce

Ponce Fire Station

This is the third fire station built as this location but it is now a museum.  The first two burned down.  The current fire station is very modern and at a safer location.  Directly behind the fire station you can see the cathedral.

Ponce, Puerto Rico is not, as I first thought, named for Ponce de Leon the Spanish Conquistador, at least not directly.  Ponce is in fact named for his grandson, also called Ponce de Leon.  Leon is Spanish for lion so the mascot of the city is a lion.  The main Plaza has a famous Fountain of the Lions that has been there quite some time but they have done that one better with something they call the Parade of Lions.  A collection of fiberglass lions was turned over to a number of artists and they decorated them, each in their own fashion.  I found 15 of them in the plaza.  Some of them are attractive, some not so much.

An interesting tree spotted near the place where we went to started our bio bay excursion.  Can anyone identify it for me?

This was our transportation from the Island Adventures headquarters to Mosquito Bay.  It can go remarkably fast over unpaved roads.  Persons with back problems are recommended to the front of the bus.  

I had read that it was impossible to photograph the bio luminescent glow so I didn't take my camera.  Turns out that with the proper equipment and a steady hand it can be done.  My camera probably would have captured some sort of image once I set it up properly.  Maybe next time.  Ricky was our guide for the tour and I am pleased to say he was quite knowledgeable.  So many of these type of guides will just make up some sort of BS when they really don't understand.  I was also impressed with my ability to remember the term mitosis when he posed that question.

This has got to be the best transportation deal in Puerto Rico.  Nine people, round trip to Vieques for $10.  It turns out that anyone over 65 rides for one dollar each way and over 75 rides for free.  So two dollars round trip for 5 of us and four of our group went for free. What a deal.

After El Junque we went to our hotel in Fajardo, The Fajardo Inn.  This was simply a place to stay as we waited on the next morning departure of the ferry to Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico where we were to visit the bio-lumenecent bay.  However, it turned out to be a pretty nice place ...

I was in the room upstairs and had a small kitchen and a balcony.  Never did figure out why I had such a fancy room.  No Wi-fi in the room however, only worked in the lobby.

El Junque National Forest is in an area of Puerto Rico that was first exploited by the Spanish for it's lumber and gold.  Later, the Spanish recognized it's value as a natural area and set it aside as a nature preserve.  They began the process of restoring it to a more natural state and that process continues today in the care of the US National Forest service.  It is also a laboratory on the care of a rain forest and research there has been shared and has helped preserve rain forest around the world.  An interesting tidbit a picked up from the orientation movie, there are more plant species in this US national forest that in all the other US national forests combined.

This is another of those places that is hard to document with just one picture from inside.  Because the forest climbs the slopes of several mountains, I chose a picture looking over a great vista that sweeps down to the Atlantic Ocean.

Puerto Rico was the Gateway to the Caribbean.  The country that controlled that small island could control all the riches of Mexico, Central and South America.  Everything that Spain sent to their American colonies went to Puerto Rico first.  Everything they sent back, including many fortunes in gold passed through Puerto Rico.  This island had to be defended at all cost so it's most prominent pieces of architecture are gigantic fortresses.  It's hard to get the scope of a fortress when you are inside but even from there they were impressive.  And since they all face the sea it's hard to get a shot from far away.  El Morro Fortress, not the largest but perhaps the most impressive, is also designed to be defended from an infantry invasion from behind.  The beautiful lawn in the included picture was actually a military feature that forced invading troops to cross a long open field as they approached.  It was actually a killing field, belying it's beauty today.

San Juan has some very interesting public art ...