Armed

I recently had to go to a Shopko to buy dental floss and mouthwash.  With varying intensity, I universally dislike stores like Shopko, Alco, Canadian Tyre, Fred Meyer, Target, and WalMart.  While I have defended Fred Meyers against comparisons to WalMart, as Kroger strikes me as a relatively decent company compared to Target and WalMart, the very nature of these stores discomforts me.  Beyond the politics of these stores, I dislike the experience from entry to exit.  The warehouse lighting and structure of big box stores and shopping malls creates an ambiance that causes me to have something akin to an anxiety attack.  I do not mind walking down a busy street crowded with millionaires dodging the homeless, but I become unhappy if I am put with those same people in a giant box with harsh lighting; that faint, deafening white noise; and the smell of industrial cleaners and off-gassing plastics.

Accordingly, when I go into a big box store, I want to ensure that I do not have to go into one again for as long as possible.  Which, often means I text someone from inside the store to ensure that nothing else is needed, and await the response.  While waiting, I will wander the store, discovering what treasures of Americana the merchandiser thought the region could not live without.  Cheap shoes and clothes abound.  The toy section in Ely had a LEGO mining truck, that, guiltily, appealed to me. Every one of these stores has a sporting goods section, stocked with basketballs, flying discs, fishing rods, and guns.  I say guns because in this case, it is more fitting than firearms.  Some of these stores do not carry firearms, they lack the licensing, the market, or the inventory to stock such devices, but guns they most certainly stock.

While toy guns for children are in the toy section, BB guns, paintball markers, pellet pistols, and their accessories are the realm of sporting goods.  As violent as Nerf guns may seem, I think they are fun, and I think that there is healthy play with such things.  The child who never play fights with hands, "swords," or Nerf is missing out on undefinable skills as much as the child who is not allowed to use computers or play video games.  That said, a toy should be bright orange, shaped like an elephant, and come with instructions certain to be ignored like, "never point this at a living thing, particularly humans."  Parents, relatives, or friends who buy these toys are assuming the responsibility to talk about safety, morals, and rules regarding their play.  This same logic can probably be applied to video games.  That said, the contents of the sporting goods aisle makes for a radically different story.

I had two BB guns growing up, my brother had one, our friends had them too.  One of them had a pellet pistol.  I own and shot a Anschutz air rifle competitively in high school.  I had two paintball markers, and shot squirrels with a shotgun growing up.  It would not be fair for me to speak negatively of the existence of these things in society without acknowledging their benefits, and my involvement with them.  One of my paintball markers looked, for all intents and purposes, tactical.  It was matte black, had a foregrip, and a red dot sight.  For those into paintball markers, it was an Autococker, and without the cylinder and hopper, it looked delightfully sinister.  With the hopper and cylinder attached, it looked like a paintball marker.  Looking at paintball markers now, I am drawn to the brightly colored ones that, while clearly a gun, look less like weapons, and more part of an action filled game.  Regardless of my current feelings, I can admit some understanding of the desire for a paintball marker or BB gun to look like a firearm.

What caught me off guard in this particular Shopko was their selection of Airsoft guns.  These firearm replicas look convincing, can be fully automatic, and are non-lethal.  They are easily purchased, though Shopko requires purchasers to be 18, one can buy them online from Amazon in their Sports and Outdoors section.  I was previously aware of fully automatic BB guns available online, which I do not understand the purpose of, but was not aware of the Airsoft military replicas lining the aisles of these stores.

I was shocked, and started thinking about these devices.  Children's toy guns have become less and less convincing, at the fear of unarmed people being mistaken for armed threats by police with real firearms.  Which, as tragic as any wrongful death is, in a world with the powerful weapons, where "law-abiding" firearms owners leave loaded weapons in reach of children, I have a difficult time blaming the police for seeing convincing toys as convincing threats.  My mind mulled over these replicas, then wondered what a police officer would say about these replicas.

A new question about the Second Amendment entered my mind.  Just what are arms, and what is armed?  This is not a new question for me, nor for many others, but is being armed a case of what a person is carrying, or what is perceived to be carried?  I immediately wanted to buy the Airsoft rifle, and ask an expert.

I did not buy the rifle, nor did I ask anyone, but I want to.  Well, I do not want to buy one new, because that means that Airsoft will think there is a demand for one more of these, and will pay someone less than a living wage to crank out another device that will only lead to future woes, but it might be worth it.  I had the desire to purchase this non-lethal replica, then ask the people charged with making quick decisions about armed people about it.  Who are these experts?  Police, border patrol agents, and soldiers all come to mind.  If someone in Afghanistan pointed an Airsoft replica at US troops on patrol, I think it is safe to say that they would be perceived as armed.  If I approached the border with a replica machine gun in my car, I would expect to be investigated more thoroughly.  If I was carrying a replica M4, I would hope that a police officer would stop me walking down the street, before I boarded a subway, or before I walked into a school or government building.  Why would I hope this?  Because to all outward appearances, I would be armed.

All this, of course, is conjecture.  Maybe all of these people can tell the difference, and would recognize me for the replica enthusiast I would posing as, and not the armed nut that I would appear to be.  I further conjecture that the weapons lobby would respond with the charge that I want to make everything illegal, but that would be illogical.  I think it is great that there is a noble and wacky crowd that spend their weekends dressing up in period garb, blacksmithing and fighting with swords.  I encourage people who think the AR-15 is cool to buy a non-lethal replica.  It saves money, and potentially lives.  The point is not a discussion of the purpose or legality of these devices, or whether they should be sold as a piece of sports equipment, though I do have obvious opinions about that.  The point is that armed, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Defining Tyranny

It seems to me that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a tipping point in this country.  I cannot say why it was not one of the numerous mass shootings before this, some of which took place in elementary schools, and what tipped seems to be different for different people.  Some Americans found the courage to argue for weapons control, and others seem to have seen it as reason to go a little crazy.  It would be easy to misunderstand that statement, so let me explain.  I do not mean that everyone who does not support weapons control is crazy, but rather that some people abandoned political discourse in favor of lunacy.  The NRA offered an idea that, by putting police in every school, would expand the size of government and raise taxes on the order of $27,000 per person per year.  The idea that the NRA would be advocating bigger government and a tax rate increase of 50% of median income strikes me as crazy.  Then there was Alex Jones, whose attention grab involving Piers Morgan was, well, crazy.  Inevitably, the Second Amendment was pulled into the fray, including both crazy and not discussion.

I like the history of the documents that have created a new vision of democratic republics and democracy.  The Magna Carta and English Common Law are as important as the Declaration of Independence when it comes to shaping the American government and legal system.  Looking further back into history Ur-Nammu's and Hammurabi's codification of laws have shaped our modern interpretation of the importance of codified laws.  Yet, when I read the Constitution, I am overcome with the sense that the Founding Fathers did not want to codify laws, but rather create a system of how to codify laws.  I do not think the Founding Fathers would passionately commit to every word in the constitution, which is probably good, because we have changed much of it.

While in Puerto Rico recently, I learned about the Nationalist movement of the first half of the 20th Century on the island.  One of the things I found profoundly interesting about it was that no one outside of the island seems to have heard of it.  With any political movement, it is difficult to know when to start, but I think the best place to start is with Law 53 of 1948, better known as the Gag Law.  The law, which would eventually be overturned as unconstitutional, banned the flying or ownership of a Puerto Rican flag, discussion or writing about the nationalist movement, or speaking against the US Government.  This clearly violated the First Amendment rights of Puerto Ricans.

Puerto Ricans were suffering under other affronts to their liberties as well.  They were, and are, being taxed without representation (as are the residents of all US protectorates, it is actually on the DC license plate).  A standing army (unconstitutional by the original text) was being garrisoned on their island (arguably their "home").  Essentially, the Puerto Ricans were/are a colony suffering the same oppression that the original 13 Colonies were.

While an elementary school in Connecticut in 2012 seems far removed from Puerto Rican independence, the ties are remarkably strong when you consider the arguments of many of those who oppose weapons control.  In the wake of the tragedy, and really any time weapons control comes up, Charlton Heston may have chosen the crazy path, shouting, "from my cold, dead hands," after Columbine, others have sought to tout the benefits of having one firearm per person.  Some of these people claim that the Second Amendment is to keep the American Government "afraid" of the American people - afraid of violent uprising at the first sign of tyranny.

The preferred example of this is the Battle of Athens, where the, admittedly oppressed, residents of a county in Tennessee rose in violent revolt against the local government.  The whole thing boiled over regarding concerns of election fraud, a shoot-out with police ensued, and the people overcame the oppressive local government.  The use of firearms to preserve freedom in this incident is celebrated by those who read the Constitution as having only one 27 word sentence.  I do not support killing police officers under any circumstance, but the NRA does, so I will, for the sake of argument, concede that firearms, have, once in the history of the country, been used by civilians to fight for lawfulness.  Once.

At this point, it becomes tricky to me.  I think those concerned citizens could have found a peaceful resolution, but they chose violence.  So when, is it okay to choose violence, and when does a government become tyrannical?  Two questions that we must ask ourselves before the argument that the Second Amendment protects anyone from the possible tyranny of the American Government.

Asking when it is okay to choose violence is difficult to answer, and I think the pacifists have it right.  One may choose violence only when someone else has made that the only available choice (arguably, when it is no longer a choice).  A pacifist can hit back when they get hit.  They may choose not to, but doing so does not violate any sacred text.  A Buddhist Monk, if in fear of his own life, or the life of another, would not be denied enlightenment if he sought to defend life.  I would like to think they could be more clever, saving lives like a non-violent superhero, but they are only human, and at some point, for all humans, violence may well be the solution.  So, when someone else chooses to leave you no other option, violence is okay.  If you look at all the wars in American history, I think World War II meets this requirement, and had people been enlightened enough to not fight World War I, it probably never would have happened.  Again though, for the sake of argument, I will grant that in some hypothetical situation, violence may be the answer.

So the next quandary is the definition of tyranny.  Every government, at all times, is considered tyrannical by someone.  I do not think Ted Kaczynski bothered to write a manifesto, and conduct a campaign of terror for sport, rather, he thought he was protecting people from the tyranny of society.  Timothy McVeigh, sympathizing with the Militia movement, thought he was combating tyranny.  At Ruby Ridge the US Government's handling of the situation was decidedly a debacle, but Randy Weaver's paranoid views probably saw it as tyrannical.  David Koresh was probably not alone among those accused of pedophilia at perceiving tyranny in a government that does not tolerate their behavior, and I think anyone under siege for 50 days probably sees the government as being tyrannical.  While no violence (that I am aware of) has come out of the polygamists communities, certainly they are subjected to a bit of social tyranny.  Every civil rights activist, regardless of cause, has probably felt like they were up against some form of tyranny as well.  While some of this tyranny is more real than others, and some more justified, society demands that the victims seek a peaceful resolution.  Sometimes that resolution is a change in society, and sometimes it is in the oppressed.  But oppression against some for the perception of the greater good is commonly accepted as part of a functioning democratic republic, or more simply, in a country of 300 million people, someone is going to feel oppressed.

Beyond the complication of the fact that some people will feel oppressed, when others feel empowered or protected, the idea of tyranny becomes befuddled in moral obscurity.  The people of Bhutan loved their monarch, who stepped aside for democracy, against the wishes of many, if not most, of his subjects.  The Bhutanese are further upset by the abdicating king because as it turns out, a king who measures his success in the Gross Domestic Happiness, rather than Product, is a fair bit more honest than politicians who have to make campaign promises to get elected.  Bhutan represents a grey area characterized by a warm yellowish glow.  At the risk of offending every American, were not Osama bin Laden and the September 11th hijackers fighting tyranny?  A tyranny that ended slavery, desegregated schools, and had the audacity to build schools for girls!  When malevolent acts are carried out to end benevolent tyranny, it is safe to say that the morality of tyranny is more difficult to assess than to define tyranny in the first place.

In light of the complexity of defining what tyranny is, and when it becomes a problem, maybe the literal followers of the Second Amendment are not giving the Founding Fathers enough credit in their cleverness.  Maybe James Madison actually knew what he was doing when he included the seemingly vague "well regulated militia" part.  Madison, perhaps, could have been acknowledging that people should not own cannons, warships, fortresses, and personal armies.  Maybe Madison knew that individuals could never oppose the government, so he, (reportedly reluctantly) wrote the Second Amendment so that the federal government could not prevent the states from having militias capable of defending the rights of states.  Madison may have known that unregulated citizenry with arms would result in violence and death, but gave the state's the right to maintain militias, composed of well-regulated, armed individuals.  This would then make it so the majority of the people in a state would have to gain the support of the governor and the legislature before deciding to act violently against the supposed tyranny, a form of checks and balances on the potentially dangerous consequences of a few people perceiving tyranny.

We can only conjecture what Madison, the Founding Fathers, and the First Congress were thinking when they amended the Constitution (I think it can never be stated enough that the Second Amendment is an amendment to the Constitution, not the Constitution).  However, we can, with great certainty, look at what happens when people suffering under real and true tyranny under the United States Government decide to act violently against that government without the backing of a state-run, well-regulated militia.  To do this, we need only to learn about Puerto Rican history.

On 30 October 1950, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party rebelled against the tyranny of the US colonial government.  In the days leading up to the 30th, the police began arresting and killing Nationalists.  While the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was no stranger to government orchestrated massacres, the renewed police violence galvanized the people, and rebellion began to take hold throughout the island.  In San Juan, the United States Courthouse and the governor's mansion were attacked with machine gun fire.  The police, made aware of the impending attacks through informants, were prepared, killing or wounding most of the perpetrators to neutralize the attacks, and to arrest those responsible.  In seven towns, including Jayuya and Utuado, the Nationalists successfully revolted.

In Jayuya, the Nationalists raised the Puerto Rican flag (a crime under the Gag Law), seized the police station, cut the telephone lines, and burned the post office.  President Harry Truman declared martial law, and ordered the US Air Force to bomb the town.  The Puerto Rican National Guard, and US Infantry joined the fray.  Jayuya was bombed, strafed, and shelled for the three days the Nationalists controlled the town.  After the town fell, police and the national guard swept into the town making mass arrests.

In nearby Utuado, Air Force P-47s bombed and strafed the building where twelve Nationalists retreated when the fight was lost.  Of the twelve who retreated, three men died in the aerial assault.  When the national guard ordered the remaining nine to surrender, they were marched to town square, and stripped of belts, shoes, and personal belongings.  They were then marched behind the police station and executed.  No judge, jury, or trial, only a swift and gruesome execution.  Wikipedia includes among the dead a 17 year old who pleaded for water while the police bayoneted the life from his body.

These events were the first time in the Twentieth Century that the US Government used the military against its own citizens, yet no mainland American seems aware of the violence.  Certainly this seems strange since two Nationalists actually made an assassination attempt on Truman at Blair House, killing a White House Police officer.  The event, which according to Wikipedia is regarded as the biggest shootout in Secret Service history, failed to gain attention for the Puerto Rican Nationalist movement, but why?  Truman distanced himself from the incident, and the fact he ordered military force to be used against civilians.  The news from the island was suppressed by the government, and any news of the revolution was reported as an incident between Puerto Ricans.

When this incident is viewed through the lens of an armed citizenry defending itself from a tyrannical government something becomes absolutely obvious.  Even with illegal weapons (the Nationalists were armed with machine guns), the revolution could not match the might of the United States military.  The revolt would not have been able to stand against the Puerto Rican police, nor the Puerto Rican national guard.  Americans cannot revolt against the might of the military without full support of the governor of the state, and the state's militia (from the Civil War we know that even this is unlikely to succeed).  The constitutionality of weapons control under the argument of defending against oppression and tyranny is a moot point, and I suspect Madison knew this when he crafted the Second Amendment.

Yet, people are dedicated to finding an argument to defend the amendment at all costs.  They are willing to abandon every other aspect of the Constitution and its amendments to preserve their perceived right to possess weapons designed for the mass killing of innocent people.  I have not been presented with a single logical argument to preserve the laissez-faire attitude towards weapons, not one.  For me, the only thing I can think is that those who choose to not see the value of logical weapons control, but only a trampling of rights they do not actually have are motivated not by constitutionalism, but rather cowardice.  They know they can never live up to the requirements of a hero, but a childhood dream requires them to find a way.  The route they choose is a firearm, then they create a hypothetical situation where they could be the hero, and defend their dream with any pretext they can find.  For these people, talking about weapons control becomes not a discussion about making a better world, but is interpreted as an attack on their dream.

To these people, I have a piece of advice, find a new dream.  If a gun does not kill people, it does not make heroes either.  Heroic people are altruistic, not armed.  As for defending against tyranny, no weapons, I doubt even fighter jets and nuclear bombs, can defend against tyranny without a well regulated state militia.

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A Note on Citations:  This post draws heavily from sources including The Lonely Planet and Wikipedia, but direct citations are rarely used, as much of the material seems to be "common knowledge," even if no one seems to have heard about it.

Puerto Rico: The Grand Tour Part II

A tool that I have added to my travel arsenal is Google Maps.  Having a smartphone in my pocket, and three smartphones in the car makes Google Maps, and the internet, hyper-accessible.  Google Maps proved okay in Greece, and is nearly impeccable in the US, Canada, and New Zealand.  In Puerto Rico though, Maps needs work.  You want a coffee shop for a latte and a scone in the morning?  Try the Coldstone Creamery seven miles away.  A restaurant open for lunch?  Try this alley.  The only outdoor store in all of Puerto Rico?  Head to the financial district, it should nestled in this bank headquarters.  Eventually, we figured out that if you could find the address online, and entered that into Google Maps, it was better, but it did not really help you navigate the maze of one-way streets that were all too often lacking street signs (admittedly, not entirely Google's fault).

In our pursuit of fuel, our unintentional tour of San Juan eventually led us to what appeared to be a very sketchy neighborhood, and on the third time around the block, we found the store and on-sidewalk parking in front of it.  Confirming that the neighborhood was less than savory, we rang the doorbell to be buzzed into the gear store.  The chatty proprietor let us in, whilst he was helping the other two customers.  Inside was a surprisingly well stocked store, Acampa, given the apparent lack of interest in the outdoors on the part of Puerto Ricans.  To combat the hot nights, Sarah and Denise bought cotton covers for their sleeping pads.  Denise and I each bought a pair of The North Face shorts to better deal with the heat and humidity.  Lastly, Denise acquired a canister of fuel for morning tea.  We were let out of the store after making our purchases, and sharing our experience with the camping regulations in El Yunque.

Back in the Hyundai, we turned south, and headed for Ponce.  The guidebooks describe Ponce as having the charm of Old San Juan before the cruise ships arrived.  As we approached the city, Denise found a hotel just off the plaza with reasonable rates, and we headed there.  We picked up the last room for three in the hotel, went for a walk around the plaza's opulent light display, including a 25 foot tall LED nativity, then settled in for the night.

The next morning we hiked through the city in search of coffee.  The cute coffee shop was closed for the holiday season.  The city's other cute coffee shop, located next door, was also closed for the holiday season.  We found the pedestrian mall that hosted dollar stores and a fleet of food vendors lacking in refined coffee options.  We headed for the touristy plaza, and rejected a junk-souvenir shop's coffee bar, as it lacked soy milk and ambiance.  Defeated, we went to the coffee shop in the Ramada.  If McDonald's created a coffee shop, it would feel less like McDonald's than this place.  I suppose McCafe is the McDonald's coffee shop, and though I have never been in one, I imagine they have more soul and character than what the Ramada mustered in their centuries old building, overlooking a centuries old plaza dominated by a towering cathedral.  We ordered, paid, and waited.  Ten minutes passed, and I got my orange juice.  I finished my orange juice, and the coffee was still in process.  We loitered, discussing our plans, lamenting being stuck between too touristy San Juan, and not developed enough PR.  Our group was not incapable of making decisions, but as still new traveling companions, we were still slow in the process, not certain of the group dynamics.  Before the coffee arrived, we had decided to head east.  (The next time we would be at this shop, Denise went early, armed with a book, while Sarah and I retrieved the car from parking.)

Coffee finally in hand, we piled into the Hyundai, and drove east along the southern coast.  We overshot our first destination, then headed back to a marine reserve of mangroves, manatees and kite surfers.  We wandered down a trail to stretch our legs and came upon what was at one time a very nice NOAA campground.  The guidebooks did not mention its existence, and there was no sign  to instruct visitors on the procedures for its use.  We moved on, intent on beginning the trans-mountain drive across the island's interior, highlighted on the all the maps as a scenic route, and designated by sporadic signs with three mountains (sometimes more) and the words "Ruta Panoramica."

The Ruta Panoramica, officially named after the first governor of the Puerto Rican Commonwealth, Luis Muñoz Marín (while Wikipedia labels him the Father of Modern Puerto Rico, his name on this route seems an affront to the nationalists who's final stand was in two of the towns it passes through).  Our first taste of the mountains of Puerto Rico did not disappoint, and we eagerly navigated the last city on the coast to regain the mountain route.

Ferries are not the only way to get motion sick while traveling on islands.  The mountain roads of PR are narrow, winding, and over grown.  Passing oncoming vehicles is done by inches on the comfortable stretches, and less on the narrow, which always corresponded to the biggest drops.  Towards evening, each of us (including me while driving) was battling some level of motion sickness.  We found a campsite, that required a permit obtainable only in San Juan, nestled in the jungle, a creek gurgling along the margin of the tenting area.  We debated camping sans permit.

In our debate between law abidingness and frustration at not being able to register to camp at the campground, a woman with a pixie haircut, whose jaw-dropping looks were too captivating to think of intelligent questions, suggested that we just camp, the lack of permit, "doesn't matter, if they catch you they just ask you to pay."  She drove away, leaving us to ask ourselves why we could not ask her how much they "ask" you to pay, and how they "ask."  We also wondered if she goes unpunished for illegal camping because of the nature of the enforcement, or because the rangers are probably equally stunned by her looks.  The pixie's advice could not sway our childhood lessons on lawful behavior, we drove back to the hotel in Ponce, defeated in our desire to camp in the rain forest.

Still stinging from our defeat in the mountains we headed west from Ponce to the island's "remote" southwest corner.  We explored the Cabo Rojo wildlife refuge where the visitor information center's staff was certain of only one thing when it came to camping, no camping in the refuge.  Uncertain of where to go afterwards, we headed to the lighthouse at the refuge's craggy coast.  We gleefully watched iguanas saunter up and down cliffs, peering at us from cracks in the sea cliffs, or shacking orange waddles presumably to warn us against trying to take their vertical home.  Eventually we sat near a small arch above the surf, and watched the waves crash against the rocks and little lizards wearily dart from bush to bush.  After enjoying the sound of the waves for a time, we began to lament that we could not camp above these waves, and thought about what to do next.  We headed back to the car, and drove to the Dry Forest to see what that park had to offer.

We drove through the entrance gate to the park, past several trails, and though the day was hot, we started dreaming of stringing a few of these trails together for a nice run from dry peaks to the sunny beaches.  We stopped at the information kiosk, and the employee informed us that we had arrived too late, as the park closes at 15:30, a scant twenty minutes later.  He told us that tomorrow they would open at the usual time, 10:00, but close early for New Year's Eve.  We asked about camping in the area.  The shock of being asked a question he had never been asked before was evident on his face.  He ensured us there was no camping in the state park, but thought there may be some camping on the far side of the island.  Things were not looking up for camping in the remote part of the island.  On the drive out, we decided to head up the west coast to where the best surfing on the island is found.  If there are surfers, certainly there must be camping.

As we moved north along the coast, Sarah searched the internet for camping, and found that there may be camping at a forest near where we were, but the information center, where one would register to camp, closed at 16:00, making it unlikely we would arrive on time.  Later, the Lonely Planet would confirm both that we could have camped there, and that we would have not arrived in time to register.  At the northwest corner of the island we, by chance, found The Surf Zone.  

We wandered in, confident they would have some camping advice, and the owner welcomed us into her shop with a, "You look lost, map out, getting dark, what can I help you find"?  We asked her about camping, and she told us that people camp on the beach.  The nearby beach would have the surf coming up in the morning, so it would get pretty noisy, pretty early, and sent us to Secret Spot.  We looked around her cute store with an astonishing inventory.  Sarah found some owl earrings, and Denise ogled some of the other jewelry.  A pair of red skate shoes caught my eye, but I resisted buying them.  Then we set out for the beach.

All beach camping is illegal in Puerto Rico.  This is a fact that the locals seem to either not know, or not care about.  One in three Puerto Ricans are police officers, so your chances of being caught doing something illegal seems high (I made that up, but even DC seems to have a paucity of law enforcement officers on the streets compared to PR).  We found some bushes that hid the car from the road, strategically located halfway between the two closest no camping signs.  I thought about the possibility that camping may not be allowed on the beach, but allowed on the headlands behind the beach, but a no camping sign along the road ruled that interpretation out.  Denise read on the dunes, Sarah went for a run, and I fretted about eating dinner.  Night fell, Denise wandered back to the car, after the surfers cleared the beaches, and someone started flashing a light in her direction.  She and I were acutely aware that we were quite alone on the beach.

We chatted about excuses we could use to tell police officers why we were camping on the beach, why there should be camping, and why a jurisdiction would not allow camping.  We pondered what the penalties of camping on the beach were, and wished we had asked the surf shop lady such things.  We spotted Sarah's headlamp coming across the sand, and when she arrived huffing and puffing from pushing hard on the soft sand, she gasped out that the police were coming.  We technically were not doing anything illegal yet, the tents had not been set up, and the signs definitely did not forbid eating dinner on the beach, but our guilt over intending to do something illegal quickly took control.  Without much debate, we decided to flee before we had to talk to any police.  While we may have been able to get decent information from them had they contacted us, our run-in with the unhelpful and strange park rangers in El Yunque discouraged me from even suggesting talking to the police.  We headed back to the beach that would be crowded with surfers in the morning.

On the way back we discussed that had there been even just one other group camping we would have felt much better about it, but camping on a deserted beach seemed unwise.  By this logic, the crowded beach full of surfers seemed like a relative paradise.  We arrived at the access sign for the beach.  The gate was open, but was crowned with razor ribbon, as was the chain link fence that grew in either direction as far as the dim street lamp shown.  The access sign was also devoid of words like, "bienvenido," instead full of ordinances that limited beach access time to 7 am to 6 pm, the exact hours we were planning to not be at the beach.  We stared down the lonely road, visions of happy, dirt-bag surfers strumming Jack Johnson tunes on ramshackle guitars around a campfire, shadows dancing on coconut palms dashed upon the fence like a prison escape attempt.  We considered briefly checking the rates at the Marriott hotel and casino, located inhospitably across the street from the US Border Patrol fortress.  We headed back towards Secret Spot to check the rates at a dingier beach hotel that seemed more our speed and price.

The room was small, but looked out onto the ocean, the sound of the surf coming through our cracked window.  The hotel had been  decorated for the holiday, a stocking on every door, and a Santa Claus shower curtain in the bath.  We lingered on the beach in the morning, then headed back to the surf shop.  The proprietor asked if we had found Secret Spot.  We said we had, but that we decided to not camp because of the police patrols and no camping signs.  She had not noticed the signs before, and had never seen the police down there.  She told us in the summer there are lots of campers on the beaches, and hypothesized that it might have been the Border Patrol looking for Dominicans.  I failed to be able to resist the red shoes a second time, and Denise a bracelet.  We thanked the owner for her help, and moved on to see more of the island.  Should you ever find yourself in Aguadilla, I do recommend stopping into The Surf Zone, as the staff is friendly, and the inventory is fun and impressive, though not very local.

During the day we talked ourselves up.  We were going to camp for New Year's Eve, Puerto Rican camping regulations be damned.  Sarah called the visitor's center 10 times throughout the day with no success, and it was closed when we arrived.  The caretaker's house had a light on, but we decided they were not home as their two dogs were barking nearly incessantly at us.  We walked passed the locked gate, and down to another gorgeous campsite, cursing that we would be unable to have the car near us in the night.  After much debate, and nearly driving back to Ponce, we decided to park the car at the gate, and camp in the campground.  This would make no mistake to the park rangers exactly what we were doing.  I backed the car up to the gate, trying to position so that an official vehicle could squeeze pass, if they needed.  Denise checked the lock on the gate, it was locked to the chain, but nothing else.  The gate was unlocked!

Giddy, we let ourselves in, drove down to the parking lot, and set up camp in the chorus of coquis (named for their distinctive call, ko-Key).  We celebrated New Year's Eve under the stars, until they went to bed behind clouds, then watched fireflies dance above the creek.  We pitched our tents under the shelter of a picnic gazebo, and enjoyed the unfettered breeze, not suffering from the oppressive rainfly.

In the morning, we packed up, and headed off to run on some of the trails.  We went up to an observation tower, passed a weird "natural" swimming pool, the biggest attraction in the park based on trail use.  After the observation tower we drove west to Cerro Punta, the highest point on the island.  The road to the top is steep, and while the Hyundai definitely could do it, we wanted to run it.  The steepness got the better of our legs quickly, and we walked to the top, looking down on Jayuya, where the LP says a faint trail can be found to the summit, but recommends lots of patience for the hike.  Afterwards, we headed for the beach in Arecibo to kill some time before checking into a mountain retreat that Sarah and Denise had found quite appealing from their online presence.

When we parked on the street in Arecibo at the beach, a passerby warned us of the rip tide, so we contented ourselves to sit, watch the waves, and read, rather than swimming in the Atlantic.  Eventually some body borders and a surfer showed up, providing entertainment as they played in the waves.  We talked a bit, but mostly just enjoyed that we could sit in one place, and not worry about hunting for a place to stay that night.  During a waxing afternoon, we drove back up to the mountains, turned off the main road in Utuado, and battled motion sickness on the twisty mountain roads.

The mountain retreat was...soulless, for a place that advertises their yogic attitude towards harmony with nature and vegan food.  At check in, we were informed that dinner had to be scheduled, and an old man, lurking in the restaurant leered at us, offering "help" to find things.  Our room was not quite ready, so we waited in the shade of non-native vegetation, out of sight of the old man who we would come to call "uncle creeper."

When the room was ready, we hauled our stuff up to the room, and moved in, ready to be in one place for two nights after constant moving.  We read the expansive list of rules on the door to the room, giggling at the no TV or radio rule while a house across the street pumped music that would drown out The Who.  We read all of the labels posted above switches and fixtures, containing reminders or addenda to rules, then headed to the pool before it closed at 18:00.  Sarah and I swam in the pool, aware that our limited splashing was not part of the prescribed zen that the rule book sought to create, though not specifically banned.  Uncle Creeper came down, angry that an umbrella had been left open, and leered into the pool, his discontent at its use obvious.

After a while longer, we got out, and went back to the room, as our assigned dinnertime was approaching.  We had a dinner of beans and rice in various forms, and "seasonal" vegetables straight from the freezer (steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and baby carrots).  Capped off with a very tasty coconut pudding for dessert.  After our first cooked meal in several days, we went to bed early, and I wrote in my diary and reading by headlamp in the mountain breeze before retiring for the night.

The next morning we failed to heed the advice of the LP, and arrived at the Rio Camuy Caves after 10:30, and paid for it with a hideously long wait for our number to be called to go into the caves.  In this cave system, a subterranean river flows through a series of interconnected sink holes.  The main park is a walking tour through the Cueva Clara, an impressively cavernous 215 foot high cave.  Without an hours long wait, this cave would be amazing, with an hours long wait, any twenty minute tour, no matter the subject, is a bit disappointing.  It is hard to separate the coolness of the cave from the disappointment of waiting for it.  Regardless, the further frustration with Puerto Rico made the next stop all the sweeter.

After spending hours at the cave park, we dashed to the Arecibo Observatory (check the Wikipedia link for those of you who were not a highly nerdy fifth grade boy).  We made it with about thirty minutes before closing, and the museum was full of sciencey exhibits, the video was decent, the guided tour was a woman reading the signs aloud, and the observatory was the absolute pinnacle of the trip.  Maybe my interpretation was buoyed by having dreamed about the place since childhood.  Maybe Denise and Sarah caught some of my excitement.  Maybe though, a 1000 foot aluminum satellite dish with a 900 ton receiver suspended 500 feet above it  by massive cables and towers, scouring the cosmos for the answers to the mysteries of the universe is simply awe inspiring.  As the visitor's center closed, the azimuth rotated 180 degrees, and we watched, Denise and Sarah giggling at my broad grin, relishing the engineering feat that gives science the largest single aperture radio telescope.

The next morning we decided to head back to San Juan.  Leaving our last day in Puerto Rico driving- and relatively stress- free.  We wandered around to a myriad of hotels, and found the only boutique hotel with a room for three available two nights in a row was the same one we stayed at the first time, though this time in a smaller room with a broken air conditioner.  We moved into the room, and spread out our stuff for a final drying and organization.  We laid on our beds to recover in the shaded heat of our hotel, and I realized that I was much closer to Denise on her twin bed, than to Sarah on our king.  We chuckled about the state of our "balcony suite," then roamed the streets for dinner.

The next day was spent at the San Juan National Historic Site, touring the fortifications built in response to a Dutch attack, then used by militaries through World War II to defend San Juan and the Caribbean.  Some of the structures have been damaged by continuous use, and continuous visitation.  Some charcoal sketches in the dungeon, possibly made by an officer awaiting execution for mutiny, was the high point of San Cristobal, and El Moro offered memorable staircases and a shell fragment in the original fortification (now entombed within the massive castle) from the Spanish-American War.

Denise went to the airport early, leaving Sarah and I a few hours to kill, so we had a leisurely run around San Juan, then drove over to Fort San Juan de la Cruz, or El Cañuelo, to complete the sights within the historic fortification.  The fort was closed, but the leper colony was open for wandering about.  We took a final picture of Old San Juan, then headed for the airport, bound for the much colder, darker, and snowier Northern Minnesota.

See pictures from the trip here!

Puerto Rico: The Grand Tour - Part I

I like to travel on a whim.  Before I leave, I try to have one or two fixed points, a rental car, a hotel booked upon arrival, plans that do not control the trip, but give piece of mind if everything goes bad.  Having a place to sleep, even if it is a Hyundai, adds a lot to my experience.  I once picked a hitch-hiker up in a paddock tens of miles from the closest town shortly before dark.  She was certainly having something of an adventure preparing to sleep in a cow pasture, but I like my adventure to be part of the journey, not its entirety.

Obviously, this type of travel has an effect on what I see and do.  I can find myself driving like it is an addiction.  If there is not much scenery, why not drive after dark to wake up at your destination?  Admittedly, some of the "little things" get skipped.  Sometimes the "big things" are sold out, or too busy for my tastes when I arrive, and I have to seek out a consolation prize.  All-in-all though, I like this travel method better than scripted tours.

When I was looking for a place to spend the holidays, my travelling companions wanted to escape the wintry reality of our lives for a location warm and sunny (ruling out Resolute).  Thoughts of Mexico, Latin America, Hawaii, and the Southwest were the first to spring up.  Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Northern Africa were considered, and while it seemed the cold European destinations were within budget, the warm weather escapes were expensive the world over.  Budgetary attrition eventually showed Puerto Rico as a surprisingly affordable destination.

Flights were booked, and first night's hotel and rental car reserved shortly afterwards.  The three of us wanted to get some trail running in, to preview each other for future run-packing (think backpacking, but increase the miles and decrease the weight) expeditions.  As we researched, it seemed that the trails were shorter than we had hoped, and the camping less prevalent.  We continued undeterred with the loose planning, as online reports varied as to the availability of both.

Travelers to Puerto Rico would do well to read the Lonely Planet cover to cover before dreaming up such a trip, but for me, that reduces the whimsical travel spirit.  Needless to say, the LP was not consulted regarding camping and trails until it was much too late to really change course, but like the girl in the paddock, this added to our adventure, kind of.

Trip reports are usually a mix of fun and boredom to write.  It is fun to think through a trip over again, but it is kind of boring to painstakingly recount adventures.  Something like the methods and results sections of a thesis.  The writing is easy, and kind of fun, but also the driest writing in the entire document.  Trying to describe traveling by whimsy in Puerto Rico is a challenge because the trip was more a crescendo of frustration, than an adventure of epic or life-altering experiences.

I think the best way to describe the trip succinctly is to say that after 10 days in PR, we all agreed, that we do not need to return to the island.  Making it the first place on the globe that any of the three of us had ever experienced the feeling of having well and truly experienced a place sufficiently to not return.  That paints a grim picture of a beautiful tropical island steeped in history, and glosses over the heartbreak at the sight of innumerable feral cats and abandoned dogs (which will be covered in a subsequent post, as their plight requires a narrative that is sure to be tearful to write).  Even with that travel first, it is not fair to the highs, the lows, or the frustrations of the trip to give a summary one-line description.

We arrived in San Juan on Christmas Eve.  We had booked a hotel in the heart of Old San Juan, a mere minutes walk from touristy restaurants, Spanish forts, and La Fortaleza, the oldest continuously used executive mansion in the Americas.  It was also minutes from the second busiest cruise ship harbor in the world (with the most cruise ships calling it their home port).  Tourists abounded, but services were largely closed for the holiday, and we spent two days wandering streets packed with traffic, full of tourists, and many shuttered attractions.  We decided to return at the end of the trip to tour the UNESCO World Heritage sites that are San Cristobal, El Moro, and La Fortaleza, and headed east.

From San Juan, the city of Fajardo is a short drive along beaches crowded with 55-gallon drums (the standard Puerto Rican trash can) overflowing with trash, or a brief trip on the new toll roads.  We opted for the slightly slower route along the coast, and headed for a park on a peninsula at the northeastern corner of the island.  Upon arrival at the park gate, we were turned away by security because the public park was "by reservation only."  We detoured to a beach, broke out the guides, and decided to try our luck on Vieques, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands, that the US took from Spain along with Puerto Rico at the close of the Spanish-American War.

Leary to get back on another ferry that crossed what I would call open water after my Greek experience, we sat on the open deck of the $2 ferry, hiding in the lee of the cockpit to get out of the squalls as we neared the island port.  The ride there was mostly motion sick free, benefiting from the calm water, and the strong, fresh breeze blowing through pregnant clouds.  Disembarking we tried to figure out how to navigate the little island with every hotel and car booked for the holiday.  We walked to the visitor center, which was closed, presumably because it was after four in the afternoon, though I did not look at the sign before a crusty old man offered us information.

Sarah told him we were looking for camping, and after gleaning from Fodor's that island taxi's often try to gouge on fairs, we agreed to $5 per person for him to drive us in his "cab" to the campground.  Sarah took shotgun, Denise behind her, and I behind the driver of this downtrodden Jeep Cherokee, long depressed from constant salt spray.  Sarah, squinted through the rain soaked windshield, the ineffective wipers occasionally smearing the water, as the driver dodged wild horses, aware constantly that her seat belt was broken.  Denise and I exchanged glances while I considered the best choke hold to use on a drive who was wielding a weapon, knowing Sarah would be unhindered in her escape by safety devices such as a seat belt.  He offered travel tips for the bioluminescent bay, and proved himself harmless by bitching about his neighbor cutting down trees, then dropping us safely at a grassy field, fenced in "to keep the horses out," and filled with tents and a fecal-rich public toilet.

We paid him the $15 fair, and he offered us a business card.  It had a phone number and the word "Jug."  Sarah asked what she should call him, giving us a look like we were semi-moronic, he said, "Jug."  We parted ways.  Set up camp, ate dinner, walked on the beach, then headed to the random parking lot where Jug had said the bio-bay tours meet at 20:00.

A fleet of fifteen passenger vans, and a great gaggle of people were loitering, and Sarah inquired if there was space on the tour, telling the man in charge that a man called Jug recommended them.  The tour guide sighed that his group was quite large, then took the $120 for three of us.  We signed waivers, the customers were divided into boats, then everyone climbed aboard the vans.  The drivers raced for position (literally) on the rough back roads to Mosquito Bay, where wind piles up luminescent plankton who gorge on the tannins from the mangroves.  I was given a personal flotation device meant for a small child, but I was able to force it on like a girl's cropped mini-vest, and we boarded our three person kayak equipped with two paddles.  I took the middle, charged with keeping our possessions dry, and pushing away the torpedoes that were inexperienced kayakers before an imminent collision.

The tour rallied around a pontoon boat as all fifty plus people were put into boats.  A man who called himself Kevin docked next to us, and worried about his wallet and smartphone getting wet, and seeing I was guarding a backpack of such valuables, handed them to me for safe keeping.  He knew only my first name and our boat number, but judged us to be safer than the water-filled sit on top kayaks were would be piloting around the bay.

The moon was full, so the plankton were outdone, but the bow wave and paddle strokes of each kayak showed a faint green glow as we paddled 100 yards along the shoreline.  We docked with one another, forming a formidable flotilla, and the guide gave a discussion based partly on science, and partly on tourism magic, about the bay.  After a 10 minute talk, we were given five minutes of free paddle, then the guides turned us back for the 100 yard paddle back to the put-in.  We lingered at the back of the armada, not wanting to rush to the mosquitoes that gave their namesake to the bay.

We were delivered back to the parking lot after the jostling ride back out the rough roads, then headed to our tents, and climbed in under an 80 degree cloudburst.  The night was hot.  A squall would make landfall, rain would fall on my face, and I would zip closed the tent fly.  The temperature would rise, and we would toss and turn on our ultra-light sleeping pads, sweating naked on the waterproof, air-proof nylon.  The rain would stop, and I would unzip the fly, gasping for the ocean breeze that would certainly bring more rain and another sleepless cycle of our steam room tent.

At first light we stumbled to the beach, exhausted from a sleepless tropical night.  We trotted down the beach, and rinsed off in the water that looked perfect, but the red flag declared to be dangerous.  We broke camp, unsure what to really do on an island too big to walk around, but to small to justify renting a car that was not available anyway.  We walked to the nearest town, and decided to head back to the ferry, missing out on some of the sights to be had on the island.  We walked around town, and failed to attract the attention of any of the taxis.  A couple was trying to find a taxi to a beach, and hoped that with three bound for the ferry, and two for a beach, we could sway a publico to take the bait and give us all a lift.  Before a publico appeared, an ex-marine appeared from a bar, finishing a can of beer, and offered us a ride to the other side of the island.  We looked at each other, then accepted guessing that it could be no worse than Jug.

He opened the back of his jalopy Jeep, reminiscent in all ways but color and four functioning seat belts to the previous night's ride.  When I went to climb inside, a cloud of small flies fled from the damp seat I sat down on.  There were introductions all around, some chit-chat, then he started some reggae, declaring, "awkward silence bad," as he cracked open another beer.

Aside from the driver self-medicating his purple heart, the conveyance seemed safer than the night before, and the trip was free, aside from the "gas money" I gave him that was quickly relabeled "beer money."  We arrived in perfect time for the next ferry, which, unfortunately, was a closed cabin.  We sat down as aft as we could, then let Cheaper by the Dozen wash over us.  Denise made the journey sickened only by the horribleness of Steve Martin's descent from The Jerk to whatever we were being subjected to.  Sarah and I suffered from a much stronger illness, created by the rolling of the boat, and the stale hot air in the cabin.  Fortunately, the trip was over before we reached Mediterranean levels of illness.

Upon disembarkation, we headed back to our Hyundai, saddled up, and drove to El Yunque, the US Forest Service's forest on the island.  We arrived at the visitor's center, and inquired about camping at the front desk.  The worker made a phone call, then led us to a gate marked "employees only," which he opened for us.  He told us to take the elevator to the basement, and Jose would meet us there.  The doors slid open to a quiet waiting room, lights dimmed, and a strange nativity scene with severe scale problems.  A wise man with an s-curved staff stared uncomfortably upon us as we waited for Jose.

Jose arrived, discussed the regulations, issued us a permit, then turned us loose on the park, touting the greatness of the informational video that we decided to not watch.  Instead, we headed back to Fajardo to buy groceries before we were locked into the park at 18:00.  On our way to the store, we had two first experiences.  Jose called us, as we had made an error in the primary phone number, and he wanted to get an accurate one, meaning he was actually fact-checking our permit.  Second, as we approached a small town we heard music blaring, and as we rounded a corner, we found the source.  In front of us, was a red F-150, a generator running in the bed to power four enormous floor speakers capping a metal stand that towered above the cab.  This was beyond any car stereo we had ever seen before Puerto Rico, but apparently modest by PR standards.  We giggled in mixed amazement and disgust as the top-heavy truck swayed around corners, relieved when it turned off in a different direction.

Back in the park, we set up camp at our designated campsite, a muddy wide spot on a disused road at the top of the park.  With not much to do at our campsite, we headed to the closest restroom to use the washroom and brush our teeth before retiring for the night.  The rangers were chasing the stragglers from the park, trying to avoid launching a search for someone who was probably just staying too long at La Mina Falls, the park's top attraction.  Once they located the last day users, we were told to return to our campsites, and not leave until the park opened in the morning.  We obliged, finding the whole experience a little strange.

The next morning we ran the trail to La Mina Falls, then up to the highest point in the park, exhausting all but the most trivial of trails, and decided to head back to San Juan to procure a fuel canister before heading to another part of the island.

--Part II will be posted on Monday the 14th, along with pictures from the trip!--