Detour #120: The Panoramic Route, Puerto Rico
Photo David Adorno / Unsplash
Driving Puerto Rico’s Ruta Panorámica is a tropical adventure that will have anyone imaging they’re a great American author, says Simon “Hemingway” Heptinstall.
Okay, it was only a hired Korean compact car. But as I drove among the dark swaying palms, the humid night ringing with a rainforest chorus of crickets, frogs and birds, I felt like it was Hemingway’s Hyundai.
Driving the Panoramic Route from Mayaguez to Maunabo across Puerto Rico is a proper Latin American back-roads adventure. You’ll feel intrepid dodging potholes, floods, unguarded drops and crumbling verges. There are steep gradients and hairpin bends, and sudden downpours that leave enormous puddles of unknown depth.
But this Caribbean Panoramic Drive never feels really dangerous. Even in a Hyundai. You won’t get armed insurrections, scary police, poisonous creatures or tropical diseases. Puerto Rico, with its US ‘Commonwealth status’, is largely America-by-the-sea, even up in the rainforest. You pay in dollars and speak Yankee. The standard of living is one of the highest in the region. Rest stops have sparkling toilets and clean burgers for American tourists. There are photo stops with neatly signed flat concrete paths leading into the rainforest. Information boards identify the weird birds.
That doesn’t detract from the Hemingway/Graham Green vibes as you drive for hours through banana trees, coconut palms and colourful orchids. When I stopped to gasp at a waterfall a huge lizard thing scampered into the undergrowth. Strange creatures squawk overhead.
Photo Stephanie Klepacki / Unsplash
The lush tropical Caribbean island of Puerto Rico is just 110 miles (180km) long and 40 miles (65km) wide. Within this cigar-shaped map, the island authorities created this scenic road trip that wiggles for 167 miles (269km) from one side of the island to the other.
You could press on and do the whole drive in a day. I spent three. Finding overnight stops in little paradors is one of the highlights.
One night I pulled off the road into Hacienda Juanita, an old remote coffee plantation. The wooden farmstead is now a small hotel with TV-less rooms, languid ceiling fans, and an owner who emerged at the reception desk clutching a glass of rum.
I spent my evening in a cane rocking chair under the veranda, dunking fried plantains into garlic butter and sipping Puerto Rican coffee topped up with rum. After swapping tall-tales the owner said goodnight at midnight and left me with the keys to lock the bar.
The Panoramic Route may be an official tourist route but the road potters through villages where chickens run across the main street and old men in straw hats sit on rickety chairs watching cars roll by. It’s as authentic as any drive I’ve discovered in the Caribbean.
Authentic means warts and all of course. Watch out for sudden thick mists or violent downpours. My female passenger got bitten in the eye when a mosquito whizzed in the open car window. And away from the civilised coastal strip, Puerto Rico’s favourite sport is cock fighting. Be prepared to pass a bloodstained ring in every town. If you’re feeling brave pop inside for a couple of dollars. However much you disapprove it’s a memorable cultural experience.
Thankfully the Route steers clear of the Las Vegas-style strip around the capital San Juan on the north coast. You might expect Ricky Martin’s Puerto Rican Vida Loca or Crazy Life. You’re more likely to find Nevada Bob’s Crazy Golf. The roads may be much better up there, like smooth American freeways but there are sanitised rows of casinos, fenced resort hotels and millions of cruise-ship passengers in buses. Security guards patrol the beaches on Harley Davidsons.
Photo Wei Zeng / Unsplash
My advice is take advantage of some of the Caribbean’s cheapest car hire and get out of town quick. This scenic route (sometimes locally called the Ruta Luis Munoz Marin after a post-war politician) was developed in the 1970s to woo American tourists. It works on British ones too.
The route winds through the peaks, gorges and foothills of the mountains using more than 40 different roads. It was a multi-million dollar project that involved building scores of viewing points, rest stops and signs along the route.
You’ll travel from one palm-fringed coast to the other, through a backwoods of sleepy hillside villages, old plantations and mountain landscapes reaching 4,000ft (1,200m). Locals may sometimes pass you at ridiculous speeds but most drivers will struggle to get into top gear anywhere along the route.