Puerto Rico Revival

I knew Puerto Rico as a child, meaning I knew the charm-free chambers of San Juan’s high-rise beach hotels and the unimaginative fare of tourist restaurants catering mainly to East Coast residents looking for a quick warm-weather fix.

The friendly but lackluster Puerto Rico of my youth still exists for package-tour visitors. For the more inquisitive, however, that image is dated. Spurred by competition for tourist dollars from other Caribbean islands and by the increasing sophistication of its own residents, the 3,435-square-mile island, a bit more than 1,000 miles southeast of Miami, has matured into a vacation destination of astounding variety. The change is evident in the high-quality lodgings, dining, entertainment and art in the capital city of San Juan and beyond.

My husband, David, and I were drawn back here by several magazine articles lauding Puerto Rico’s charms and by friends who had returned with glowing reports of gorgeous sea views and beaches and innovative restaurants, interesting shops and engaging residents.

A nine-day visit in March provided so many options that we had to narrow our goal of sampling all of Puerto Rico’s diverse atmospheres to just three spots: Old San Juan on the north coast, an elegant inn on the island’s little-touristed west shore and one of its biggest resorts on the bustling east coast.

Old San Juan captivated us from the start, and I regretted that we hadn’t allotted more than one full day and two nights.

A half-hour taxi ride from the airport took us into a tangle of cobbled streets in the old walled city, with its tropical-fruit-colored Spanish colonial houses, sparkling white churches and little green plazas--all packed into seven square blocks.

On our first night, we stayed at the recently restored 57-room El Convento Hotel, a converted 17th century Carmelite convent, because it was within walking distance of everything that interested us. The place was more than convenient; it proved elegant and surprisingly homey, feeling more like a private club than a hotel. Our room was both modern and historic, with cool black and white, diamond-patterned marble floors, antique mahogany furnishings and a small carved wooden balcony overlooking San Juan Cathedral.

A few (uphill) streets away, artist Jan D’Esopo’s 23-room Gallery Inn B&B--home; for our second night--had terraces, cozy drawing rooms and guest chambers that formed a fun jumble of sleeping and living spaces. There was always something happening at Jan’s--a wine and cheese party on the rooftop deck overlooking San Juan harbor, an impromptu concert on the Steinway piano in the comfortable music room, with D’Esopo and her pet cockatoo warbling along.

We took our one day out and about in San Juan in stride, soaking up the new-old ambiente of the walled city’s recent renaissance. The once-decaying streets sparkled with chic galleries and folk-art shops, innovative cafes and sizzling nightspots.

Armed with a street map, we strolled the lengths of Calle del Cristo, Calle Fortaleza and Calle San Francisco, the main cultural and shopping areas. We ducked in and out of elite boutiques catering to sleek women wearing couture, and working-class bars patronized by old men in overalls and sporting three-day stubble. Our meandering route deposited us on the popular bay-front pedestrian promenade, Paseo de la Princesa.

Our favorite discovery was the town’s fabulous folk art. At the airy Museo de Artes Populares (Museum of Popular Art) on Calle del Cristo, we loved the vibrant creations of mask artist Reinaldo Rodriguez Santana, a native of the western coastal city of Mayaguez. His animal and devil visages, brilliantly hued coconut-husk faces with wild expressions and tree branches or banana leaves for hair, were inspired by Carnival masks worn at pre-Lenten festivals. All were for sale, but way out of our price range at several thousand dollars each. We resolved to find more affordable ones.

Fierce, comical, brightly painted Carnival masks beckoned from more than a dozen shop windows: papier-ma^che faces from the southern city of Ponce, with bulging eyes, fangs and tangles of horns; black, white and red coconut-shell heads from the northeastern town of Loiza. The simplest cost less than $50; elaborate Ponce masks, with up to 100 intricately molded horns, commanded more than $1,000.

A coconut-shell Loiza mask--an exquisite black and white face surrounded by long striped horns--followed us home (for $350) from La Bella Piazza, a very good Italian restaurant on Calle San Francisco where all the art was for sale.

Wanting our night to be as stimulating as our day, we heeded Jan D’Esopo’s recommendation of the Parrot Club, Old San Juan’s trendiest restaurant and a key player in the city’s nocturnal revitalization. It was one of the first restaurants in Old San Juan to take a chance on trendier nuevo Latino cuisine, a fusion of Caribbean, Southwest U.S. and Continental styles: fried beef with guava rum glaze and chayote slaw, seafood ceviche with fried plantain chips, fresh codfish with corn pudding and a spicy ancho chile topping--all delicious.

The next morning, we picked up our rental car and headed south through the mountains, then west along Puerto Rico’s southern shore and through farm country toward the island’s wild west coast, about a two-hour drive. Except for a few ugly industrial towns, this end of the island was as quiet as Old San Juan was bustling.

Our base was the swank 31-room Horned Dorset Primavera, an isolated beach retreat near Rincon, about two-thirds of the way north on the west coast. One of seven Relais & Cha^teaux hotels in the Caribbean and the only one in Puerto Rico, the inn has no TV or room phones, but does have private terraces--some with plunge pools--and a tranquil beach far from crowds. Rooms are bright and airy with whitewashed walls, four-poster beds, terra-cotta-tiled floors and wrought-iron chandeliers.

We spent our two days cocooned in the Horned Dorset Primavera’s sedate charms, lingering over breakfast on our balcony facing the Caribbean, venturing out for beach walks and mingling with other guests at the nightly pre-dinner cocktail party on the inn’s oceanfront porch, where the repartee was as breezy as the sea air.

But out we finally drove, south along the coast, meandering through tiny fishing villages and inland snippets of towns, with the cliff-top Cabo Rojo (Red Cape) lighthouse on the island’s southwest tip as our destination.

Our all-day jaunt took us through sprightly Jojuda, a tiny seaside town lined with immaculate fish restaurants hugging the water’s edge, and down-at-the-heels Cabo Rojo (nowhere near the lighthouse of the same name). Narrow back roads took us past simple wooden homes with signs advertising “House Painter” or “Fresh Rabbit.”

In Boqueron, a gaily painted community recalling a miniature Key West, Fla., we pulled up at Galloway’s Bar and Grill for a lunch of fried red snapper and melted cheese sandwiches at a table overlooking Boqueron Lagoon.

The final two miles to the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse were unpaved but worth the severe bone jarring. A 330-foot uphill walk from the parking lot to the lighthouse yielded a grand sight: not the graffiti-covered gray and white building but the view. Waves crashed against the rocky headland 100 feet below, pounding a cliff face striated with cuts and curves from the aggressive waters of the Caribbean.

It was hard pulling ourselves away from the quiet west coast, knowing our final island destination would be quite its opposite. But the lovely Ruta Panoramica, a mountain route east across Puerto Rico’s central spine, made an enjoyably dramatic transition that took us most the day. Lined with flaming orange hibiscus, papaya trees and stands of bamboo, the two-lane road presented hairpin curves with cliff and sea views. We passed small clusters of humble houses, banana and coffee plantations terraced steeply down the hillsides and a smattering of tiny grocery stores with big names. Our favorite: “El Gigante Mini Store,” a tiny edifice with a horse tied up at the door and potent cafe con leche.

It was dark by the time we arrived at the 918-unit Wyndham El Conquistador Resort & Country Club, a mega-hotel complex perched on a 300-foot bluff above a seaside village, Las Croabas.

We had chosen the most intimate of the huge resort’s five lodging groups, Las Casitas Village, a short walk uphill from the main complex. Las Casitas’ 90 pastel-painted condos (all with kitchens) were arrayed around an internal courtyard with a bell tower, a swimming pool and an umbrella-shaded dining area, where a large buffet breakfast (included in the room rate) was served. Best of all, adjacent to the courtyard was the Golden Door Spa, a new branch of the posh California pamper palace, and the championship El Conquistador Golf Course was a five-minute walk from our room.

The next morning we took the walkway to the main hotel complex, which was action central, with several levels of land and water activities, three giant pools and a multistory mall housing 15 restaurants, shops and a casino.

We plunged into the life of the giant resort, which swarmed with families and couples in matching T-shirts and sunburned noses. We joined aerobics classes and volleyball games in the mammoth central pools, played a challenging round of golf on the resort’s much-respected, palm-adorned course, took the funicular down the steep cliff to catch the free launch to the private island beach just offshore, and gorged at the French, Italian, Japanese and seafood restaurants in the mall. None of the food was wonderful, and there were long waits for service at dinner, but nothing was inedible.

El Conquistador was full equipo, as puertorriquenos like to say.

But we missed the quiet beaches and simple fishing villages of the west coast and the warm Latino ambiente of Old San Juan. Those remain our favorite images of the new-old Puerto Rico--and what will bring us back.

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GUIDEBOOK

Seeking Puerto Rico’s New Chic

Getting there: From LAX to San Juan, there is nonstop service on TWA, direct service on American and Delta, and connecting service with a change of planes on American, Delta, Continental, US Airways, United and Northwest. Round-trip fares begin at $525. (From LAX, flying time is at least 6 1/2 hours.)

Where to stay: Prices vary dramatically with the season (high season runs mid-December to mid-April). We stayed at El Convento Hotel, 100 Calle del Cristo, Old San Juan; telephone (800) 468-2779 or (787) 723-9020, Internet https://www.elconvento.com. Rates start at $220 double and include a continental breakfast and afternoon wine and cheese daily.

The Gallery Inn, Calle Norzagaray 204-206, Old San Juan; tel. (787) 722-1808, Internet https://www.thegalleryinn.com. Rates start at $145 double, including daily breakfast.

Horned Dorset Primavera, Route 429, Rincon; tel. (800) 633-1857 or (787) 823-4030, Internet https://www.horneddorset.com. Rates start at $280 double in low season, $380 in high season. The oceanfront inn has an outstanding restaurant. Wyndham El Conquistador Resort & Country Club, Las Croabas, tel. (800) 468-5228 or (787) 863-1000, Internet https://www.wyndham.com. Rates begin at $200 double (from $350 at Las Casitas Village).

Where to eat: In Old San Juan, try Carli Cafe Concierto, San Justo and Recinto Sur streets, local tel. 725-4927. The Parrot Club, 363 Calle Fortaleza, tel. 725-7370. La Ostra Cosa, 154 Calle del Cristo, tel. 722-2672, serves steak and seafood with great oysters and caviar. La Bombonera, 259 Calle San Francisco, tel. 722-0658, is a diner popular with locals and visitors.

On the west coast: The Landing, Route 413, kilometer 4.7, Rincon, local tel. 823-4779, has good seafood by the sea. A bit inland, Lazy Parrot Inn, Route 413, kilometer 4.1, Rincon, tel. 823-5654, is a popular cafe. Horned Dorset Primavera, Route 429, Rincon, (800) 633-1857; tel. 823-5580. Galloway’s, Calle Jose de Diego, Boqueron, tel. 254-3302.

For more information: Puerto Rico Tourism Co., 3575 W. Cahuenga Blvd., Suite 405, Los Angeles, CA 90068; tel. (800) 874-1230 or (323) 874-5991, fax (323) 874-7257, Internet https://www.prtourism.com.