Looks like this is the local hang out for the city folk on a Sunday. Surprisingly this area is absolutely mobbed with people, food kiosks, music and even some dancing. As we take it all in, we come across a nice pizzeria and have probably one of the best pizzas we ever ate.įrom there we take a quick look at the harbour and marina which is a further 3 miles to the south of the city. It was used right up to 1989 but now it’s made into a museum and painted with red and black wide bands of color. We wander the steers and wonderful town square with fountains and the cathedral in the middle.Īnd oddly, the old city fire station from over 100 years ago is also in the middle of the town square. Not quite up to Old San Juan, but pretty close.
The streets are clean, the buildings orderly and lots of wonderful architecture from a bygone day. We suspect it will be like any other town, rather bleak and run down.
There are several other coffee farms in the region, some still producing coffee.įrom the Hacienda Buena Vista it’s a short drive down into the town of Ponce. This valley would have had numerous such farms in their days and production brought great wealth to the Spanish who ran things at that time. Still, we manage to wander around and get the feel of the place, what coffee plants look like, how they grow best ( under a canopy of trees) and how the raw coffee beans were processed. But sadly the tours in English are over for the day. Its buildings are all wonderfully preserved including the water driven machinery for the coffee bean production. We’ve seen several sugar cane or cocoa plantations but never one producing coffee. We guess there must have been land slides in the hurricane that have not yet been addressed.Īfter a couple of hours we arrive to Hacienda Buena Vista which is an old coffee and cocoa farm from the 1800s. We do several more winding road sections over the highlands and meet several dead ends where we have to back-track. We take the road in the general direction of Ponce, the 2nd largest city, central on the south coast. Soon the clouds will re-form over the highland area and stroud the center of the island from the sun, and add some rain. Today we head across the full length of Puerto Rico west to east, back to Cloudy Bay.Īs per the last couple of days, the morning sky is clear blue and the air cool and still. Cloudy, we missed you!Īfter a wonderful night sleep we are bright and fresh. Sunday 14 Apr, Puerto Rico day 10: Travel full length of the island back to Cloudy Bay, via Hacienda Buena Vista, Ponce and a couple of supermarkets.
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