Long Walks On Leafy Streets

7/15/2013 Boulevar Luis Ferre, Ponce, Puerto Rico.
I am writing this from San Juan, Puerto Rico where we are just wrapping up our one week vacation. It has been a very pleasant and relaxing yet at the same time enriching experience. By the miracle of jet travel within a mere 3 hours of flight and about 1500 miles later we were in the Tropics. The first day or two we were still in Washington, DC mode. The mind was racing, trying to plan and accomplish various tasks. But soon the tropical air cast its hypnotic spell and I felt a certain ease of being settle into me. Now that it is time to leave I am feeling a little attached to it. It is going to take a few days to adjust myself to the daily routine and pace of life in Washington. But it has been wonderful to wake up every morning to see the sun shining bright upon the lush tropical greenery and the Caribbean sea. I hope to take that spirit of brightness and feeling of lightness with me.
Pictures from this trip have been posted on flckr. You can see them by clicking on the little photo at the top of this page and then clicking on "Pictures." They have been gathered in the set "Puerto Rico pictures."
On our arrival we rented a Scion IQ from Enterprise. This is a very small car, comparable to the smart car. We were happy that we got the most fuel efficient model possible. It got over 40 mpg for most of the trip. We drove to Ponce on the southern coast as well as Luquillo and Arecibo on the northern coast. It was gratifying to see wind farms and solar thermal devices along the way. Islands, especially tropical ones like Puerto Rico, are blessed with abundant renewable energy sources. Puerto Rico has enormous potential for wind, solar, wave and biomass energy. Since islands usually get their electricity generation from power plants burning petroleum, every bit of renewable energy directly results in reduced carbon emission, not to mention saving millions of dollars. I am very happy that both Puerto Rico and Hawaii, islands that I really enjoyed visiting, are getting into renewable energy in a big way.
The highlights of our trip was visiting the giant single dish radio telescope and seeing ancient Taino cave carvings in Arecibo and hiking in the El Yunque rainforest. It was a bit nerve wracking at first to climb those winding narrow and bumpy roads in that small car. Even the highways here are a bit bumpy and the driving is very aggressive. But once I got used to it I started enjoying driving. You are also rewarded by the amazing scenery along the way and the great destinations at the end of the drive. Learning about the study of galaxies many light years away or standing inside the sprawling canopy of the rain forest was thrilling. It also makes one realize how small we are when compared to nature. Our entire civilization is but a blink in the eye when set in the geological or astronomical time scale.
We also visited historical places in Old San Juan including the imposing El Morro fort towering over the Atlantic ocean. It was enchanting to literally touch the history. Puerto Rico was reached in Columbus' second voyage. While it was saddening to think of all the sorrow visited upon the indigenous Taino population, I also wondered how it must have felt to reach an entire new continent for the first time. Now we take it for granted to know every corner of our planet but in those days it must have been really exciting to find and learn about these new lands and people. I do hope, somewhat wistfully, that we could recover and reconstruct some of the ways of the ancient people of the Americas. One day, whether it is through the radio telescope or otherwise, we may meet new civilizations living in distant planets. Hopefully we won't repeat the same mistakes then.
In a way being in Puerto Rico felt at times like coming back to my home. At times the tropical plants and the air brought me back memories of my childhood so strongly that I had to remind myself I was thousands of miles from Kerala. The streets, the buildings, even the people reminded me very strongly of Kerala. I hope you get a bit of an idea about that from the pictures. We all came from this mother earth, and much like memories of our mother's womb and bosom are buried deep in our subconscious, memories of the soil where we grew up are buried deep within us. Perhaps as we get older, the longings for the motherland grow stronger. Although I have been here only a week, having the feeling of walking in Kerala or Tamilnadu will hopefully refresh me and stay with me until the next trip.

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