PR 8 Puerto Ponce

People who know Puerto Rico ask: did you go to Ponce? Well, I did and I didn’t. If they ever ask me what the most useless thing was that I have ever done in my life, than I finally have an answer. I drove almost an hour from San German to Ponce with the idea of spending the evening in the Pearl Of The South as the city is called, but I ended up driving back to Mayaguez after not finding the centre of the city at all and filled with angst paranoia about being mugged and carjacked. There’s something terribly wrong with the maps that the tourist office issues and I just drove around in circles. Ponce is also not a small city and I ended up driving through a neighbourhood where I just did not want to get stranded. The big problem was that there were no lights in that city. After I had taken the only exit I found to the centre of Ponce, there were no more indications and the people who were outside looked as if they too auditioned for a reggaeton video clip, but then as gangsters. I took that exit twice and just didn’t find any sign to get to the centre of the city, where a hotel called Belgica is located. (a dump apparently). So I ended up driving back to Mayaguez. A reason to come back, as some people told me afterwards. We’ll see..