Election

Samina, I and the kids had the pleasure of being in San Juan, Puerto Rico this past November while the US was on the eve of presidential elections. (We had sent in absentee ballots before leaving). Besides the wonderful Puerto Rican food, sights, and all other things boricua, we were also privy to a unique point of view on the US elections.

In fact, the night that John Kerry officially conceded, we were swimming in the bioluminescent lagoon in Fajardo glowing with dinoflagellates when an American Kayak operator rowed by, asking us if we knew that Bush had won. Both Samina and I, and our trusty guide Captain Suarez, shook our heads no.

Truthfully I don’t think captain Suarez even cared. What surprised us, though, was how much the rest of Puerto Rico did care when it came to politics.

Like any self-respecting Latin nation (despite being in the Caribbean geographically, PR is decidedly latin in character) Puerto Rico takes its politics very seriously. They do not have a vote in the presidential election, but they have had Governors since 1948. So on Nov 2 Puerto Ricans get the day off and the streets become a parking lot of demonstrators and car parades, each person trying to make his choice for governor heard over the next. We found this out when we became part of a motorcade moving (I use the term loosely) down avenida Munoz Rivera, and witnessed the finest in gubernatorial hell-raising for an hour and a half.

In fact, Puerto Ricans even had mock presidential elections to see who they would pick if given the right to vote in the US presidential elections. It was a dead heat between Kerry, Bush, and Martin (Just Kidding… Ricky Martin is not expected to run until his career is officially declared over at least a year or two from now.)

Another fortuitous thing of fortuitousness (sorry no thesaurus handy) was that we were also there during Halloween. Halloween in San Juan had none of the juvenile “trick or treat” air it is given in the states. It was more like Carnavale, with costumes that were pretty outlandish, and the entire city turned into one huge party…. Much like election day… Maybe there’s a theme here..
At least there were no idiots like this on halloween night in San Juan.

We saw quite a bit during our week there, including the Rio Camuy caves, Vieques island (Sun Bay was gorgeous), the old town of Ponce, and we even spent some time driving through the lush, hilly inland country.

All in all a great trip. The only thing about it that we would change would be the results of the US elections that week…