Old San Juan at Night by palestrina55

It was nighttime when my plane landed in San Juan.  I love flying into cities at night, trying to identify areas of the city from the plane using the patterns of the lights the way you would identify a constellation by the stars.  I saw two cruise ships docked in port, which helped me figure out where Old San Juan was. It was beautiful.

The airport restaurants were closed and gated for the evening, and the baggage claim was fairly deserted, but for my one plane load of passengers.  I examined the map of taxi zones for the tourist areas of San Juan near the baggage claim and figured out that I was in Zone 1, the airport, and I needed to go to Zone 4, Old San Juan.  Then the luggage came tumbling out on the baggage carousel, and I grabbed my bag and headed for the taxi stand.  Once I was out beyond the canopy of the airport, I could feel the light drizzle falling from the sky. The man behind the counter filled out a form, noting that my fare would be $19 plus $1 for my suitcase.  He handed it to me and walked me to a nearby taxi van.  The taxi driver was a grey-haired man who was even shorter than me.  He greeted me in a friendly manner, but it was clear he didn’t speak very much more English than I speak  Spanish.

A typical street in Old San Juan

I never got his name, but I wish I had, because I became his biggest fan that night.  As soon as we pulled out of the parking space and he heard where I was going (El Convento), he immediately groaned and, in broken English, warned me we were going to have problems getting there because of the San Sebastian Street Festival.  I had known about the Festival, in fact was looking forward to checking it out once I’d had a bite to eat at the hotel.  I knew there would be tens of thousands of people jamming the streets around the Festival.  What I didn’t realize was that the Festival isn’t just on San Sebastian Street, it’s everywhere in Old San Juan.  Most of the streets were blocked to traffic that night.

I had no idea how right he was as I relaxed in the backseat, watching highway signs whiz past in the van’s headlights and spying the Condado high rise hotels from a distance.  It wasn’t until we came to the first roadblock that I started to get an inkling of what we were in for.  There was a barricade, and two police officers standing there, preventing traffic from passing.  My driver stopped the cab and rolled down the window.  The officer came over and they spoke rapidly in Spanish.  I had no clue what they were saying, but the guard gestured, and the cab driver turned in that direction.  When we got to a second barricade, he had to get out in the rain to go speak to the officers. This conversation took longer. He had no umbrella.  I was starting to feel guilty.

I had a panicked moment of wondering if he was going to come back to the cab and say “Sorry, seniorita, you have to walk from here” and boot me to the curb.  I could picture myself, nightblind and directionally challenged as I am, lugging my heavy suitcase in the rain, trying to find my way to my hotel in a strange city at night.  That would not go well for me, I suspected.  But God bless him, he got behind the wheel again and continued on, further into the old city.

Soon, we were passing lines of pedestrians walking two and three deep on the side of the streets.  Then they were spilling into the streets, beside us, in front of us, seemingly indifferent to the fact that a van was headed for them.  There appeared to be no street rules here for who had the right of way.  He slowly inched forward and managed to turn without hitting anyone.  All the time, he was muttering, “Mucho loco, mucho loco.”  I finally agreed with him. “Si.  Mucho loco.”  It was like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. . .times 100.  And the streets of Old San Juan make the French Quarter look spacious by comparison.

San Sebastian Street Festival attendees

He escaped the worst of the crowd and took me down a steep, winding street that had such a tight curve, I heard the side of the van scrape against a cement wall.  I cringed.  “Am I going to be charged for that?” I thought.

Suddenly, he stopped the van and went around to open the back door.  Oh my God, here it comes, I thought.  He really is fed up with this and is kicking me to the curb.  But as it turned out, we had arrive at El Convento, the entrance of which was hidden behind a line of party-goers.  When I asked him how much I owed him–force of habit, since I already knew–and he told me $20, he sounded like he was just very glad to get rid of me.  I handed him the $20 and a nice tip, and his face lit up.  He thanked me.

“No, thank you,” I gushed, then, remembering where I was, “Muchas gracias.” I’ve met  many cabbies in the past who would not have gone to the lengths he did for a flat rate fare.  He was my hero that night.  Not only did he give me a great first impression of cab drivers in San Juan, but the people of San Juan as well.  I had a feeling I was going to like it here.

Photo credit: Old San Juan at Night by palestrina55.