There are, of course, many tragic aspects of neocolonialism, from economic distortions to the perversion of native culture to the fundamental outrage of diminishing a people's capacity for self-determination. But it's great for tourists.

And this was Emily's and my guiding concern as we made for Puerto Rico. Mike D had suggested it as a cheap and easy Caribbean destination, and it didn't disappoint. No passports, no garishly-colored money, and, for any place a tourist is likely to venture, no need to speak a language other than 'merican. Better yet, a reliable supply of cruise ship passengers allows you to avoid feeling like the most pathetic person in a given room.

We started off in San Juan, which bills itself somewhat hilariously as "the city that outgrew its walls". Well, it did outgrow them, but the tourist trade hasn't. Sightseers seem to stay within the impressive and picturesque boundaries of Old San Juan, and we were no exceptions. It's got forts; it's got beautiful ocean views; it's got scores of stray cats. It also seems to have a lot of young people who came for the aforementioned attractions and stayed for the heroin.

Wandering through the forts is thrilling for any red-blooded Pirates! enthusiast, our hotel was very nice and we had a great time staring at the ocean and surreptitiously listening to spring breakers' conversations in bars. But truthfully, one night in San Juan was enough for me. Vieques beckoned.

For most of the twentieth century Vieques was used by the Navy for munitions storage and as a practice spot for blowing things up. In 1993 they accidentally killed somebody, and that was pretty much the end of that. The Navy wound up surrendering almost all of the land they held to the Puerto Rican government and the National Park Service. The Navy's departure wiped out the island's economy but opened up new travel possibilities, which are just now being developed. The result is an English-speaking island with reasonable prices, pristine beaches and a tourism industry that makes things comfortable but hasn't yet become grotesquely large.

Getting there was pretty fun in its own right. We flew in a tiny Cessna belonging to the recently reopened M&N Aviation (thanks for the understanding, FAA! you dudes are alright). Our pilot showed up about ten minutes before departure time, and, not bothering to waste time asking for our names or IDs, quickly loaded us onto the plane. Within moments we were in the air, watching San Juan recede beneath us.

Fifteen scenic minutes later we approached Vieques:

And things went downhill from there. Here, have a look at this webpage. See "Carlos Jeep Rental"? If you had to guess based on this listing, what island would you say that business is located on? Maybe I just don't understand how these things work, but at the time I made the booking the "Vieques" directly across from their phone number seemed somewhat suggestive.

Actually, though, they're located on Culebra, and their jeeps are tragically non-amphibious. They were very nice about refunding my non-refundable deposit, though, and soon we were riding in a public car toward our hotel, feeling only mild panic about finding another Jeep to rent.

The hotel was the second part of the trip that I had been responsible for booking, and naturally I screwed it up pretty badly, too. But look at the cheery colors! Thrill to the friendly lady on the phone! Most of all, note the wifi. This is a principle I learned while traveling in Europe: if a place has wifi, it can't be that bad.

Sadly, that rule of thumb is no longer valid. Our hostess remained friendly, but the actual room was fairly bunkerlike, with no windows, a pervasive mildew odor and an awful mattress wrapped in unremovable plastic. Adding insult to injury, you could only get wifi reception outdoors. We stayed one night, but that was all we cared to take. In the morning I went to see the manager and debated the implications of the guest house's cancellation policy with a level of conciliation usually only reached when one or more of the parties has "pluripotentiary" in their title (although I don't think it prevented a looming Ragnarok between them and my credit card company).

Then we headed up the hill. On the advice of the TGH hostess and the lady in the bodega across the street we had walked to the Sea Gate Hotel the day before, where the owner Penny had kindly rented us one of the jeeps usually reserved for her own guests. Before meeting with Penny her assistant, Irma, generously volunteered to show us around the grounds. The SeaGate is beautiful, and when we found ourselves needing a new room we were thrilled to find that they had one available. It's situated on top of a hill, right by the fort, in a rolling sort of garden filled with palm trees, lizards, horses, chickens, dogs and cats (all of them friendly, except for the lizards who are merely indifferent). There's a three-floored building with less than a dozen rooms and suites, and a few cottages scattered around. You can see the ocean on the horizon from most of the rooms over a tangled expanse of vegetation. It's really, really beautiful. And it was a better deal than our previous room.

Things picked up from there. The beaches are so beautiful that there's not much point in my describing them. Rambling over the island's dirt roads in a rickety jeep is enormously fun, and thanks to the Navy's abandoned bunkers, it's also entertainingly creepy:

Remember that made-for-TV movie I can't find on IMDB where a bunch of washed-up supermodels went to an island and there had been military experimentation and the government had left it infested with mutagen-filled sea urchins and vines and stuff and one by one everybody got stung and started turning into hideous were-[tropical wildlife]s? No? Alright, then how about Lost, you uncultured neanderthal? Heard about Lost? It's the one that's like Party of Five but on an island and sometimes with guns. Right, you know the one. What I'm trying to say is that if you were thinking of planning a theme vacation based around either of these properties, Vieques would be a good choice.

So: beaches, rotting military installations, fauna — what else? Well, one week ago the Nabob wrote this:

I actively allowed someone to cheat off my final exam for that oceanography class. Now, he’s a magician.

There's one part of Vieques where that unique skillset — questionable oceanographic bona fides and supernatural showmanship — is in high demand: the biobay.

Mosquito Bay is a wide, shallow pool of water surrounded by Red Mangrove trees. It's also home to what we were told is the world's highest concentration of pyrodinium bahamense, a tiny creature that emits light when disturbed.

It's pretty amazing. You don't notice the effect as you kayak toward the middle of the bay. At first it seems like you're just unused to seeing the bubbles pulled down by your paddle through the clear Caribbean water. But then you dip your hand in and wave it around, and the bubbles persist regardless of how long you keep it submerged. Soon you reach to the center of the bay and the effect becomes truly undeniable. Any movement causes the water to emanate a surprisingly bright blue glow. Hop out of your kayak and your waving limbs will be surrounded with an unearthly aura. Move your arm just under the water's surface and it will trail millions of dots of blue phosphor; it's as if you were watching your own slow-motion pyrotechnic dissolution. Stick your head under the water and when you come up you'll be momentarily peppered with tiny stars that disappear in the air. It's stunning, and an experience I'd recommend to anyone. It's also pretty hard to photograph, but this is a decent attempt at faking it.

Eventually Sunday rolled around. It began to rain; our new, less laid-back airline yelled at us for showing up ten minutes before departure time (give someone a second engine and suddenly they think they're a big shot, apparently). We discovered we were covered with sunburn and mosquito bites. It was time to get the hell home. But we had had a fantastic time. Puerto Rico in general and Vieques in particular are beautiful, filled with friendly people and are surprisingly accessible, both in terms of cost and travel. You should think about going.

I will issue one caveat, though: we weren't blown away by the food. Don't get me wrong, it's good, and I'm sure it can be great. We did have a really delicious meal at the Bravo Beach Hotel, and were perhaps not as adventurous about patronizing the alluring food carts that dotted the island as we could've been. But the island's basic culinary philosophy boils down to lots of plantains and as many land animals as can be mustered, particularly pork. That's all cooked on top of a sofrito base or breaded and fried. It's not bad, but it is kind of heavy and monotonous, and the lack of delicious sea creatures was disappointing. And on Vieques the situation is even more dire, since the island seems to have no agriculture of its own and so any less-than-top-end restaurants will lean heavily on frozen and canned ingredients.

But this is a small complaint. It's easy to find great sandwiches, mofongo is delicious, and we had some of the best coffee I can remember in San Juan. The omnipresent national beer, Medalla, is also pretty great. It's just an American-style light lager, but it's tasty and comes in ten ounce increments — this is ideal, as it turns out that it's only the last two ounces of beer in a given can that are responsible for getting you drunk. So you can sit on the beach consuming can after golden, ten-ounce can without suffering any incapacitation.

Of course the island is also filled with rum punch and pina colada opportunities, if that's your thing (the former: sort of; the latter: not so much, thanks to childhood memories of its vile Slurpee incarnation). I am sorry to report, however, that the San Juan bar we patronized was unable to fulfill requests for Buttery Nipples and Sexes on the Beach, much to the dismay of the loud girls who surrounded us.

Oh yeah! Photos. Here's the complete set:

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