Puerto Rico Punch

Vieques Green Beach. (Amanda Wilson - Amanda Wilson)

A few minutes later, Joe Beach is on his balcony watching the sun plunk into the Caribbean, his air-con set to deep-freeze and a six-pack chilling in his in-room fridge. Worth a day of flying and driving? Absolutely.

2:30 p.m.

City Slicker, meanwhile, has no plans to wander out of taxi range of Old San Juan, the capital's historic port district of cobblestone street and facades dating to the spice trade. By the time Joe Beach hits his first traffic jam, she is happily settled on a leather stool, sipping a fruity sangria with rum under slowly twirling ceiling fans. She's in the bar of El Convento, a 350-year-old former Carmelite convent in the heart of the old quarter that is now doing business as a high-style inn. Slick has splurged on a room for one night in the old and lovely space of marble floors, massive carved wooden doors and long open-air hallways.

3:10 p.m.

In the meantime, Island Girl has a ferry to catch . . . if only she can figure out when and where. She hitches an eastbound ride in Eco Guy's rental car and frantically sifts through contradictory guidebooks and brochures to find out when the next boat leaves for the outer island of Culebra. One says 3:30 p.m., another says 4, another says Wednesday.

Eco Guy pulls up to the ferry terminal at Fajardo and Island Girl dashes to the ticket counter. From what she can tell, the passenger boat to Culebra has already sailed, but at this point she will hop on anything that floats. A sunbaked man points her, ticket in hand, to a red and yellow boat filled with Tonka-like trucks piled high with concrete blocks and building material scraps. They pull away, chugging out to sea toward Culebra. Or possibly Cuba.

Eco Guy drives back to the highway and heads farther down the east coast. The sea flashes on his left. On the right, the inland mountains begin to rise, the massive Cordillera Central that bisects the island from end to end. Somewhere in there is the Caribbean National Forest, a huge virgin jungle better known as El Yunque, 28,000 acres of the New World that still deserves the name. Eco Guy takes a sharp inland turn.

The shade of a forest is a relief after the white tropical sun. The canopy closes over the road like a wedding bower. The lane narrows, crosses an erector-set bridge over a rain-swollen river and begins to climb. Several ear-popping miles later at the very top of the corkscrew road, Eco Guy finds his base, the Casa Cubruy Ecolodge. The hotel is an open-air assemblage of balconies and patios overlooking a spectacular valley within El Yunque, a fold in the rain forest sliced in two by the white and frothy Cubruy River.

Several guests are settled in chairs near the honor bar, writing postcards and visually massaging a view that now includes an early evening moon. But Eco Guy's first order of business is that tumbling river. At the bottom of a steep path, the river dives down a sheer rocky face and crashes to a halt in a cool and delicious pool. Nature's Jacuzzi and Eco Guy's home until dinnertime.

5:40 p.m.

Slick loves everything about Old San Juan, from the pretty blue stone streets to the alfresco cafes to the centuries-old tropical-colored buildings housing galleries, shops and restaurants. This is not the tawdry cruise layover spot she expected but an inviting warren of vibrant streets and interesting storefronts.

She wanders into a crumbling building with ancient archways, a worn brick floor and wooden doors with metal grilles. The Picassoesque paintings on display at the Galeria Botello are striking and original, and the antique santos -- carved wooden statues of saints -- are exquisite. Too bad she can't afford any of this stuff.