About 7 hours of video sit in a bag waiting for attention. Another 30 minutes sits in my camera. Sitting here today I think of the story I want to tell. What was my original impression? What did I think I would see? What would the trip be like? Who would I meet along the way? What story would I want to tell?Today my thoughts are still floating out there in the aether. I know I’m bothered by many things I’ve seen and impressed and amazed by others. I know the seas and the people were nothing like what I had expected. Yet in both cases I should not have been surprised. The sea is the sea and people are people no matter where in the world you stand. We are always more the same than different. For both good and bad.

Yesterday I walked the streets of Old San Juan. I stood where I could see a fort, a cemetery, a tourist market and great poverty just by turning my head. I stood by the graves of governors, paupers and revolutionaries. I saw needles on the beach. I drank coffee in an open air cafe, I gave change to a begger on church steps. We fed pigeons with corn sold by an old woman who smoked big Cuban cigars. I tipped they guy who took it upon himself to find parking spaces for tourists. I spent a half hour in a traffic jam. I photographed pink flowers on a purple wall.

One thing I know. Truth is not easy to come by. It is not written in a brochure. Every beautiful jungle is littered with danger. Some trees harbor snakes. “Paradise” as Lori Anderson once said, “is exactly like where you are right now. . . . Only, much, much better.” Film at 11.

Photos from Old San Juan – Click Here

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