The first thing I will say about San Juan and Puerto Rico in general was that my conceptions of poverty there were all wrong. I had pictured Puerto Rico as a "third world" country, or at least very impoverished. What I saw however was nothing like that. In fact I honestly saw very little evidence of what I had expected. For the most part wherever I went in San Juan or anywhere all the way west to Rincon, south to Boqueron, back east thru Ponce then back north across the mountains , I saw what I would consider middle class living. After being lucky enough to lose my Maui Jim sunglasses during my second day I made my way to the Mall of America in San Juan, which was full of high class stores so say the least. There was a Sunglass Hut where I was able to drop $200 on a new pair to replace the ones I had lost (the lost ones were basically brand new). In the evenings at San Juan I did a fair bit of walking around the area of my hotel, some on the beach, some in commercial areas, some in residential. Not once was I harrassed, never got asked for anything. Basically I was ignored. The few conversations I had were initiated by me and everyone I talked to was friendly, although some had little or no english.
The biggest negative for me all over the country but especially in San Juan was the terrible drivers, and lack of courtesy by them. I am only slightly exaggerating when I say probably half the vehicles on the road had at least one "war wound" on it. Signal lights are apparently not installed on vehicles there. I never witnessed any accidents but saw a several near misses. I can honestly say I was relieved at the end of my trip to drop off my rental car with no damage.
As I left San Juan on the mega lane superspeedway I saw the results of a recent accident. There was a person lying on the side of the freeway, his motorbike laying in pieces. The guy wasn't dead but he was obviously suffering. As I continued to head west the freeway eventually got down to 2 lanes each way but the traffic was still pretty thick. After about an hour I pulled off into a small mall area with a few fast food outlets. As much as I was hungry it was more to de-stress than anything else. Speaking of fast food, never in my life have I saw so many fast food restaurants concentrated like this. Burger Slops one after another. Not my style.
It was a solid 2 hours plus driving before I found what I was pretty sure the exit to the surf town of Rincon. I ended up getting slightly lost in Aguada before finally seeing a road sign signalling Rincon that way!! Once again I found out I was wrong about one of my thoughts. I had read and understood Rincon was a very small village with not much going on except for the beach and surfers hanging out. In fact Rincon was very spread out with narrow winding roads in all directions, as well as a fairly long main drag running parallel to the beach.
More on Rincon later.
A few random pictures of San Juan and my way west.....

Thanks Tim for your pics and insight on PR...I'm going to old San Juan for 2 nites and then on to Vieques island for 5 nites with my mom (who has never been to the caribbean) in May..Ive only been to PR once for day on a cruise ship stop like, maybe 20 yrs ago-I still can remember the beautiful ,old world architecture..

Would love to hang in Rincon..please post more..

San Juan was by far the largest caribbean city I have ever been to. I don't know the population but would guess around one million when the surrounding areas are included. I would much prefer driving in Jamaica than San Juan any day. One morning while driving along the freeway at 5:30am a car raced by me travelling at least 100mph, then shortly after a police car but he was only doing about 80 so I don't think he was chasing the speeder. I don't recall seeing any vehicles being pulled over in San Juan but while driving along the south coast I saw several vehicles pulled over by highway patrol.
It took me a day or 2 to clue in on some of the highway signs, and how to read the exit numbers. Another oddity was that the speed limits are posted in miles per hour but the distance signs are in kilometers. Plus most of the police car have their blue lights flashing all the time.
Something else I am not accustomed to were the constant toll booths along the highway. I probably went thru a dozen in my travels.