Page 58 - Travel Leisure - USA (February 2020)

VIVA VIEQUES

Though battered by Hurricane Maria, this rugged island off
mainland Puerto Rico has found a renewed sense of purpose
in the process of recovery. SARA B. FRANKLIN discovers
what has been lost—and what is flourishing once again.

SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT of Sylvia De Marco’s jeep
I as we wound uphill on a road flanked by untamed
foliage. It was fall of 2019, and I had just arrived on
Vieques after a short but breathtaking flight from San Juan.
De Marco, a designer and the proprietor of Dreamcatcher, a
hotel on the main island, acted as my unofficial guide.
She had recently taken over what was left of a scrappy,
50- year- old retreat in the Vieques hills—leveled during the
hurricane—and rebuilt it as La Finca Victoria (lafinca.com;
doubles from $139), which opened last February for its
inaugural season.
“The word hurricane comes from the indigenous Taino
word hurakán, ‘god of the storm,’ ” De Marco told me.
Though the memory of Maria was fresh, she dispelled the
notion that disasters are in any way novel to Vieques. “This
island has survived so many waves of colonialism,” she
explained, veering to avoid one of the many horses that run

Horseback
riding at
Esperanza
Beach, on
Vieques.