A Passo Fino horse looked up to our orange car from the grey asphalt but, like a perfect Viequense, didn't seem to be in much of a
hurry. As the bright jeep idled at the rural intersection, the six-foot tall horse closed his eyes licked
the grass and seemed to weigh its options. On the right hand, it had a familiar
patch of perfectly warmed asphalt; on the other side, a pretty large colored machine threatened disturbance of pe
ace.
In the mind of this beautiful horse, the only appropriate response to imminent disturbance seemed to be a profound, abiding Vieques indifference.
This was not a demonstration of razor-sharp survival instincts you see on the nature shows, the quick "fight or flight" reaction destined to save a species. The brown quadruped weighed its options with all the urgency of an overweight cabbie on a smoking break.
The classic confrontation of nature versus machine lasted about 7 seconds, with the frill-backed animal eventually yielding the roadway. With a roll of the eyes and the typical 'Vieques' lethargic waddle, the Passo Fino disappeared into the roadside mesquite thicket where it probably stashed its pack of fresh weed.
On this minuscule Puerto Rican island of Vieques, the roadside flora and fauna are constant natural reminders of the island's super slow, low beat or steady tempo. Wild horses graze for hours in the shade of sunbay and other beachside coconut palms. Thin Brahma cattle plod between pastures on the paved roads, refusing to dignify honking foreign automobiles with a glance. In the beachside town of Esperanza, few dogs roam freely but never bother to chase or bark at passing traffic. Instead, they watch the typical Vieques mud-splattered trucks amble past, looking bleary-eyed and sluggish.
Modern Vieques feels definitely like a border town but also as an emerging, paradisaical, calm tourist destination. For years Vieques managed to keep a low-key image, the island, or Isla Nena De Vieques, was known mostly to veteran Caribbean travelers and others willing to keep 'the secret'. But the last few years, glossy shiny international travel magazines, newspapers and TV networks have lavished a lot of attention on Vieques, cooing over its pristine, secluded sugar like white-sand beaches and proclaiming the island to be the season's "undiscovered last treasure of the Caribbean".
The timing of the attention is no real surprise. Vieques officially entered the tourist spotlight on May 1, 2003, when the Navy, the island's largest landowner, withdrew from its holdings and turned over control to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. This sudden power shift transformed nearly 80 percent of Vieques from a limited-access military enclave to the Caribbean's largest wildlife refuge.
