OMG- The Gay Pride Parade of San Juan

With short notice, we found out that the Puerto Rican Gay Pride Parade was scheduled for Sunday, June 3rd.  Our Photo MeetUp Group thought it was to start at 9AM.

That said, I did some last minute research only to discover there was almost NO information about the upcoming event.  Most sites simply re-stated what was already known.. that something would happen on Sunday morning.

There was no official website as far as I could tell.  Basically, it’s scheduled for the first Sunday of June each year.

Covering the Gay side of life in Puerto Rico was something I wanted to check out from the beginning so this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

I’ve been to one gay bar in my entire life-  Mad Myrna’s in Anchorage on 5th Avenue.  I hardly got through the door before someone pinched my butt.  Then there was the floor show at Finocchio’s in San Francisco… It was very, very impressive, but it’s been closed since 1999.

That was so long ago… it feels like another lifetime.

Condado, Hotel Row

Heading out at 7:30AM, the traffic was pretty light.  It took an 1:15 to make it into Condado and find a place to park.

The weather was near perfect for San Juan… hot and blustery, but not too humid.  Skies were clear with only the occasional cloud.

We connected with a few of the Photo MeetUp folks near the Ashford Avenue Causeway.  The causeway had been under renovation for ever and was finally done.  Wide pedestrian walkways line either side of the low bridge now.

A great place to shoot joggers as they run by.

We were in Condado for about an hour when we got the news that the parade would not start until noonish.  So we decide to check out Condado and present what we found.

There are several up-scale hotels along this stretch of Ashford Avenue including the newly re-finished Vanderbilt.  We parked about halfway between it and the Ashford causeway.  This gave us plenty of room to pick a good spot to shoot the parade from.

Ventana Park

Since we had time to kill, our little group made it up Ashford Avenue to Park La Ventana al Mar.  There is public access to the beach via this park.. it features a large fountain with reflection pool, a cool abstract statue and a concrete boardwalk along part of the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a small open pavilion on the corner of the broadwalk where an informal wedding was being conducted.

The part of the park that runs next to Ashford Avenue has a large grassy open area… it was filled with vendor tents and businesses doing small presentations for the public.

It had a very carnival like atmosphere.

There are public restrooms near by as well.  Obviously, this park is very popular and very busy.  So much so that we decided to pick a spot about a block back, to shoot the parade.  This put us closer to where the car was parked and almost opposite a nifty little coffee shop. Since we still had a couple hours to kill, we stopped in to check it out.

Picachos was great!

I recommend it to anyone finding themselves along this stretch of Ashford Avenue.

They serve every kind of coffee you could want.. hot or chilled, made from 100% Puerto Rican grown coffee.   They also serve fresh made fruit smoothies with Acai berry.

I had a regular Latte and me First Mate had a Mocha.  They were most tasty.  The tables all have views of Ashford Avenue so it was easy to keep tabs on what was going on outside.

I even came back an hour later and scored one of their 12 oz. Acai smoothies… It really hit the spot.

They also have a nice display of hand crafted ceramics and examples of traditional Puerto Rican coffee making gear.

While waiting at the covered bus stop for the parade to start, I spied me old pirate buddy, Gerald Cramer from across the street.  I had featured him in the Post about the HMS Bounty when it was anchored in Old San Juan.  He was busy chatting it up with a few visitors.  He has the gift of gab, that’s for sure!  I like to think of Gerald as an impromptu ambassador to Old San Juan, though he was not dressed in his pirate outfit today.  We said our hellos and then he made his way up the street to where the Parade would start.

Nice guy!

Then there were the two cute babes on Segways, dressed in their matching PR Tourism Company outfits.  They were busy fielding any questions anyone had about the day’s events.  I thought that was a pretty cool idea… to bring the tourism office to the public.

They both spoke perfect English.

A Parade Worth Shooting

At this point, I made a mad dash back to the car for my folding step stool and I’m glad I did.  It gave me just the right amount of elevation to shoot over the heads of folks walking by.  It also allowed me to get the attention of the parade participants as they passed us.  It worked great!

The parade finally started at just before 1PM.

Though there were lots of Cops about, it did not seem as well organized as the Carnival in Ponce.  In fairness to the Cops, the entire parade passed us by in about 20 minutes.   It was fun while it lasted, but it did seen brief.

If felt more like a public participation thing than a parade.

Even though it was short lived, we got lots of good shots.  The folks from the Photo MeetUp Group also scored some great images too.

One surprise was the amount of family support for the Gay Community.

Lots of folks sported signs saying just that.  The other surprise was the number of political parties represented.  Even the Socialist Party was out, marching with a banner.  Folks from all walks of life turned out to march in the parade… some quite serious, some simply having a great time.   I also thought there would be more musicians than there were.

The Parade started at the Parque del Indio, made it’s way past Park La Ventana al Mar, then on down Ashford Avenue and across the causeway to the Luis Muñoz Rivera Park via Avenue Muñoz Rivera.  More post parade events were scheduled for the other park, but we were quite ‘roasted’ by then, so we did not stick around.

One other thing worth mentioning- Near the Picacho Coffee shop was an Asian grocery store.  It opened just as the parade was winding down.   This is the first Asian store I’ve seen since I got to PR… so I had to check it out.  Stores like this are known for their bizarre produce so I asked if he had any fresh Lychee… I was in luck!  Though it was $9 a pound, I got $10 bucks worth which worked out to 20 pieces of raw fruit.  They were extremely juicy and extremely sweet.

Needless to say, all 20 seeds are now in starter trays.  We will see if refrigeration hurts seed germination or not.

These Lychee came from Jayuya.. no surprise there.

The outside skin turns a rusty brown from being refrigerated, but that has absolutely no effect on the fruit.  They were delicious.

Yep!  It was another fantastic day to be in Puerto Rico.

There was not near enough room in this story to include all the shots I got.  You can see the others and much larger ones too, over on Roberto’s Puerto Rico Facebook Page.

OK… my story on Dorado is up next!  Sorry for the delay.