My stomach leapt as the compact rental car climbed higher along a road that would have been wide enough had it been a one-lane street. It wasn’t. There were no guardrails in most spots, and in others rickety posts supported wires that looked as if they would snap upon impact.

I stared in disbelief at a pair of preteens riding their bicycles back and forth on a 20 foot-(6 meters)-long stretch of flat road. I reflected on how brave a child would have to be to learn to ride a bike up there, high in the Cordillera Central mountains outside Ponce, Puerto Rico.

“I can’t believe we found this!” my father exclaimed. “The last time I was up here I was 6 years old. I was terrified!” I could see why. Dad had been describing the horrors of this road all my life, and I had assumed the sharpness of the curves and steepness of the hills had been magnified in the retelling over the years. It was every bit as bad as he remembered.

Visitors enjoy the serenity of the chapel in Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe.

We had taken a wrong turn and wound up on this road twisting into the mountains, but even after we realized we were going the wrong way we continued. Dad had this maniacal grin on his face and I recognized the telltale signs of a man in the grip of a challenge.

I put on a brave face and attempted to admire the lush island greenery, every so often letting out a squeal or gasp as the road dropped suddenly or made a hairpin turn. 

I finally had enough when the road headed straight up in the air — or so it seemed. I could hear our little car’s engine straining and I pictured it rolling backward down the hill and off the side of the mountain, arcing through the air like the final image in an action movie chase scene.

I insisted my father turn around in the next somewhat flat driveway that we found. We retraced our path back to the highway, with Dad grumbling that he could have made it to the top. Throughout the entire ride my 7-year-old and 4-year-old sat calmly in the back, playing games and looking up occasionally when I urged them to enjoy the scenery. 

My father was excited to be returning to Ponce, the city of his birth, for five entire days. It was the longest he'd spent there since his family had moved to New York City over 50 years before. I was happy my children would be connecting to their grandfather and I'd be experiencing firsthand a place I'd heard about since I was a girl.

The night we arrived we took a stroll around Ponce’s plaza, the heart of the city today just as it was when my father was a child. Dad marveled at how little it had changed and pointed out the shoe store where he'd gotten his first pair of school shoes. We stopped for pictures at the brightly colored Parque de Bombas, a building that once served as the town’s firehouse but is now a tourist attraction.

We continued around the square to Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Guadalupe, checked out the Mass schedule for the next day, then continued on to the magnificent water fountain at the center of the square. The fountain is flanked by lions in honor of Ponce de León, Ponce’s namesake and the first governor of Puerto Rico. We ended up across the street from the plaza at a tiny ice cream shop serving exotic flavors such as guava and tamarind in addition to the predictable chocolate.

The next morning, Dad, the kids and I walked to the cathedral for Mass, just as my father had every Sunday of his youth. The four of us filed in, our shoes tapping on the black and white marble floor, and slid into an empty pew. The cathedral reminded me of an elderly woman who is still so pretty that you know she must have been extraordinarily beautiful in her youth. 

The paint was peeling in places and many of the statues and ornaments were covered in plastic while repairs were made on one side of the church, but we could guess at the magnificence of the hidden statues from the ones that remained visible.