JOHNNY DEPP loves to surf, Ramses tells me over a bottle of ice-cold Medalla beer at the Tamboo Tavern beach bar.

"It's funny when Benicio Del Toro comes here though (Depp's co-star in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and the most successful Puerto Rican actor in Hollywood). He likes to drink beer and chat to the prettiest girls!"

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Catching waves with Hollywood legends is all in a day's work for Ramses, the impossibly handsome instructor who has won the national surfing competition four times.

Tamboo Beside the Pointe, with its wide wooden deck jutting out over the white sand beach at Rincon on Puerto Rico's west coast, is a favourite hangout for both surfers and celebrities, who come here to see its "bellos atardeceres", or beautiful sunsets.

Rincon has been attracting surfers to its impeccable waves since the late Sixties when the world championship was held here. Now it's not just beach bums who flock to one of the largest Caribbean islands.

Puerto Rico is a self-governing territory of the US and bizarrely its citizens are able to fight in the US military but aren't able to vote.

The US took Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898 after a short war. Over the subsequent century the island became a popular American holiday destination.

With direct British Airways flights from London launched in March, UK tourists are beginning to discover its charms too. The majority of locals I talk to seem happy with Puerto Rico's halfway-house political situation, despite President Barack Obama's visit in June prompting a protest in the capital San Juan.

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Marchers demanded independence while "freedom" flags of green and white outnumbered the star-spangled banners. It's a huge change from the Puerto Rico of the late Fifties, then considered a backwater for waifs and strays from mainland America and soon to be brought back to life in Depp's latest movie The Rum Diary.

Based on a "lost" novel by the late Hunter S Thompson of Fear And Loathing fame, the film is a high-octane adventure story set in the Fifties. It stars Depp as a down-at-heel journalist attempting (and failing) to stay out of trouble on an island that only seems to drag him down further into a morass of women, sunburn and hard liquor.

After my beer at Tamboo I am dropped off at The Horned Dorset Primavera, a multi-award winning Relais & Ch¢teaux property of neo-colonial duplex suites with private plunge pools, four-poster beds and views of the Mona Passage. Owned by Austrian Wilhelm Sack, who has lived on the island for 20 years, the hotel has attracted the likes of Madonna and Hillary Clinton.

The hotel's Restaurant Aaron looks like a throwback to the days of Spanish rule, with candlelit tables, mosaictiled walls and a menu blending American and Spanish influences.

Dishes include saut©ed sweet breads with bacon and eggs and Mofongo, a local speciality of garlicky mashed plantain, seasoned and filled with anything from lobster to shrimp to steak, all served in a traditional large wooden bowl called a pilon.

The next day I take the two-hour drive to San Juan with its old town dominated by two huge sandstone forts, built to protect one of the most perfectly preserved examples of Spanish colonialism in the Americas.

Both forts, the San Crist³bal and the San Felipe del Morro, offer superb ocean views while the latter also has a network of underground tunnels, dungeons, barracks and vaults.

Heading into the old town I stroll down endless alleys lined by pastel-coloured buildings with wrought-iron balconies, sagging telegraph wires, marble-floored courtyards and searing hot cobbles that manage to partially melt the soles of my flip-flops.

Puerto Rico may be American but in name only. In every other respect, language, food and architecture, this is the quintessence of old-world Spanish Caribbean.

Musically however Reggaeton has replaced salsa as the beat that Puerto Ricans dance to these days. It's this 24-hour throbbing, languid rhythm that booms through speakers in the booze shacks serving rum punch and behind the fried plantain stands.

Both rub cheek-by-jowl with high-end fashion stores and boutique craft emporiums catering for the hundreds of cruise ship passengers who disembark for a few hours throughout the summer.

As the temperature rises to nearly 40C, with high humidity making it feel much hotter, locals resort to bizarre methods to keep cool. Be sure to look out for the wizened "loco local" who drives around town in a Fifties red Cadillac with dancing dolls gyrating out of the windows to a non-stop soundtrack of Petula Clark's hit song Downtown.

It was moments like this that made me seek sanctuary in the Hotel El Convento, a former nunnery where rooms are clustered around a courtyard with tumbling water features and an all-day bar.

The perfect place to recline with a rum punch until the sun begins to set, it's easy to see why Depp and his co-stars spent so many weeks over schedule filming here. Even for the most workaholic of Hollywood stars, it's inevitable that once you've arrived in this beguiling corner of the Caribbean, where Spain meets America, the pace slows to the speed of just one more shot of liquor slowly filling a frosted glass.

THE KNOWLEDGE
British Airways (0844 493 0758/www.ba.com) offers four nights at the four-star Rio Mar Beach Resort and Spa in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from £709pp (two sharing), room only. Price includes return BA flights from Gatwick to Puerto Rico for selected departures in December and January. The Horned Dorset Primavera, Rincon (www.horneddorset.com) offers suites from £371 per night (two sharing), room only. Hotel El Convento, San Juan (www.elconvento.com) offers doubles from £112 per night (two sharing), room only. Puerto Rico Tourism Company: www.seepuertorico.com
The Rum Diary is released on Friday.