Tourists Seeking 'Despacito' Discover Puerto Rico's La Perla

SAN JUAN, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jul, 2017 ) : Something unusual is happening in La Perla, a poor barrio clinging to a steep hillside between Old San Juan and the sea where the video for the pop hit "Despacito" was filmed.

"The gringos are coming!" Outsiders were afraid to venture in before, but since Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's megahit, tourists from all over the world are descending on the narrow streets that wind among La Perla's brightly colored houses.

"Despacito?" they inquire. And the barrio's residents obligingly point out the locations where the video was filmed: the rocks facing the sea where Fonsi sings the refrain, the sea wall where ex-Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera strolls, the little plaza where men play dominoes -- the tables and chairs just as they were in the video.

With the video on the verge of becoming the most watched on YouTube (2.

9 billion visits since January, fast approaching the 2.98 billion record held by Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again"), a barrio once burdened with a bad reputation is now a tourist hot spot.

"I totally came for the tourist video," said Jennifer Adams, a 28-year-old middle school teacher from North Carolina. "I've seen the music video many times and I knew where I needed to go, I got pictures, I tried to dance." As for Rivera's sexy walk by the sea, she laughed and said, "I tried." Her goal now is to learn the song's lyrics so she can sing it in karaoke.

Meanwhile, a Swedish woman took pictures of herself in front of Luis's rocks and a Moroccan tourist ambled along "Despacito coast" -- as the area around the sea wall has come to be known in tourist brochures.