Daily Archives: February 9, 2009

Puerto Rican Jibaro Life

This has been such an adventure. Its been filled with drama, suspense, action and relaxation all mixed in together.

On Saturday night we tried to go out salsa dancing. A snap right? Wrong. We went to Mayaguez because it is the biggest city on the west coast, but no one knew of any salsa clubs, or dance clubs in general. So, instead we went to the Holiday Inn and Tropical Casino and lost $17 dollars on roulette and slots (big spenders I know!), and then went to the Mayaguez mall to walk around. Later that evening we watched a movie called “Taken”. It was fun and with subtitles in Spanish. Unfortunately for me when the villain Russians would talk, the subtitles were in Spanish and I didn’t know what was going on unless I asked Cassie to translate them.

We stayed at home yesterday instead of going boating. I think since we pulled back from the deal Alwilda didn’t want to bother her daughter Lilly to take us boating. So we hung out and just slept in the hammock, read and ate a bit of food. Mid-day we started to hear some noise from across the bridge. Sounded like a party?

Cassie being the adventerous type wanted to go and check it out. So after some coaxing she talked me into it. I knew that I wouldn’t understand much of what was said, but hey…why not?

We (Cassie) talked to some of the local folks (who they call jibaros or country people). Apparently every Sunday they have this fair right at the bottom of the bridge. We were wondering what this little shack was used for…well…its for selling beer! This is where the locals come to sell their horses, cars and whatever else might be around. They kept running the horses up and down the street. It was kind of cool, I could imagine that this was most likely going on for 100 years or more? Of course without the cars; but the horses and beer were most likely present. We went for a walk out on the road and found some ‘morir y vivir’ (dying and living plants). These are so fricken cool! I didn’t know plants could do this. When you touch them they shrivel up as if they are dying, then come back a few minutes later. Its some kind of defense mechanism so they dont get eaten.

We have decided to spend the few remaining days of our vacation on the beach and eating good food. We drove into Rincon. We stopped in at the Tamboo Tavern for lunch. Cassie didn’t like her fish wrap too much, but I enjoyed mine and the rest of hers 😉 Then we went to the beach and just laid there for a few hours. It was sunny with a sprinkle of rain. It felt really good.

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