Category Archives: Music

The Holiday Season in Puerto Rico 2019

The holidays are in full swing here in Puerto Rico this year. The festivities are on fire and it seems that every other day we have one party or another to attend. It has been so much fun! Thanksgiving with our neighbors, birthday parties, cookie exchanges, encendidos, parrandas, school parties and more. It has been non-stop. It is so true that Puerto Rico knows how to party and the winter Christmas season is the best for that!

   

When we haven’t been out having fun, we’ve been trying to take advantage of the extra time we have with Aeden in daycare and the fact that it has been so much cooler in order to expand the gardens. We recently planted over 35 new cultivars of heliconias and are so excited to see them grow! The cabana has been steadily booked with guests and so that keeps us busy with maintenance, tours and turnover. It’s been a very fufiling time in our lives. I’ve been trying to make more videos in order to capture the essence of life these days, sort of “vlog” style if you’d like to watch some other things that we’ve been up to. Here’s our channel: LIFETRANSPLANET YOUTUBE


Christmas Fun


Primer Cumpleanos for friend Nico’s Birthday Party


Holiday fun. At the beach, with a Norfolk pine (a tropical Christmas tree!) and surfer statue has been Santa-fied


Winter is the best time for a swim!


Or just visit the beach


There was a fun party at the lighthouse


We went out to the encendido in the Rincon Plaza – the best orchestra in Puerto Rico (Orquesta Sinfónica)!


Cows and geckos- normal sights


Had a fun stop at Tres Sirenas Inn


And an awesome farm called “Finca Brutal”



Thanksgiving with our neighbors was a lot of fun!


The beauty of this place still astounds me


More fun out and about



Some new additions to the garden and harvests


Preparing for a flower delivery and working outside in December!


Check out this GIANT heliconia called “Beefsteak” or Mariae. With our new friend Carlos

It’s been an active period of growth, literally, while we enjoy the holidays as well. We hope yours are going well also! Felicidades.

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Colorado Trip: Greeley Stampede, Estes Park, Family Visit

We are visiting Colorado for the first time in nearly 6 years! We have a lot of things we wanted to do while we were here including visiting our properties, family (some hadn’t yet met Aeden) and Colorado. So many memories have come up and it is strange to see if from Puerto Rico eyes. I have definitely changed, or been changed by my time in Puerto Rico. I will get into more about our comparisons/contrasts later, but for now, here’s a little of what we’ve been up to. It’s the 4th of July in Colorado, a more “American” style vacation there couldn’t be. BBQs, ice cream, flags and fireworks, big trucks and overly polite people calling me a “gal” abound. It’s funny how easily we stepped back in. Some things have changed, but more have stayed the same.


Hasta Pronto, Puerto Rico! Taking a Cape Air Flight. Aeden’s first!

Rincon from the air


Colorado weather is so nice this time of year!


Aeden travels well even though he is teething and developed his first cold. A baby certainly complicates things!


Greeley Stampede is as fun as ever. We walked around the carnival a bit and saw REO Speedwagon!


Fun spending time with old friends like Lorena and Kelly

 


REO Speedwagon was fun even if I only knew 3 songs haha

S

Family and Farmer’s Inn, it’s a tradition!


I had forgotten about squirrels! They’re so cute! (Puerto Rican “ardillas” are really mongoose!)


My 90+ year old grandma met her first GREAT grandbaby for the first time! 4 generations in this picture!


My brother met his only nephew too!


We went to Target!! haha


We visited the old houses we called home for a long time


So much food! I haven’t eaten steak in years! But we’re in cow country and not “lechon” anymore!


And there is just so much food in general it’s amazing!


Saw some bigfeet at the Dam Store


Pose like a tourist in Estes Park!


The mountains and drive were gorgeous! I do miss the mountains of CO!


Family in Estes Park


Fun at the Stanley Hotel -The inspiration for the movie The Shining

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Maricao Coffee Festival

We took a last minute trip up the mountains to the Maricao Coffee Festival (Fiesta del Acabe de Cafe). Along the way we stopped for the beautiful vistas and some wild plants. We had gone up in years past and things seemed to have been revived since Maria. It’s about an hour drive from Rincon along very curvy roads. We took longer because we made several stops.


Me and Aeden at the Festival


Mountain views along the way


Lots of people


Some info on coffee types and growth


Along the way we met this friendly man who wanted to meet Aeden


He had on a shirt from the coffee festival 30 years ago!


People selling bags of local oranges


Kids playing the traditional game of “gallitos” or little roosters with the seeds of the Algarrobos tree. They hit the seeds at each other until one of them breaks. Sort of a pre-cock fight game for children in the countryside


Family fun!


Vendors selling traditional art


Bomba music and dancing


Beautiful flowers


It’s always a nice change of pace to go up into the mountains of Puerto Rico!


We stopped and briefly checked out Hacienda Juanita, an old restored hacienda turned resort

Overall it was a fun little day trip and we recommend you check out the local festivals if you come to Puerto Rico!

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Ponce Carnaval -The Sardine’s Funeral

From the from Alcaldia

Imagine a mix of Mardi Gras, Halloween, Puerto Rican traditional music and dancing, high school marching bands all with a dose of Burning Man and surrealism. What do you have? The Sardine’s Funeral on the last night of Carnaval in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

B C Ponce
At the historic Parque de Bombas in Ponce

We headed down to Ponce on Tuesday afternoon (the day before Lent) with very little expectations. We heard something about the burial of the sardine. What does that even mean? Well, as we came to learn it is a raucous and very strange celebration mocking death and mourning the end of Carnaval. It is held in the historic town plaza of Ponce and there are lots of other fun things including a bomba dancing and singing show. This year it was a pretty quiet night, but the outlandish festivities made up for the low numbers.

Dancing with the bombas
With the young bomba dancers

There are also lots of vejigantes (folkloric scary figures to scare away the demons) walking around and occasionally startling people. In modern times a lot of them wore Halloween masks along with the traditional robes and cow bladders that they would beat. We found a few deflated bladders left around. It was rather weird!

Britton bladder
Britton with a deflated cow bladder -Yuck!

More scary clownsWith some of the scary clown/vejigantes

Scary clowns
More strange fun…note the balloon looking bladders they are carrying

Scary costumes
With a werewolf vejigante

It wasn’t until the funeral procession for the sardine that we saw some of the more traditional masks.

Sardines Funeral
Here you can see the sardine in the casket as well as some of the vejigantes

Cassie and the procession
Me and the funeral procession

Carrying the casket
Lifting and then carrying the casket onto the stage

Death welcoming
Death and a marching band

Strange parade cats
Crazy cat man? Plus creepy dolls…

The whole parade itself was a peculiar event, but the sardine and the wailing mourners took the cake. When they brought the sardine up on stage, they said a eulogy for all sorts of silly things including broken cell phones and flat tires. Then they lit a hang-man on fire in effigy. The whole thing was bizarre but they definitely put the “fun” in funeral.  

We ended the night overlooking the entire scene from high atop a luxury hotel building. We then danced our way out listening to the final band playing “Hot, Hot, Hot” and limboed lower laughing all the way. I would highly recommend the Ponce Carnaval that lasts 5-7 days before Lent every year. And for the strangest event ever, come the night of the Sardine’s funeral!

RIP SardinaRIP La Sardina!

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