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Our Many Weeks of Severe Lockdown Life in Puerto Rico

Home Life on a Flower Farm

Life has sort of become a blur with every day bending itself into the next in a Groundhog Day sort of way. Without a purpose or reason for being it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish much sense in anything. For seven whole weeks everything in our life was on hold and we hardly saw another soul. Since we live way out in the jungle we don’t even get much interaction with neighbors.

Planting coconuts behind our house in the jungle

The lockdown in Puerto Rico has been especially harsh as the official rules were that we couldn’t have visitors even in our own house and couldn’t visit anyone. We weren’t supposed to leave the house even for walks (not even those with pets)! Of course I doubt anyone actually followed the letter of the law when it is that strict, but it does wear on you mentally to always be looking over our shoulder to see if there are police around. This is so different from how laid back Puerto Rico normally is which why it was all the more shocking. We were stopped various times by the police for very innocuous things like going to the hardware store and stopping and letting Aeden run around while we ate take out food (with no one else around).

A sad lonely Easter at home

For a while the lockdown had alternating license plates (odds could leave one day, evens another) and it was really hard because it backed up everything and the lines to the grocery stores went on for 3 plus hours. Then Easter weekend was the worst. They shut down everything including grocery stores for three whole days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and patrolled heavily; I assume because they anticipated people would be celebrating the holiday. But what it did was magnify the backup for a couple of weeks before and after. It was so hard to get anything that we even ran out of diapers and mostly just ate the eggs and fruit of our farm. Suffice it to say, the lockdown has been super nuts here in Puerto Rico.

He’s getting so big and active!

This last week, on Week 8 (after 50 days of locking down), we were finally given the ok by the Governor to go out for personal reasons like walking, hiking, exercise, etc. And a huge sigh of relief was felt even by the most devout hardline lockdown people (because even THEY don’t want to wait in line with potentially infected people for 3 hours in the hot sun)! Access to the sand on the beach and the water is still not officially allowed though we can look at it and walk nearby. They even stepped up enforcement and started arresting surfers! So crazy. But we have other places to go than just the beach. We love waterfalls so that helps that we know of a lot of “secret” spots to hike and explore. I feel much better just knowing that we have a little freedom and can leave our own house without quite as much authoritarian strain.

A favorite spot: Salto de la Encantada in Anasco

We have been ok through this. It has certainly added a lot of stress and strife to our life, but we are overall in much better shape than many people. We have taken the time to push further on the farm and do some deep cleaning and maintenance projects that we put off.

Cleaning up an area up top

Unfortunately Britton was involved in a pretty serious car accident (no one else was injured thankfully when he was run off the road) and so we have also been dealing with the aftermath of that which is more complicated because of all the government offices being closed and he definitely didn’t want any medical care during this time even though he probably should have. We found a replacement car, so we are doing ok on that front though. Oh, the adventures never truly end do they?! haha

Car crash! Oh no!

Waiting in line for a marbete (registration sticker) for the new car

It has been economically difficult for us and all of Puerto Rico too as tourism came to an abrupt stop. Thankfully this week we received our economic relief check, but I know a lot of Puerto Ricans who don’t file Federal are still waiting for theirs and hoping their small businesses will survive this devastating time.

Double masked employee while working fast food

Puerto Rico’s numbers remain pretty stable and that is good news as we slowly begin to open up a little. We are now required to wear masks pretty much anywhere in public which I am starting to get used to.

Masked biker/walker

We can now go to hardware stores and car shops and laundromats again which were initially closed. When the government offices reopen we will be able to register the title of our new car. We really miss day care, but for some reason Puerto Rico considers education the last phase to open (even though children are the lowest risk and high need sector). And tourism will probably also be slow to build up. But Poco a poco we return to something closer to “normal.” And at least for now we have some room to breathe.

We have moved most of our “daily life” updates into video form. Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube HERE and give us some feedback. We’d love to hear from you! Do you prefer the written form or the videos? Stay safe, stay optimistic! We’ll get through this. And you will too!

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Cueva Ventana and Much More in Utuado and Arecibo

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At the famous spot! Cueva Ventana

It’s hard to believe that we had never been to Cueva Ventana! It is one of the most famous landmarks in all of Puerto Rico and the famous window scene is used in many tourism campaigns and even things like bank website pan screens. But, I suppose there is a first time for everything. Apparently since 2013 it has become a truly “tourist” destination that is only accessible with a paid tour. This isn’t usually our style of adventure, but since it was the only way to see it and we really DID want to see it, we didn’t hesitate when a friend mentioned they were heading up and if we would like to join. We had to make sure it would work out with Aeden’s daycare, but once that was settled, we made arrangements with our friends who are visiting, Petra and Brian to take the trek up there and meet the larger group.

Ancient Taino petroglyphs in the cave are said to protect the entrances

Fun in the cave. It was light enough throughout most of it to take pretty good photos without flash

We had to wear safety helmets and the group was huge! Things we’re not used to!

The tour was fun and the caves were super neat, but I yearned for the days before the paid tour. It didn’t cost too much ($11 for PR residents with ID, $22 for non-residents), but it was just so slow and lumbering and very basic. The guide was pointing out things like snails on the trees and tarantula holes in the ground. Things that might be interesting to a visitor, but are daily sightings for us jungle dwellers. So we tried to make the most of the slow moving train taking pictures and looking for cool plants along the way. We found mamey, corazon, seeds that are often used in jewelry and other neat plants.

Lago Dos Bocas

I had researched the area before and found that Lago Dos Bocas is just a hop skip and a jump away. I wasn’t sure how it would be since it had been over a decade since we’d been there! When we arrived, it was obvious that it had not been fully repaired since Hurricane Maria and the ferry boats weren’t running. Apparently on the weekends there are private boats that will take you to a couple of restaurants on the lake, but they weren’t going. It was intermittently rainy, so we just enjoyed the lakeview for a bit and then headed down the road.

Pretty spot, the Lake of Two Mouths

Wouldn’t you stop if you saw this??!

While were were driving along, I spotted a mural that said “La Hamaca”. I had heard of La Hamaca Bridge in Adjuntas, but I didn’t think we were quite that far inland. Still, I encouraged us all to stop and check it out. Sure enough, it was another Hammock or suspension bridge crossing a river in Utuado!

Suspension Bridge La Hamaca Salto Abajo, Utuado

A fun little stop!

Shortly after this picture was taken my hat took sail and Britton had to wade out to get it haha

We had a nice meal of comida criolla by the river and then checked out downtown Utuado. It was an old colonial plaza with some cool architectureand a quiet vibe. There were still some areas cordoned off because of earthquake damage which surprised me this deep in the island’s interior.

Colorful Utuado

Finally as we were driving back down the curving back roads we passed the Caguana Ceremonial Park and stopped. My vague memory of this on our honeymoon is so different than what it looks like now. They didn’t even have the little grass replica huts, but they did have the large ceremonial roads and fields and some very impressive huge ceiba trees as well as achiote/annato trees which was used, among other things, as a skin paint for the Tainos. It was beautiful and vast, but the museum was closed, so there wasn’t much else to see. But for $3 it was worth a stop to support them in hopefully fully opening up again. .

We made it back just in the nick of time to pick up Aeden. It was a wonderful day trip exploration of the interior of the island.

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Valentine’s Day Adventure

Lares Adventure to Haunted La Rambla and Cafe Lareño

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This week for our adventure we headed to Lares. I had heard about a beautiful place that I just had to check out: La Rambla, also known as The Levy Mansion. There are so many legends and stories about this place, but some consensus says that it was at one point in time going to be a hotel/casino, but then became the island’s first bottled water company because of the sweet spring water that came from a blessed source: La Santa Rosa spring. But there is much more to this story, from a wonderful start to complete abandonment. What happened exactly is unclear, but there are some theories including the violent death of a beloved daughter.

At the Famous Original Lares Heladeria

We started our journey traveling with our friend Anthony from Rincon to the Lares Plaza where we stopped in at the Famous Lares Heladeria. It had been MANY years since we stopped in there, but not a whole lot had changed except, that a copy-cat shop opened up just a few doors down selling the strange concoction (rice and bean, garlic, sausage flavor among others) ice creams as well!

With friends at the new El Grito Heladeria also

Fun with friends in Lares!

Then we rambled on down to La Rambla. Even though it is marked as “No Trespassing” we asked around downtown and they said there was a boquete in the fence that everyone uses and no one cares as long as you are respectful of the area. So we walked from downtown a couple of blocks and spotted the beautiful mansion from the road.

Details of the house

The mansion and grounds were themselves amazing, but the area over the spring was something altogether magical! It was a great place for a photoshoot and I am glad I brought along a skirt to add a little elegance to the photos and to honor what an amazing place it is!

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(these two awesome photos above thanks to Anthony Perez)

Finally afterward, we met up with more friends drove up the hills and checked out the Cafe Lareño factory. It was not officially open to customers, but we met the very nice owner, Don Luis Alcover who showed us around and let us eat and drink a picnic lunch at his place. It was very interesting to see that much of the coffee doesn’t come from Puerto Rico, but rather Mexico! It is depulped, roasted, ground and packaged in Puerto Rico mainly. There were some premium bags of purely Puerto Rican coffee, but not many. I hope that the Puerto Rican coffee industry is able to get stronger and stronger over time.

With my friend Berkley and the owner of Cafe Lareño, Luis Alcover