Monday, July 4, 2022
Saturday, February 8, 2020
ANCHOVY LIFE: Winter Holidays in PR are a Culture Shock I am Loving! Jan 5 2020
In Many Parts of Puerto Rico the Christmas Season extends to Jan 6th, which is called 3 Kings Day, or The Epiphany, or Fiesta de Los Reyes Magos. Tree Lighting Festivals start as early as Thanksgiving. This year, because of the damaging earthquakes on Jan 6 and 7, as well as storms on Jan 11th, Christmas festivities in my little enclave, Boqueron, continued until almost the 20th of January. A local bar has had a Christmas Tree erected on it's roof all year, but only lit it on occassion in December and January. Here's a short video of a dog on the roof.
2 events I couldn't fit into my schedule this year were: La Cueva Iluminada (a cave in Vega Alta with a restaurant and garden built into it, which is charmingly illuminated over the holidays) and Hatillo's Festival de las Mascaras, which is a collection of groups wearing Masks in "parades" throughout the countryside & mostly ending up in the town square by dinner time. Masks are called Mascaras! I love languages!
&I love my Grandson combining 2 charachters in a costume for Easter of all things.
About 2 blocks from my house, is a tiny triangular park called Plaza Roberto Cofresi. In Dec, on a concrete platform about 4 feet off the ground, a nativity backdrop was erected. On it were performed many holiday festivals. Including an orchestra playing Jingle Bells in 85 degree heat!
This set remains on site as of Feb 10, 2020. Since the various celebrations of the Magi have finally ended, it has also been used for public announcements/presentations about Earthquake Safety and Tsunami Safety.
It was erected specifically for celebrations of the "Adoracion of the Reyes Magos de Boqueron". Also called The Epiphany, this event marks the parade of the three Kings/Magi who brought gifts from across the world for the newborn Jesus. In Puerto Rico, for many families, this is the big "gifting" event of the Christmas season. The celebrations include performances, processions and parades... PARADES not just at 7pm and 3pm, but also before sunrise!
After the performance at 7pm on Sat Jan 5, a procession began that involved very loud music, police escorts to protect against traffic, and lots of pick up trucks decorated with lights as well as a few horses and many pedestrians. It passed my house just about 9:45pm, but the music from my neighbors, as loud as any outdoor bar, continued until about 4:30 am.
Then at 5am, the entertainment started again, as the procession began coming down the street infront of my house.At that time, it was many more pedestrians and horses, Can you see the guys on horses here are in the costumes of the Magi?
In the pre-dawn procession, I think the only motorized vehicle was the one that carried the band. Thats my little 2door car parked in the driveway. Across the street one neighbor's house was all lit up as they were all there (and many visitors) to watch the parade. Under the street light on the right is a vacation Cabin rental complex. We're maybe 350 yards from the waters edge, so it's def a tourist town.
This video is of a terribly poor quality, but I include it because of the sounds.
This is a community event. Though there are tourists here, many of them are simply related to people who do live here all year round. And many of them grew up here.
A recent tourist, who's parents still live here, told me the land where my house is (it's pretty new) is part of the property where Freddie Prinze grew up. Apparently he was the hometown hero in the 70s.
pedestrian wise (but with much less traffic passing)
One of the unique parts of PR life, is the horse-owning and horse-riding culture. There are horseback riding clubs in every community, and the one in Cabo Rojo has an Epiphany Procession during daylight hours thru the Cabo Rojo Pueblo (remember, Pueblo is referring to the town of Cabo Rojo, as opposed to the municipality of CR which, like a 'county', has many Pueblos). It was a surprise to me, as I stumbled upon it while on an errand of curiosity to see if the Earthquake had caused any visible damage in town. (At that time, it had not).
Around noon, on Jan 6th, I turned a corner by a gas station where I was shocked to see multitudes of people on horseback. This was in front of a gas station where people were actually using the automated car wash stall to wash their horses! If only I'd been quick enough to get a picture of that. As I continued down the road I was arrested by many more horse/riders and took more pics and a decent video.. I'll put them on a new post. They're so interesting, to me.
I will also make a separate post about the earthquakes of Jan 2020. We're still having tremors and/or aftershocks, though they've been very small and I don't want to make too much drama out of them. The biggest amount of damage they've done is to the economy, by hurting the winter tourism from outside of PR, which is a very difficult statement to make, as it belies the tangible tragedies of the two deaths which occurred, and the thousands of people who've lost a safe roof over their heads.
 |
| He was fine! Despite the worriers like me, watching him. |
2 events I couldn't fit into my schedule this year were: La Cueva Iluminada (a cave in Vega Alta with a restaurant and garden built into it, which is charmingly illuminated over the holidays) and Hatillo's Festival de las Mascaras, which is a collection of groups wearing Masks in "parades" throughout the countryside & mostly ending up in the town square by dinner time. Masks are called Mascaras! I love languages!
&I love my Grandson combining 2 charachters in a costume for Easter of all things.
About 2 blocks from my house, is a tiny triangular park called Plaza Roberto Cofresi. In Dec, on a concrete platform about 4 feet off the ground, a nativity backdrop was erected. On it were performed many holiday festivals. Including an orchestra playing Jingle Bells in 85 degree heat!This set remains on site as of Feb 10, 2020. Since the various celebrations of the Magi have finally ended, it has also been used for public announcements/presentations about Earthquake Safety and Tsunami Safety.
After the performance at 7pm on Sat Jan 5, a procession began that involved very loud music, police escorts to protect against traffic, and lots of pick up trucks decorated with lights as well as a few horses and many pedestrians. It passed my house just about 9:45pm, but the music from my neighbors, as loud as any outdoor bar, continued until about 4:30 am.
In the pre-dawn procession, I think the only motorized vehicle was the one that carried the band. Thats my little 2door car parked in the driveway. Across the street one neighbor's house was all lit up as they were all there (and many visitors) to watch the parade. Under the street light on the right is a vacation Cabin rental complex. We're maybe 350 yards from the waters edge, so it's def a tourist town.This video is of a terribly poor quality, but I include it because of the sounds.
This is a community event. Though there are tourists here, many of them are simply related to people who do live here all year round. And many of them grew up here.
A recent tourist, who's parents still live here, told me the land where my house is (it's pretty new) is part of the property where Freddie Prinze grew up. Apparently he was the hometown hero in the 70s.
pedestrian wise (but with much less traffic passing)
One of the unique parts of PR life, is the horse-owning and horse-riding culture. There are horseback riding clubs in every community, and the one in Cabo Rojo has an Epiphany Procession during daylight hours thru the Cabo Rojo Pueblo (remember, Pueblo is referring to the town of Cabo Rojo, as opposed to the municipality of CR which, like a 'county', has many Pueblos). It was a surprise to me, as I stumbled upon it while on an errand of curiosity to see if the Earthquake had caused any visible damage in town. (At that time, it had not).
I will also make a separate post about the earthquakes of Jan 2020. We're still having tremors and/or aftershocks, though they've been very small and I don't want to make too much drama out of them. The biggest amount of damage they've done is to the economy, by hurting the winter tourism from outside of PR, which is a very difficult statement to make, as it belies the tangible tragedies of the two deaths which occurred, and the thousands of people who've lost a safe roof over their heads.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Monday, January 13, 2020
ANCHOVY LIFE: The Great Ice Adventure of Jan 9, 2020 Part 1.
An Ice Adventure in our Tropical Paradise.
Situation Miserable, But Not Serious
Day 3 with no power (after the Epiphany Earthquake): we'd stayed up late enjoying the less humid breezes of last evening with cold beers, so we were just getting going by noon. Caffeine withdrawal was making me almost as cranky as my DS' wifi withdrawal behavior. All of our electronics needed re-charging, and the day was just passing 80degrees with no breeze. Lucky there was a Starbucks just a ten mile drive north, in Mayaguez, and they had power!!!
We spent two hours there before I got restless. As DS was still involved in something online, I took a walk around the block to refresh myself. That block was much bigger than I'd thought and left me with humidity-intolerance. I came back into the cafe with an irrationally urgent desire to go jump into the ocean. A quick check with facebook showed our neighborhood was still without power (fans and a/c), thus we agreed to stop and get ice on the way home. We had no cooler in the car today so we decided it would be smarter to get the ice closer to home, in case traffic was slow. It was almost 4 pm, and we'd had two agreements in a row despite my weather weariness.
Driving south, towards more neighborhoods without power, we again observed the irony of people lining up at some gas stations while others stations seemingly had supplies and no customers. For instance, on the north side of the Mayaguez Mall, the Shell station had one car pumping gas, while on the south side of the mall, technically in Homigueros, there was a line of maybe 2 dozen cars creating traffic hazzards to get into a different gas station. Continuing south by way of Hwy 100, we saw more long lines at certain stations, while others also seemed to have just a few people pumping gas. This prompted us to discuss the demand for generator fuel.
We still had conflicting feelings about whether or not we should invest in a generator, but, in that car, driving south on 100 toward "home", we had another agreement: we would finally upgrade from our insulated shopping bag to a real cooler, right now. Though we hadn't opened the freezer since the power went out, we both admitted worrying about food safety as we approached the 60 hour mark without electricity. And we craved cold drinks.
We came to this agreement as we were wading through heavier-than-usual traffic congestion at the main shopping center, so we continued 2 more blocks to the Cabo Rojo Walgreens. I think I actually did Smack My Head when I realized there were no coolers left there. Still, I thought about the fact that Cabo Rojo proper had only been without power about 36 hours, and I decided to believe that meant there had to be more coolers available in more obscure locations. So we started wandering the unfamiliar territory of 'downtown' Cabo Rojo.
We struck out at several small stores, and the two hardware stores I was vaguely familiar with had closed just minutes before, at 5. We decided to brave the traffic and try the bigger stores in the shopping center on 100. Then I realized this was a chance to show off to DS what little I'd learned about the local neighborhood! Meandering thru small streets in a residential area, we pulled up to a baseball field where a few young people were playing Cricket in an overgrown field. Forty feet from the car was a pedestrian entrance to the backside of the shopping center! I grabbed a cart from the many that had been abandoned there and just glowed in a feeling of triumphant efficiency!
In this relatively huge grocery store i was delighted to keep appearing knowledable to my DS as I showed him "the room" where all the fun beach and yard stuff are kept. Sadly, the shelves were depleted and there were no coolers there. Returning to the regular grocery aisles I bravely flagged an employee who understood my google-translations well enough to bring us to a stash of about 8 styrofoam coolers on top of a wall of freezer units. While he found a way to bring them to the ground we were joined by another customer seeking the same thing, and as we walked away i noted they were wisely moving all the few remaining coolers up to the front of the store.
As happy as we should have been with that result (win!), I was disappointed that our choices were limited to styrofoam, kicking myself for not picking up a more efficient and eco-friendly bamboo cooler weeks ago. Suddenly, that disappointment was deeply surpassed by the shocking news at the check out stand: THE STORE WAS SOLD OUT OF ICE. Now we had to decide to go searching for ice nearby, or reverse course back to Mayaguez, where we were sure there would be some, as their recent power outage had not surpassed 24 hours. A bit thrown emotionally, and definitely resistant to wasting gas by backtracking, I recalled Boqueron actually has an ICE FACTORY out on 101, I persuaded my DS to bet on the stores near the ICE FACTORY having plenty of stock.
Still feeling some triumph for beating traffic in the parking lot and getting an ice cooler before they were all gone too, we stopped at three different stores without ice as I felt my resolve to have confidence beginning to weaken. Then we saw a man carrying a bag of ice around a corner, and we turned down the street he'd been walking on to see what store he'd come from. Quickl we saw there were no open stores on that block, so I suggested driving back to catch him and ask him where he'd bought it, but DS surprised me with a snap of "no"!. Later he told me he was surprised himself by how quickly the archaic male stereotype of refusing to ask for directions or help had commandeered his voice. In the meantime, we found ourselves in a block of heavy traffic between a gas station, bar and panaderia. As I played stop-and-go in the car, he simply walked from one business to another getting a repeated "no", No and NO.
A few blocks later, I was turning around in the parking lot of another panaderia, when I heard a woman returning to her car, tell the driver, in spanish, there was "No Hielo". I glanced thru the windows and saw my husband in a long line in the bakery. I stood outside the drivers side of the car, waving to get his attention, and hoping other customerrs in line would remark on my crazy antics. He finally noticed and came back outside to get the bad news from me. I then suggested we might be able to avoid long lines by trying to ask "hielo" in a loud voice as we entered a store. After all, with the power still out, and it being the dinner hour, many people were simply picking up dinner to take home to the family. as we drove down 103, toward the ICE FACTORY, we debated whether or not "hielo" was 2 or 3 syllables, and whether or not it began with a hard "y" sound, and whether or not it was appropriate to skip formalities and just blurt out what was becoming the big question: do you have ice?
Duolingo be damned. We skipped the polite language and got to the point. In the car we were chaotically discussing two things: the correction pronounciation of hielo, and which businesses we should stop at. It was about my DS's 6th turn to go inside and ask, when he decided to take the plunge and ask for ice in spanish. he came back out looking so very pleased that i was confused by his lack of a bag of ice in his hands. It turned out he was feeling proud that the clerk understood his spanish. I should have given him a high 5.
We struck out a few more times, and tried to keep cool as we continued to debate whether we had taken any wrong turns in trying to follow the twists of 102. Earmarking true west withtThe setting sun made me worry we were heading in the wrong direction, and i was on the verge of panicing when we finally got to 101. Dusk had now completed its arrival and it was clear there was less electricity in this neighborhood than any of the ones we'd been traveling thru, but traffic seemed even more intense. We could tell which stores were open before we saw their lights as the generators made such a racket but the silence in the distances between them darkened my sense of hope.
At Ritmar Market on 101, I was approaching the entrance when I saw a woman getting back in her car who had been in line at Econo with us, and my gut told me she was on the same quest we were. Feeling a sudden desire for camaraderie, an emotional lurch pulled me toward her, but as I caught her eye I saw only bitter frustration. I felt too intimidated to even ask if she'd been looking for ice.
Situation Miserable, But Not Serious
Day 3 with no power (after the Epiphany Earthquake): we'd stayed up late enjoying the less humid breezes of last evening with cold beers, so we were just getting going by noon. Caffeine withdrawal was making me almost as cranky as my DS' wifi withdrawal behavior. All of our electronics needed re-charging, and the day was just passing 80degrees with no breeze. Lucky there was a Starbucks just a ten mile drive north, in Mayaguez, and they had power!!!
We spent two hours there before I got restless. As DS was still involved in something online, I took a walk around the block to refresh myself. That block was much bigger than I'd thought and left me with humidity-intolerance. I came back into the cafe with an irrationally urgent desire to go jump into the ocean. A quick check with facebook showed our neighborhood was still without power (fans and a/c), thus we agreed to stop and get ice on the way home. We had no cooler in the car today so we decided it would be smarter to get the ice closer to home, in case traffic was slow. It was almost 4 pm, and we'd had two agreements in a row despite my weather weariness.
Driving south, towards more neighborhoods without power, we again observed the irony of people lining up at some gas stations while others stations seemingly had supplies and no customers. For instance, on the north side of the Mayaguez Mall, the Shell station had one car pumping gas, while on the south side of the mall, technically in Homigueros, there was a line of maybe 2 dozen cars creating traffic hazzards to get into a different gas station. Continuing south by way of Hwy 100, we saw more long lines at certain stations, while others also seemed to have just a few people pumping gas. This prompted us to discuss the demand for generator fuel.
We still had conflicting feelings about whether or not we should invest in a generator, but, in that car, driving south on 100 toward "home", we had another agreement: we would finally upgrade from our insulated shopping bag to a real cooler, right now. Though we hadn't opened the freezer since the power went out, we both admitted worrying about food safety as we approached the 60 hour mark without electricity. And we craved cold drinks.
We came to this agreement as we were wading through heavier-than-usual traffic congestion at the main shopping center, so we continued 2 more blocks to the Cabo Rojo Walgreens. I think I actually did Smack My Head when I realized there were no coolers left there. Still, I thought about the fact that Cabo Rojo proper had only been without power about 36 hours, and I decided to believe that meant there had to be more coolers available in more obscure locations. So we started wandering the unfamiliar territory of 'downtown' Cabo Rojo.
We struck out at several small stores, and the two hardware stores I was vaguely familiar with had closed just minutes before, at 5. We decided to brave the traffic and try the bigger stores in the shopping center on 100. Then I realized this was a chance to show off to DS what little I'd learned about the local neighborhood! Meandering thru small streets in a residential area, we pulled up to a baseball field where a few young people were playing Cricket in an overgrown field. Forty feet from the car was a pedestrian entrance to the backside of the shopping center! I grabbed a cart from the many that had been abandoned there and just glowed in a feeling of triumphant efficiency!
In this relatively huge grocery store i was delighted to keep appearing knowledable to my DS as I showed him "the room" where all the fun beach and yard stuff are kept. Sadly, the shelves were depleted and there were no coolers there. Returning to the regular grocery aisles I bravely flagged an employee who understood my google-translations well enough to bring us to a stash of about 8 styrofoam coolers on top of a wall of freezer units. While he found a way to bring them to the ground we were joined by another customer seeking the same thing, and as we walked away i noted they were wisely moving all the few remaining coolers up to the front of the store.
As happy as we should have been with that result (win!), I was disappointed that our choices were limited to styrofoam, kicking myself for not picking up a more efficient and eco-friendly bamboo cooler weeks ago. Suddenly, that disappointment was deeply surpassed by the shocking news at the check out stand: THE STORE WAS SOLD OUT OF ICE. Now we had to decide to go searching for ice nearby, or reverse course back to Mayaguez, where we were sure there would be some, as their recent power outage had not surpassed 24 hours. A bit thrown emotionally, and definitely resistant to wasting gas by backtracking, I recalled Boqueron actually has an ICE FACTORY out on 101, I persuaded my DS to bet on the stores near the ICE FACTORY having plenty of stock.
Still feeling some triumph for beating traffic in the parking lot and getting an ice cooler before they were all gone too, we stopped at three different stores without ice as I felt my resolve to have confidence beginning to weaken. Then we saw a man carrying a bag of ice around a corner, and we turned down the street he'd been walking on to see what store he'd come from. Quickl we saw there were no open stores on that block, so I suggested driving back to catch him and ask him where he'd bought it, but DS surprised me with a snap of "no"!. Later he told me he was surprised himself by how quickly the archaic male stereotype of refusing to ask for directions or help had commandeered his voice. In the meantime, we found ourselves in a block of heavy traffic between a gas station, bar and panaderia. As I played stop-and-go in the car, he simply walked from one business to another getting a repeated "no", No and NO.
"Tienes Hielo"
A few blocks later, I was turning around in the parking lot of another panaderia, when I heard a woman returning to her car, tell the driver, in spanish, there was "No Hielo". I glanced thru the windows and saw my husband in a long line in the bakery. I stood outside the drivers side of the car, waving to get his attention, and hoping other customerrs in line would remark on my crazy antics. He finally noticed and came back outside to get the bad news from me. I then suggested we might be able to avoid long lines by trying to ask "hielo" in a loud voice as we entered a store. After all, with the power still out, and it being the dinner hour, many people were simply picking up dinner to take home to the family. as we drove down 103, toward the ICE FACTORY, we debated whether or not "hielo" was 2 or 3 syllables, and whether or not it began with a hard "y" sound, and whether or not it was appropriate to skip formalities and just blurt out what was becoming the big question: do you have ice?
Duolingo be damned. We skipped the polite language and got to the point. In the car we were chaotically discussing two things: the correction pronounciation of hielo, and which businesses we should stop at. It was about my DS's 6th turn to go inside and ask, when he decided to take the plunge and ask for ice in spanish. he came back out looking so very pleased that i was confused by his lack of a bag of ice in his hands. It turned out he was feeling proud that the clerk understood his spanish. I should have given him a high 5.
We struck out a few more times, and tried to keep cool as we continued to debate whether we had taken any wrong turns in trying to follow the twists of 102. Earmarking true west withtThe setting sun made me worry we were heading in the wrong direction, and i was on the verge of panicing when we finally got to 101. Dusk had now completed its arrival and it was clear there was less electricity in this neighborhood than any of the ones we'd been traveling thru, but traffic seemed even more intense. We could tell which stores were open before we saw their lights as the generators made such a racket but the silence in the distances between them darkened my sense of hope.
At Ritmar Market on 101, I was approaching the entrance when I saw a woman getting back in her car who had been in line at Econo with us, and my gut told me she was on the same quest we were. Feeling a sudden desire for camaraderie, an emotional lurch pulled me toward her, but as I caught her eye I saw only bitter frustration. I felt too intimidated to even ask if she'd been looking for ice.
ANCHOVY LIFE: starting 2020
So, getting back into our life as Runaway Retirees, I had to get back to exercising! And here's our beautiful beach. I'm not sure I'm accurately describing the concrete in the water, or the seaweed, but from what I know that's what those are. I love going in the water and exercising. It's almost like meditative while I'm helping all my joints.
The first few times we ran into the sunken sea wall, we bumped it kind of hard and got some scrapes. With different weather storms and ocean activity, the sand does shift around them, but now that I know to look out for them it's no problem. And sometimes it's kind of fun, jumping on and off them while I'm in the water. It also varies with how high the tides are and with how fast the wind is, because that affects the waves.
Here's the video.
The first few times we ran into the sunken sea wall, we bumped it kind of hard and got some scrapes. With different weather storms and ocean activity, the sand does shift around them, but now that I know to look out for them it's no problem. And sometimes it's kind of fun, jumping on and off them while I'm in the water. It also varies with how high the tides are and with how fast the wind is, because that affects the waves.
Here's the video.
ANCHOVY LIFE: Returning to the Escape House Jan 1 2020
We got back to Casita Azul in Boqueron late on January 1. It is a little blue house, but maybe it would be more appropriate to call it "The Escape House". I'm rolling that around in my head. Once again we have "run away" from so many of the trappings of the "conventional" version of our lives. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the things that got added to my To Do List during our visit "home". Here's to another new start, this time identified by the new year, and a new determination to get my priorities better organized.
But I'm so tired! I've heard that we should expect 4 days to adjust to crossing 4 time zones. We'll see. Upon returning I feel like the weather is unexpectedly humid, which I always find exhausting. I'm eager to get back to exercising (really? I just wrote that?) because my back hurts so much, but I'm repelled from such activity by the feeling that every piece of clothing i own is coated in the syrup of my own body's sweaty excretions. I want to hide from the world till I feel better, and ready to put on some clothes. I also want to hide from my inner critic who thinks I'm being very undisciplined and self-indulgent in this whining. Travel sucks!
I brought too much stuff back. While packing, I felt like I needed it all, but now I feel like it's clutter. My committment to living a minimalist lifestyle has been weak these last 2 months, so this clutter feeling may help me resolve some of my emotions on that. In the meantime, I'm very confused by conflicting impulses to get shelving or just let the stuff sit in a suitcase in the closet. "Tori, take a nap! You just crossed 4 f'ing time zones!"
On the road back to Boquerón, going thru the mountains, we saw a party bus! As we caught up to it,I got a small video. When the driver saw me taping, he honked both horns!
But I'm so tired! I've heard that we should expect 4 days to adjust to crossing 4 time zones. We'll see. Upon returning I feel like the weather is unexpectedly humid, which I always find exhausting. I'm eager to get back to exercising (really? I just wrote that?) because my back hurts so much, but I'm repelled from such activity by the feeling that every piece of clothing i own is coated in the syrup of my own body's sweaty excretions. I want to hide from the world till I feel better, and ready to put on some clothes. I also want to hide from my inner critic who thinks I'm being very undisciplined and self-indulgent in this whining. Travel sucks!
I brought too much stuff back. While packing, I felt like I needed it all, but now I feel like it's clutter. My committment to living a minimalist lifestyle has been weak these last 2 months, so this clutter feeling may help me resolve some of my emotions on that. In the meantime, I'm very confused by conflicting impulses to get shelving or just let the stuff sit in a suitcase in the closet. "Tori, take a nap! You just crossed 4 f'ing time zones!"
On the road back to Boquerón, going thru the mountains, we saw a party bus! As we caught up to it,I got a small video. When the driver saw me taping, he honked both horns!
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