We have been entertained nearly every day so far. The world is very different from the one we left and we are enjoying the scenes we encounter. From La Placita store just up the street, to the pulpo we found in one of the tide pools at the beach. I wanted to just post a few random pictures we have taken over the last few days.
La Placita
At La Placita, they sell gasoline and some random useful items in the store. Out front they sell fruits and vegetables that are locally grown.
Petardos Playing at 110 Thai
We went to the 110 Thai restaurant in Aguadilla to check out the local music scene. It was a very interesting mixture. An Oktoberfest concert event held at a Thai food restaurant serving German food that featured bands from all over including the headliner Los Petardos, a Spanish language punk rock band! Talk about a mix of cultures!
Weed Wacker Powered Bicycles
These bikes are pretty popular and we see them occasionally wherever we go. They use a weedwacker motor so they are good on gas, are bikes and thus wouldn’t require insurance or Marbete and don’t have to follow all the rules of an actual motorcycle. They get up and go at the speed of traffic thru the city as well.
We also saw this guy on a tripod bike picking up aluminum cans and it made us take a double look:
Then we finally were able to get down to the beach and walk around a bit. We really need to jump in and swim. All the creatures are calling us!
Pulpo (aka Octopus)
Sunset at Steps Beach in Rincon
We have some more projects in the works that we will have pictures of soon as we make the cabana more and more comfortable for us to stay in.
“Guess what I found?” has been our newest game. It is kind of like the chance card on Monopoly. This could be something beneficial or not so much.
For instance, one of our first “guess what I found” moments was when I found the passionfruit flowers and fruit. Then another one was finding this creepy centipede in the palm trees.
We have heard that Puerto Rico has no venomous snakes or spiders, but that you do have to watch out for these guys! Also, the ants are intense! Tiny little ants that feel like someone just threw a bunch of needles at your feet. We have been having a hard time feeding Kitty because only about 5 minutes after we set his food down the ants swarm his dish like a petri dish. And if you try to move it they start biting you! We are definitely going to have to find a solution for that!
As for Kitty himself, he spends almost his entire day as a lump under the covers of the bed.
He’s lump, he’s lump, he’s lump, he’s in our bed.
Kitty is definitely still freaked out. He comes out for a couple of hours a day, but if he hears the leaves rustle or any loud sound, he scurries back under the covers to hide. I took him out with me up on top of the cabana just to show him that there really is nothing to be afraid of, but I don’t think he believed me.
Kitty and me under the big mango tree
We are still doing quite a bit of work on the landscaping and have finally been able to drive the car into the courtyard after clearing away some massive weed trees that grew about three inches thick in just those past nine months. Britton bought a bow saw (thanks Matt for the recommendation) and hacked those things down.
I am bringing out a lot of Spanish vocabulary I haven’t had to use much in an office setting. Saw=Sierra, Wire=Alambre, Piedra de afilar= Sharpening stone, etc. Good practice using Spanish in our new daily life when we say “guess what I found” in the hardware stores.
A lot of you are worried we are working too much. Don’t worry. We also know how to play! We have gotten out and met some people too. We visited a few friends and played a little poker. We are planning on going to a concert event in Aguadilla this Saturday and we have taken lots of naps and eaten lots of “guest-what-I-found” delicious fruits from our property, the Econo or Edwards Grocery Stores or from the fruit vendors parked on the side of the road.
Not sure what these are…quenepas? They are from the property but mostly a huge seed inside
We have had a couple of other “guess what I found” moments. Britton was up on the top of the cabana with the laptop to transfer some pictures. He yelled down to me, “guess what I found?!” and I yelled back, “Um, cat poop?” and we laughed because apparently the roof of the cabana had been used by the local cats as a poop hot spot…but it turned out to be an ACTUAL hot spot. We found open WIFI on our roof! So great! I am standing here on top of the roof overlooking the wooden house and ocean writing this!
The not-so-great thing is what we did NOT find in our bags….our camera battery charger. I think we left it plugged into the wall in our kitchen in Greeley! Ugh. Once our battery runs out we won’t be able to take more pictures or videos, so we are going on a quest to try and find one (Mom if you read this can you check in our Greeley house?).
So daily we have little wins and little challenges. It has been the perfect balance. We still have a few things we need to sort out like the zafacones for the Rincon trash pick up are apparently all out, so we have to haul out any trash we make.
All in all, every day has been an adventure with new finds around every corner.
We are starting to get settled in. Everywhere we look, though, there is more to do! It is hard to prioritize everything we need to do. Should we weedwack the front drive in or scrape the ceilings so the paint stops flaking on our heads as we are sleeping? Or should we get a dresser so we can take our clothes out of the suitcases? Or should we just hang out at the beach?
What’s great is that we can choose how much we want to do and we can rest when we want. Britton likes to wake up earlier than me. Yesterday he cut himself a path to the starfruit tree and the passionfruit vines and we ate that for breakfast. Pretty cool.
Starfruit AKA carambola from our yard
Passionfruit AKA parcha from our yard
We also saw this cool white bird hanging out eating lizards. Such a strange creature with that super long neck!
We went to the Home Depot to pick up a few of those needed things. Our friends are so great, they gave us some gift certificates there and they were very helpful! We picked up a ceiling fan, a bookshelf, some tools, trashcan (zafacon! a new word for Britton to learn), paint and supplies, a chironja tree (orange grapefruit cross) and other stuff to help get us started.
In Home Depot of Mayaguez
Then this morning we kept at the jungle trimming including taking down some of the dead palm fronds from the coconut palms and the traveler’s palm.
This is an old heart of palm that weighed about 30 lbs!
Such an alien world to us!
We had fun working outside with our Colorado lungs we weren’t even breathing hard, but we sure were sweating a lot!
And after working in the yard, the local beer, Medalla Light, with limes was the perfect thirst quencher sitting on the roof of the cabana under the shade of the mango tree.
When it gets dark we settle in and watch a show on the laptop or clean up the inside of the cabana a little. It has rained a little bit and the coqui frogs and insects turn the quiet jungle into an orchestra. I had a dream last night that all the sounds of the jungle were actually a salsa band with little insect trumpet players.
So, we are slowly getting settled in. We are still in need of a vehicle (we have a rental right now) and we haven’t even started on the wood house at all, but I think we are moving at a good pace. We are really enjoying this new life. I would definitely say we are jubilados!
This trip was a bit different than our other trips to Puerto Rico. We had lots more to take and we aren’t coming back (for at least a while). The voyage out to Rincon started in DIA with lots and lots of boxes. We had prepared for Kitty’s trip by getting him up to date on shots, then getting a health certificate from our veterinarian. All needlessly. Nobody checked on him at DIA or flying into BQN. Better safe than sorry I suppose.
Almost Everything We Own
We also took our Kumquat tree that we had kept as a houseplant in Colorado. We have read that they are fairly rare in PR, plus it was an extra challenge. Can you take plants to Puerto Rico? How do you pack them? Will security be ok with it? All of these questions became fairly easily answered. You can take plants, pack them however you wish but a shopping bag would work nicely and security was fine. (Thanks Charlotte and Anthony for sticking around just in case!)
Kitty All Doped Up and the Kumquat Tree
The flight went well, nothing too out of the ordinary. We arrived in Aguadilla, loaded up our rental car and set off for the property. At 1am as that is what time United flights arrive and depart from Aguadilla (BQN).
We arrived at the house around 2am. It was dark and overgrown, this has been the norm since we almost always have to come back to CO after cutting the jungle back. Here is a short video of our arrival!
The vines grow over the gate and the trees grow over the driveway. We can’t park the car in the yard until everything is cut down. It is quite the undertaking and usually requires around 6 to 8 hours before the car can be parked.
10 minutes later, after our arrival we were still at it..lol
It will take a while to “dig out” but we have our cabin opened up, kitty is starting to come out from under the blankets and eat, drink and pee which is a good sign. He is pretty freaked out though, as he should be! This is quite a radical difference from what he is used to. All in all we have arrived safely, with all of our tattered and dented luggage!
Kitty Hiding
We did a lot our first day too! We found the post office and got two of our flat rate boxes and we started working on the huge battle against the jungle that has overtaken the yard and house in the last nine months.
We had a couple of awesome and not so awesome finds in the yard as well.
Passionflower
One of the many vines growing everywhere is passionflower/fruit! And the hibiscus and starfruit trees are doing great in spite of the vines all over them.
Hibiscus
The not so great thing is that we think the bees are back….Good thing we brought our bee hats and veils! We might have to just get comfortable removing them.
More bees??! Maybe they are just swarming??
Even Cassie got into the vine pulling/yard clean up!
Petardos Playing at 110 Thai
Weed Wacker Powered Bicycles
Pulpo (aka Octopus)
