Tag Archives: topos

Country Bartenders

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Mountains of Puerto Rico cropped
Driving through the mountains with gorgeous views lined in coffee plants

We went up to celebrate our friend Papo’s birthday in Maricao. He had a similar party in December for Christmas but instead of lechón, the main meal this time was sancocho de conejo – a very delicious rabbit stew.

Country Cockfighting
Backyard pelea de gallo

We learned from the last party that we needed to have something to do otherwise we would end up milling around aimlessly since we don’t bet on the roosters or dice. Papo set up a domino table for us, but we ended up finding the perfect station for us: bartenders in the little cantina.

I tended to the customers and served up the drinks of Coors Light, Medalla Light, Busch, and Heineken and made change while Britton juiced the fresh oranges for the Finlandia and OJ tragos. The pineapple pitorro and sancocho were free.

Britton juicing oranges
Britton on the exprimidor

We are definitely still the exotic guests of Papo and I overhead quite a few comments about the “Americanos” from Rincón. I also got a lot of questions, attempts at English, “oye rubia” and even a request for the change to be in besos instead of pesos. So of course I had to ask… how much is a kiss worth and they told me…maybe $3? I thought that was pretty funny. When it got really busy even Britton worked the bar passing out drinks using his broken Spanish. His Spanish has really improved since we arrived! He can have a passing conversation fairly easily!

Pap and Cassie Cantina (2)
¡La rubia a la orden!

One thing I noticed as the bartender was that no one paid any tips (besides the requests to buy a kiss). Not even when the total was $4.50 and they handed me a $5. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong but Papo said that it’s just not the custom to tip. He said that these people are too poor to tip (but managed lots and lots of beer and gambling!). I wonder if tipping is just not very common in other service industries like restaurants. We continue to tip when we go out, but it made me question what the cultural standards for tipping are in general here in Puerto Rico (and partially why there is an assumption that all gringos are rich -sort of a hey they just give their money away feeling?).

It’s such a different world especially way deep in the mountains like this but we are starting to get more accustomed and comfortable. In addition to the sancocho we also loved the homemade pasteles and Britton told me he thinks pasteles are one of his favorite foods now! We really enjoyed our short foray into Puerto Rican country bartending and our time at the party. Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something new about my new homeland.

Rooster smaller
Rooster ready and waiting with his plastic spurs and partially plucked body (not sure why they pluck them like this)

Topos smaller
Playing Topos (dice) under a huge pana tree

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Fiesta Navideña con Lechón!

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Well we can now officially say we’ve had the true country Puerto Rican Christmas lechón experience! We had pig on the beach in Rincón last year, but this was quite a bit different.

Pig on a spit
Rotating Lechón

Papo invited us up to his finca for a Puerto Rican country Christmas party complete with lechón, pasteles, cockfighting, topos betting, horses and lots of beer drinking. It was an all-day event that started around 11am and would go on until it stopped. It was an interesting experience but we felt a little awkward since we stuck out like a sore thumb. We just sort of milled around because we don’t know how to play dice or bet on the roosters.

Topos
Guys betting dice (topos)

Roosters
Roosters awaiting their turn to fight

When the lechón was ready to be chopped up, everyone came by to check it out.

Serving up the lechon

Lechon Papo and Britton Lechon
As the special guests of Papo’s we got first tastes straight off the pig!

It was an interesting sort of dynamic because Papo hosted the party and the lechón and pitorro were free, but he sold beer from a sort of make-shift caged cantina.

Gallo customer
A bit of a cocky customer!

People were getting pretty drunk and so Britton and I took a short hike about the property just to get a breather and away from all the drunk dudes.

Jungle Cassie
Nothing like a hike in the jungle to recenter!

Pelea de gallos at Papos
Country cockfighting

Later that evening I learned a little more about cockfighting as I talked with some of the guys cutting off the natural spurs and putting on plastic ones. One guy working with his teenage son putting on the spurs told me he learned the sport from his dad, and his dad from his before and back many, many generations.

Then the beer sold out. There was a sort of scramble for anything else to drink. Papo had asked us to bring two bottles of wine, and so we did. However, there was no wine opener. And so we had a “completo fracaso” as Papo called it trying to open these darn bottles. Apparently Papo had wanted some cheap screw top thing called Ponte something. It was pretty clear that wine is not a very popular thing to drink in the countryside of Puerto Rico.

Opening wine the weirdest way
Ever try to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew? Trust me, just don’t!

And so without beer to fuel the party it ended at the fairly early hour of around 8pm and we were able to drive home. We had anticipated staying the night up there just in case but it worked out just fine.  It was quite the experience to be the only ones that spoke English and only knowing one or two people there. We felt very honored to have been included in the festivities.

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