The guys finished up a little early on Friday, so we took the rest of the afternoon for a well-deserved break at the beach. This time of year, you can find many of the beaches completely empty.
Pools Beach is just on the other side of the rocks from Sandy Beach down in Puntas.
I climbed up the rocks and enjoyed the view all the way down the beach on both sides.
I even climbed the rocks barefoot!
It was a great break from building and a lovely day to spend at the beach.
On our way back to the truck we even spotted a great little wood house.
So cute and similar to our cabin!
We were admiring it when the owners came out and talked with us about it. The house is all wood and has been there, right across the beach for over 30 years! Who says you can’t have a wooden house in the tropics?! We asked them a lot of questions about the construction and they graciously gave us a short tour inside, even with our sandy toes.
A variety of egg colors from our chickens and turkeys: no need to dye them for Easter!
There is always something to celebrate in Puerto Rico with holidays large and small in addition to personal parties for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, etc. All of Holy Week (Semana Santa) is a busy time that culminates in Viernes Santo (Good Friday), Sábado de Gloria (Saturday of Glory), and Pascua (Easter). Nearly everything closes down on Good Friday so do not even attempt to do any grocery or other shopping. There are processions around the plazas of each city near the churches and then many people head to the beach to party.
As for us, we joined some friends (thanks guys!) for a nice party at their house complete with slip n slide and an egg hunt for all the children.
Gorgeous rainbows are back
Easter time in the tropics is a wonderful moment as it signals that the shift has begun. The tourists have their final hurrah and then our little town of Rincón begins to get a little rainier and sleepier once again. While the excitement of having people in town is fun, I much prefer the slower pace of spring and summer.
One of our new favorite snacks is tamarind or tamarindo in Spanish!
We really had never seen or eaten tamarind before, but wow, what a treat! It’s like candy growing right off the tree. It tastes a bit like a chewy sweet tart candy. You just pull the fruit off the tree, crack it open and suck the jelly off the seeds. You can also make juices, candies or sauces with the pulp. I prefer to just eat it straight from the tree.
It is currently in season here in Puerto Rico and we have two or three big trees right here on the property. We are always amazed by the wide variety of tropical fruit here, but even more so we are amazed that these great fruits aren’t more common in the stores in Puerto Rico! So many things can be grown here (and are!) but they just don’t make it through the “normal” distribution chains. You’ll see things like this tamarind from Thailand sometimes before you’ll see the local Puerto Rican variety! It’s crazy!
Tamarind all the way from Thailand in a Puerto Rican Wal-Mart!
That’s why we get a lot of our Puerto Rican produce at the little fruit stands or just grow it ourselves. We made a short little video that shows how to identify both the tree and the fruit and how to tell if it is ripe or not. Enjoy!
This week went by pretty fast because we had all of our days filled up. The guys worked four days out of five finishing up the columns -building the molds, mixing concrete, etc- and the one day that they didn’t, Britton and I spent about 10 hours shoveling and then carrying buckets of rocks up and down the quebrada like the sorcerer’s apprentice in Fantasia. We were joking that this is by far the best exercise regimen you could come up with! Cardio, strength training and repetition. We were super sore (especially my shoulders), but the next day was more work.
Britton and I literally moved tons of rocks to this site
They mixed all the concrete and then had to load it into buckets and into a wheelbarrow. One person “drove” the wheelbarrow and the other one or two acted as the horses and in that way they hauled the super heavy wet concrete to the columns.
Loading the buckets and wheelbarrow to bring to the site
The hard work wasn’t over at the site either. At this point they had to lift each super heavy bucket of liquid concrete mix in the air where it was then lifted by the guy on the ladder and then dumped into each column form.
Dumping the concrete into the column mold
Poured columns
The turkeys checking everything out
By the time the weekend came, we were ready for a break from the work. This weekend is the annual Corona Pro Surf competition and like the one we went to last year, it brought quite the crowd into Rincón. On Saturday night we went out to the bar Calypso because a great reggae band called the Predator Dub Assassins was playing and we had a blast.
PDub at Calypso
We used to listen to them some when we were preparing for our move here to get psyched up, so it was cool to see them in person. Plus one of our friends was playing in the band with them!
This video was filmed here in Rincón
And finally, today we enjoyed a beautiful beach day down at the marina with friends.
