Steps Beach/Tres Palmas Reserva/Playa Escalera

We did a lot of yard work the last couple of days so we took today off. We went to Steps Beach in Rincon for a little snorkeling. We got lucky in that the water was calm. I think this spot is also known for good surfing but not today.

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This is a great snorkeling spot and might also be a great shallow dive site. Its a reserve (one of only a few) so no collecting is allowed (theoretically). This is a special spot where there is lots of elkhorn coral. There are studies taking place here.

The reef starts right away. As soon as you slip in the water you will see the elkhorn coral like in this picture.

If you go out a little further you will find a lot of sea fans like these. There are a lot of fish and invertebrates to see here also.

Take the 115 to Rincon, Go through the town. Just outside of the town you will see this sign on your left. The beach is a short distance down the street.

Faces Around Town...and Crunchy Burritos

There are loads of dogs and cats and chickens and iguanas and other animals around. We started carrying dog food in the car because we thought many of the animals looked skinny. Much to our surprise they often look skinny but aren't hungry. This guy was in San German just relaxing on the sidewalk.


This bird was posed perfectly on someone's rejas (ironworks) and the color contrast is what caught my eye. I often find myself looking up toward the clear blue sky... not just to enjoy the warmth, but to look at architectural lines of buildings or other intriguing things going on up above. This little cat was above a doorway just checking out what was going on below. The animals don't understand English, and people say "mitsu mitsu mitsu" or something like that to try to coax them over. It doesn't mean "here here here" - that would be aqui aqui aqui so I don't know what it means but they always respond!

This statue is standing on the world looking toward the town hall in the Mayaguez Plaza Colon. Columbus looks toward the ocean and is accompanied by 16 bronze women brought from Barcelona. There are also interesting people roaming around and a very ornate fountain he is standing on.

Just a few blocks away, we encountered a mob of gentlemen playing a rousing game of dominos. The guy in the white hat asked if we wanted in...we just watched for awhile. The guy in the baseball cap was the serious one. We thought they were playing for "guineos" (bananas) but asked and they smiled and laughed!

Things are much simpler here. A nice piece of fruit, a jellyroll, a game of dominoes, riding your horse, these are the things people enjoy. Everyone is outside. This gal was strolling the plaza on her way to do something. The "Q" should look familiar - Quiznos. There are a lot of things that are familiar enough to make us comfortable, but upon closer examination are really different.

An example is Taco Bell. Taco Bell has a "carne y papas" burrito (meat and potato). Sounded good. I started eating it and it was good, but had a nice crunch to it. I opened it up and it was a burrito made of taco meat, cheese and believe it or not....french fries! No Taco Bell I've been in other than here has that or flan on the menu! I mowed the lawn and it smelled like cilantro - we apparently have "recao" in the lawn which is a totally different looking thing than cilantro, but you use it the same way. There is also "culantro" and in my mind cilantro, culantro and recao are all the same thing. We also bought a chocolate bar (sweet chocolate) that isn't really chocolate at all. It is grainy and sugary and just not something I know what to do with! Bananas are guineos, unless they are guineos manos, or amarillos or wait...those are the yellow plantanos that have to be cooked or maybe you can eat them when they are black or is that when they are plantanos verdes, or maduros...you get the idea. Oh, and ripe oranges aren't orange either. The skin color gives you no indication of ripeness. So things aren't always what they seem to be which keeps things interesting. And there is good coffee everywhere that is under a buck. No $4 gallon jugs of Starbucks here!

Mas Frutas, Odd Pod and Things That Sing in the Night

...but first we have the fruit line-up - on your left we've got toronja (we trade with the neighbor lady Amparo - she is on lipitor and can't eat grapefruit), then a chinoja (grapefruit-orange cross and very good for juice), then a sunburned orange (very juicy), a non-sunburned orange and a lime. That is the citrus lineup - and not shown are the china agria (bitter orange - used for marinade and the leaves for tea) and lemons that overhang our driveway.


This next one is an anon - don't know which one, but it has weird skin-scales and turns bright pink when it is ripe! It took my eating a few before I could appreciate them - had to figure out the perfect time to harvest them. They are kind of like a custardy, grainy, sugary pear. I usually find pears a little too sweet but when you use a spoon to scoop this fruit it is is a real treat and is my new favorite (even more than guanabana)!

Here is today's harvest. We helped Amparo prune a grapefruit and she made us take a couple bags of them. The mango wood bowl on the left has oranges (chinas) in it, the dishwashing bin has more oranges and the bag on the right is even more oranges! In the kind-of middle is another pink anon, and behind it is a guanabana (soursop) that I like as a cooling drink. You press the white, fibrous pulp and seeds through a sieve and end up with a creamy white goo. Add sugar (soursop is tangy) and milk and a little coconut water and ice and you've got a creamy good tangy refreshment! There are a few platanos in the mix. Plantains and bananas are a whole other blog entry!

Well, we are clearing the hillside...at least making headway! Jeff goes through with the weedwhacker and I follow up with my pink plastic $1 rake (my craftsman and fiskars tools all break but not my $1 little pink rake) to pull grass and sticks into piles. Then I run into the zillion vines and hand pull those until the ground is basically bare (until it rains). I always have my hands in the dried grass and under sticks and things.
Since I am not photographing under water yet (don't know the area well enough to know what I want to photograph) I have taken on photographing - or trying to- the coqui frog! This is a difficult task because they are only out at night when it is dark! So I wander around in dense foliage that is shoulder high with a flashlight in one hand, a camera in the other listening for them and trying to spot them and then waiting for the breeze to stop moving the leaf they are on etc etc. It is hard! They pop about 3 feet when the light hits them, or they go deeper into little holes or under leaves or inside banana stumps These are some attempts. These frogs make huge sound but are very tiny. I was surprized they were so small!

In the morning I watch the big ball of a sun come up over the hill and drink my coffee out in front of the house watching and listening to the hills come alive! The roosters are ur ur uring, cows are talking and birds are out everywhere. This bird and its mate were up in one of our palms knocking the palm fruits off. I thought they were eating them but no...just picking them off and dropping them.

Another odd night time thing are the geckos. They sprawl out on top of leaves and snooze.

This odd pod is all over our hillside. It is a pretty little vine that smells like pepper when you touch the leaves and produces these pretty little orange globe-like fruits that pop open to reveal these little red bean looking things! These beans are really really sticky and exude a sticky substance. The ants love them and probably assist them in taking over the world!

This coqui was caught in the act as s/he bellowed out the cool coqui sound. Do a websearch on coqui frogs and you'll find a site that has recordings of all their sounds. Exactly what we fall asleep to each night!

So those are the ramblings for the evening. It is a good frog night since we got a little rain today! The Puerto Rican Screech owl is out there making its monkey sounds...the grasshoppers are going wild (haven't heard them like this before) and the coquis are superb. I can't wait to wake up and head for the hillside!

Happy Holidays

Being from the States we celebrate Christmas. If you go shopping before Christmas you will find Santa in the shopping center and kids all lined up to sit on his lap and tell him what they want for Christmas. Imagine our surprise when we are in the mall 5 days AFTER Christmas and what do we see? All the kids lined up to sit on the Three Kings laps. We had to reaffirm with each other that Christmas was indeed over. We got a good chuckle out of it.