Ike

Hurricane Ike should be passing north of Puerto Rico tonight and tomorrow, which means there will be lots of rain. That, plus the fact that it's been raining a lot there recently anyways, made me want to share this little warning with all of you...

When you lose power, especially if there is a hurricane (God forbid), don't expect to get it back right away. With big rains it may be a couple days; bad hurricanes, a couple months.

A Head's Up

Just warning everyone: there are two large tropical storms heading towards the island, both supposed to hit on Thursday. There's a possibility they get weaker first though, or even miss the island entirely, of course. Anyways, be ready, don't move into that low-lying house on the beach quite yet if you can help it and don't make hotel reservations on Culebra for Wednesday and Thursday night. Seriously though, most houses, especially those not on the water (or perched precariously on the tops of mountains--you know who you are), are pretty sturdy. Close your windows and doors and use common sense with the storm... if it comes.

If you have asthma, beware!

From what I've heard, a volcano has erupted in Montserrat, so the air is filled with dust again not unlike the Sahara dust from before. It's really severe and I know it's causing some people I know there to really suffer. So if you have asthma or another condition and are traveling to the island, please be careful!

How to Beat the Heat, or, Words of the Week: Manteca(d)o and Piragua

It's not really that much hotter in Puerto Rico now as it is the rest of the year, but it's summer here, hence I'm reminded of these things. And it still is pretty hot right now on the island anyways.

Air conditioning is something confined to public spaces rather than private, generally speaking, which basically means the best way to get some is to head to the mall rather than hide in the house. Unless, you know, you're in a hotel, but then why are you staying in your room on vacation? If it's too hot to hit the streets of Old San Juan, there are plenty of museums around to check out. Or you can get a free ride to the beach (until the end of August, anyways).

The vast majority of houses, however, do not have air conditioning. Most do have those window air conditioners (although many times in the wall rather than in a window) or fans. Side note: if you stop using those a/c units, they fill up with cockroaches. You've been warned.

Anyways, if you do decide to go out, there are a couple good ways to handle the heat. Which brings us to the words of this week, which are mantecado and piragua.

Unlike most Spanish-speaking countries, Puerto Rico doesn't use the word helado for ice cream. It's mantecado. They'd figure out you wanted ice cream if you asked for helado, I suppose, but go with mantecado.

Piraguas are basically tropical snow cones. I'm not sure how to explain them more than that. They have them all over Old San Juan in little carts and they are great--my favorite flavor is coconut. The word supposedly comes from the Taíno word for some kind of long boat, but now they're snow cones.

So enjoy your vacation, and keep cool!

A visit from Africa

Not only is the island nearing the dreaded hurricane season, there also has appeared a cloud of dust from the Sahara desert spreading across the island. This generally happens around this time every year, so, if you have asthma and you were thinking about saving some money by coming in the off-season, you may want to rethink that. Its effects don't last too long though.

Happy Three Kings Day!/¡Feliz Día de los Tres Reyes Magos!

Today is finally 3 Kings Day!

Basically, how the holiday works is that, the night before, the kids put shoeboxes filled with grass under their beds. The idea is that the 3 kings who came to visit the baby Jesus will stop by to feed their camels and then leave them presents! Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

There are some cute pictures from Ponce here, as well as a description of the holiday. Check it out. There also is a well-written article in English about the holiday and different traditions both on the island and in the States here.

This hasn't really been the most pleasant 3 kings day ever, for two reasons. One, it's raining in buckets on the island. It's that weird kind of rain where it shows up out of nowhere, rains really hard for a very short period of time, then stops. It's called cabañuelas and apparently it's been doing it for days. Too bad.

The second reason is an accident at the popular tourist site Camuy Caves (las cuevas de Camuy).

Socorro Elaine Smith no tenía razones para pensar que ayer acabaría su vida.

Estaba de vacaciones, con su esposo y su hijo, en uno de los lugares más hermosos de Puerto Rico: el Parque de las Cavernas del Río Camuy.

Poco después de las 11:00 a.m., el trío, residente de Lakeview, en Los Ángeles, California, disfrutaba el verde intenso de la vegetación, la brisa refrescante y el canto de las aves, mientras esperaban un “trolley” que los recogería para continuar su recorrido por el parque.
Sin embargo, de una pared de roca caliza -que tiene 125 millones de años y cientos de pies de altura- se desprendió una piedra. Y alcanzó a Socorro Elaine en la cabeza, provocándole la muerte en el acto.

For more information, click here for English or here for a more thorough article in Spanish.

The article from El Nuevo Día is kind of funny. They're kind of trying to explain away a rock falling, like it's not going to happen again.

El lugar ha sido visitado por millones de personas, un promedio de 150 mil al año, “que vienen de todas partes del mundo”, dijo Edna Pérez, quien labora en la CPN desde hace 22 años y trabajó en el Parque de las Cavernas del Río Camuy por 18. “Nunca había sucedido nada como esto. Son cosas de la naturaleza”, afirmó Pérez en tono de sorpresa. Indicó que se crió en la zona cercana donde se estableció el parque.
Por su parte, la geóloga Ruth Vélez, del DRNA, inició la evaluación del área donde cayó la roca.

“Todo se ve bastante macizo, continuo”, señaló Vélez sobre la pared de más de 400 pies de alto de la que cayó la roca. “Vamos a ir por la parte alta para ver si hay bloques sueltos o no”.

La pared es de roca caliza, explicó la geóloga, quien dijo que la misma está en su estado natural. “No es un área en que hubo intervención humana”, como maquinaria o la mano del ser humano.

It's a rock! Are rocks not supposed to fall? Come on now.

Anyways, they're closed for now, so if you're in PR and planned on visiting one of the world's largest cave systems, you're out of luck. I can't imagine though that they'd stay closed for very long. We'll see.

Happy Three Kings Day, everyone!