Weekend in the West

This past weekend, our teacher took us more to the west of the island to spend some time where she grew up. We had planned to go to a cancer benefit and meet her parents and ended up having a lot of fun along the way.

While we were packing on Saturday, our teacher called us and told us to bring tennis shoes just in case, but on the way out to Arecibo, Jenn realized she forgot hers at home. However, this meant that we were able to stop at the outlet malls where we went to the Nike store to get some cheap shoes. The outlet malls are just like the ones at home, but the buildings of course look more tropical. That means they have those stucco outer walls painted in bright colors and those ridged orange shingles on the roof. We were only there to get shoes, but I want to go back because I saw a Juicy Couture store :).
We were going to Arecibo for the cancer benefit for one of my teacher's friends from high school. She doesn't get to see her graduated class that often, but when they get together, they pick up right where they left off. We stopped at her friend's house first to go all together. They had a very nice house in a gated community and a little puppy named "Si." The cancer benefit was something that I had never seen before. Pandero's play hand drums and bongos in different beats to raise money at a bar. They were playing outside and we were right on the water. Our teacher's friends danced with us to the beat and we met a lot of new people. We saw that they were making food in the back of the bar and asked our teacher if we were allowed to eat. We didn't realize you had to make a donation, but when our teacher took us over, she put money in for us to eat. We never expect that from her, but she always pays for us when we go out. We had traditional pork with rice and beans. Across the street, we saw a stand with some fried things and got a fried marlin, which has a special name, but I forgot how to say it.
Next, we went to a coffee shop called "Black Coffee" in her hometown, Utuado, to meet with some more of my teacher's high school friends. We ordered a ham and cheese plate and a cheesecake that had vanilla and red velvet layers. It was really good and we spent a while talking with her friends and she saw even more friends from high school that she knew.
Just about every barrio in Puerto Rico has these little holes in the wall called "chinchorros." It's basically four walls and a tin roof on the side of the road with a juke box and bar for everyone to hang out. There was a DJ there with karaoke and on the side was a small tent where they were making "pinchos" or a kabob. Jenn and I had a barbeque chicken one with Yucateco salsa on it. I felt like I was kind of at a hoe-down or something. The best part was when the young people arrived. They go from chinchorro to chinchorro riding their horses. These horses aren't regular big horses, they're kind of like mutts and they're a smaller and skinnier breed. The people ride them in groups together around the cars and then just park them on the sides of the road. Since we were in the mountains, the area was really hilly and sometimes the horses couldn't stop. What was even more hilarious is that the people riding them were in their regular street clothes. For example, you would see guy in baggy jeans, an Aeropostal shirt and Nikes racing on a horse. We told our teacher how it was odd to see someone like that riding a horse and how we usually think of them with tighter jeans, a button up shirt and cowboy boots. She said that they would actually think dressing like that is ridiculous. It was fun trying to drive away from the chincorro because my teacher was afraid the horses would come in front of her.
My teacher decided that it would be best for us to stay in a hotel for the night, so we drove back in to Arecibo where we stayed in a really cute villa. Basically, there were little houses on a street with 3 separate partitions which were the rooms. We had a small kitchen with a stove and everything, two full beds and our bathroom. We were so tired when we got there, we went right to bed and decided not to set an alarm. We ended up getting up around 8:30 anyways, and even though we spent all day Saturday eating, we were starved. We went to a cafe for breakfast where I had a bacon and egg sandwich with tabasco and fresh squeezed orange juice. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel to go to the Rio Camuy caves.
My teacher had grown up in this area and she had never gone to see the caves. We were all excited and went on the tour which had audio guides for everyone with headphones in addition to a tour guide. We took this little tram to the opening and entered in the cave, which had 2 openings. There was a huge stalagmite that probably took millions of years to make. There was a stalactite that was in the shape of a person's profile, and as you got closer, it started to smile. There were also pools of water, one of in which they found a new and unique species of shrimp. We went out the second opening of the cave which had a hole up to the sky but we couldn't continue up because there was a mudslide there a few days before. We returned back into the cave into a labyrinth where the bats live, and I was horrified. It was this really dark place with bats sleeping in the deeper parts and a river 150 feet below us. The river is actually carving out another cave below and it runs underground all the way from the north of the island to the south. Some bats came out to fly around and I was freaking out, but they didn't come near us. We took a bunch of pictures and headed to lunch.
One of my teacher's friends from the night before wanted to meet us for lunch, so we took a confusing road down the mountains to the lake in between all of them. After we parked, she told us we would be taking a boat over to the restaurant which was on the coast of the other side of the lake. We could've driven straight to the restaurant, but this was we got to see the lake and some scenery and do something fun. We got off the boat right onto some steps to walk into the restaurant, which was all outdoors, but the weather was beautiful to eat outside that day. They served authentic Puerto Rican food there and I got steak in a special sauce with salad and fried plantains. We also had a fried cheese appetizer in a fruit sauce and for dessert we had a mango pudding and fried cheesecake with ice cream. Everything was amazing! We stayed there for quite a while because my teacher's friend just came to have a drink and talk, but we had to leave when the boat was making it's last trip back to the parking lot.
Finally, it was time to meet my teacher's parents. They actually have a pretty interesting story. Back when her mom graduated from high school, the kids usually went up to the states to find work. Her mom wasn't going to go, but another girl decided not to go at the last minute, so my teacher's mom went instead. Her mom left her boyfriend here, who was named Mario Santiago. Turns out that the girl she traded places with had a boyfriend in Florida who was also named Mario Santiago. There wasn't good communication back then, so the girl had no way of telling her boyfriend she wasn't coming in. Mario from Florida came up to New Jersey to await the arrival of his girlfriend, but met my teacher's mom instead and fell in love with her at first site. He returned to Florida to work and decided to write letters to my teacher's mom. Since they were signed from Mario Santiago, my teacher's mom assumed they were sent from her sweetie in Puerto Rico, and not the new guy she met from Florida. They wrote love letters to each other and Mario from Florida fell in love with her. Not hearing from his girlfriend, Mario from Puerto Rico kind of drifted away from having a relationship with her. When my teacher's mom returned back to Puerto Rico to meet with the Mario she thought she was writing letters to, she learned that it was the wrong one all that time. They ended up getting married anyways and my teacher says that either way, she was going to have a dad named Mario Santiago.
Anyways, they live on the top of a mountain in a house that her dad built, which has another story behind it. When she first lived in her town, they lived by a river. One day, it was raining and raining and raining and the river started to rise, but her mom didn't want to leave because there were no warnings. Her dad spoke up and they left everything in the house to get all 7 kids and the parents into their small Volkswagon to go up the hill. The water ended up taking over their car and they all got out to get away safely. They ended up having to stay in relative's houses while their dad built their house on a piece of land as high as they could get. Now her mom has peace of mind that the river can't ever rise to take over her house. So it took us forever to get to her house because we had to wind up and up the mountain. It was too dark to see the scenery, but our teacher told us it was gorgeous. They were very nice and the dad talked to us a lot about how he lived in the states. The mom thought we were Puerto Rican at first because of our tans. We only stayed for a little while, but I'm sure we'll go back to visit.
My teacher's friend then called us to meet them at the chinchorro, because he had a friend for Jenn to meet. We stayed for a little while, and the guy was very nice and said he would take us around a bit. We got home pretty late and went straight to bed to get up this morning at 6. It was a busy weekend, and we're tired but we had the best time with our teacher. We couldn't be in better hands or more lucky to be with someone like her.