Mayagüez and Boquerón

Fruit and flower of the cannon-ball tree

Chris at the base of the large Panama canoe tree

Colorful but crooked building on the Boqueron waterfront

Mayagüez is the third largest city in Puerto Rico, and quite interesting.  We walked all over the downtown area, including through the university campus there, which was very pretty, with all kinds of tropical foliage and trees, including the tallest palm I’ve ever seen.  Next door was the U.S.D.A. Tropical Research Station, which had hundreds of trees and shrubs labeled with species and origin.  Some of our favorites were the cannon-ball tree, with its namesake fruit, looking and feeling just like cannon balls, hanging from vines and littering the ground; and  the Panama canoe tree, which was straight and broad and tall, branching out only way overhead.  Boquerón is a small vacation town to the south of Mayagüez, where the university students come to party on weekends.  And party they do; the music plays all day and most of the night, loudly.  But it’s a fun atmosphere, and you could get an empanadilla (meat pie) for $1.88 and a Medalla (the local beer) for $1.25; where there are students, there’s cheap food and drink.  We also met up with our friends Steve and Lynn on Celebration, who had just arrived from the Turks and Caicos.  We hadn’t seen them since November, so we had a fun reunion. 

The Bacardi bat creeping along the sand toward an unsuspecting Boqueron beach goer, looking to suck a little rum-laden blood