Isla South Region, Puerto Rico

Sweet Home, Coamo, Center of the Universe

I’ve written about our little burg as well as what it’s like to live here on several occasions. This post is aimed at filling in a few of the ‘blanks’.

I think it’s worth mentioning, Coamo is one of the few towns in PR that has actually experienced growth in the midst of all the negative economic reporting. It does not hurt that our current governor is from here or that the mayor is his brother. I have no issue with any of that, but some might.

I feature 4 venues of Coamo, 3 of which are maintained by the municipio (city), the fourth is a most favorite restaurant.

Piscinas Aguas Termales-

Hot Springs for the Public

In a previous post, I featured Banos de Coamo. At that time it was under ‘new construction’. Since then, the City of Coamo took over its operation and I wanted to see what it looked like. Funny thing is, we never went in (the main entrance is still under reconstruction). Instead, we drove around the back where there used to be public access to the river and the adjacent hot springs. That area had been closed for several years so we had to check it out.

Me First Mate remembers going on picnics with friends before they closed it off. Hanging out, cooking, drinking, eating and having a great time.

Things have changed since then… [Read more…] about Sweet Home, Coamo, Center of the Universe

The 51st San Blas Marathon of Coamo, My 4th

This is a local story.

One I have covered 3 times in the past. Yes, I’ve reported on this event with great detail so I’ll only be talking about the highlights here.

There are videos of the past Marathons including one that runs the entire route, the morning before the big event, shot from the roof of my car. There is also a map (I made from scratch) of the route over on my Maps Page.

The last chunk of the San Blas Marathon runs back into town along Highway 150. By this point, the runners are pretty spread out. It’s our favorite spot to shoot from. We had a very nice day overall with overcast kicking in about the time the run got started.

As always, it was a very carnival like atmosphere.

Lots of food, lots of drink, the smell of roast pork everywhere and music coming at you from all directions.

I love it!

I even got a nice ‘swig’ of Pitorro from a squeeze bag out of the deal. SWEET!

The party from the night before did not slow down until 3AM.

A steady parade of cars, jeeps and bikes started up again about 8AM… it did not end until the cops closed off the route around 2PM. After that, it’s just the neighbors and local folk milling around, making conversation. A very family oriented moment!

As was my previous observation, the Cops were out in full force for the day’s events.

I used this opportunity to fire up my new video action-cam… A Sony AS10.

I have not had a chance to view any of the footage, but I assume some of it will be OK for editing down. That will come in a couple more weeks. Video is very time consuming and why I have not done more.

Believe me, I want to.

UPDATE! The 51st Annual San Blas Video is live and ready to view!

The 21Km San Blas Half Marathon takes a hour for the first runners to cross the finish line. The main mass of runners finish in about 2 hours with balance crossing the line after 3 and a half hours. At that point, it’s too dark to get anymore shots.

As always, me First Mate and I tried to get shots of everyone that passed by us at about the 15Km mark. She actually got more stills than I since I was trying to keep up with video while shooting stills. Not an easy task. To add insult to injury, the light was pretty flat due to the overcast for most of the run. I did what I could for the shots. I processed slightly over 125 images.

Not all shots were suitable for enlargement. So it goes.

We also have a dedicated page of Runners’ pictures from the San Blas Marathon with lots more shots of the runners. Two big pages of pictures with names and stats this time – and a page of most interesting people seen there.. Our contribution to a very local event. Coamo is a very special place.

Another great day, all in all!

The Old Ruins of Coamo, a Historical Tribute

I took off on a Saturday with a friend and we drove around Coamo, shooting a few ruins. I’ve been wanting to do this since I got here. Alex is featured in a couple shots.

As anyone who has read many of my posts knows, I love shooting the old ruins of Puerto Rico.

Coamo boasts being the 3rd oldest town in PR, dating to 1579 (after San Juan and San German) so there are remnants of that past, still standing. It’s hard to drive anywhere on the island and not see the sun bleached, red brick chimneys dotting the countryside. They all stand several stories tall. Most are square, a few are round.

Coamo has two and we see them every time we go check the mail.

These are typical of the period, square with walls about 2 feet thick. They actually have very small fireboxes considering how big they are. It’s also amazing that they show so little evidence of cracks and fissures considering the number of earthquakes they have endured.

I don’t have an exact date for the chimneys, but sugar, along with cattle, dairy farming, coffee and tobacco were started sometime after 1824. Coffee eventually replaced cattle ranching until the handoff of PR to the US. [Read more…] about The Old Ruins of Coamo, a Historical Tribute

Surfing on the South Side, Punta Pozuelo Beach

We were visiting friends a couple weeks back, in an area we
had been to before so I wanted to check out the local beach.

OK, the south side of the island is not known for it’s surfing, but it does happen. This particular beach is shaped like a bowl facing the Caribbean Sea. This helps concentrate incoming waves like you only see on the west or north coast of PR. Especially when the weather gets rough.

Punta Pozuélo sits in Jobos Bay (Bahai de Jobos) with the Bosque Estatal De Aguirre reserve next door. In fact, the old ‘Aguirre Central’ sugar mill is directly across the bay from the point, though it is technically part of Salinas, as is the Estuanna National Bahia Jobos Reserve. [Read more…] about Surfing on the South Side, Punta Pozuelo Beach

Figuras Point Lighthouse of Arroyo, PR

On my first pass of Arroyo, I did not make it out to the lighthouse.

Our Photo MeetUp group wanted to check out the Tren Del Sur ‘Train of the South’ so this was a good opportunity to try a few new photo ideas.

I have covered both the town of Arroyo and the ‘defunct’ Tren Del Sur in two previous posts. I love this part of the island, especially since we don’t live too far away.

The weather was perfect… we had a good breeze for the day.

I can say they have kept the grounds around the Tren Del Sur in nice shape. The small yellow building that was in such bad shape has been demolished and only the tiled foundation remains. The old passenger cars were also pretty spotless too.

The black and white shot was from the field behind the old train.

We did make a couple of other stops… An old abandoned sugar processing plant that we could see from the old train, but did not go in. We also stopped at an old red brick sugar mill about half way down a Camino Vecinal on the way to the beach. A classic example of ruins from the early period, before steam engines came into use. The MeetUp group stopped briefly on the public beach for a group shot. From there, we could see the top of the lighthouse. [Read more…] about Figuras Point Lighthouse of Arroyo, PR