Birds, Beaches, and Baseball in Southwest Puerto Rico

Some days we haven’t been doing much besides reading in a hammock, lingering over coffee, cooking together, and swimming in the river. Those days have been balanced out by others with lots of activity, checking out more of what this small but diverse island has to offer. It’s nice to appreciate both kinds of travel.

Our latest excursion started out with an attempt at visiting the Cabo Rojo National Refuge, a migratory coastal bird sanctuary along Puerto Rico’s important Corozon Salt Flats. Leah has plans for us to become birders in the future and this was to be our opening day. Sadly, part of the refuge was closed due to prolonged government shutdown which has shuttered all the National Wildlife Refuges on the island. We were still able to catch a glimpse though.

We continued on to ‘Playa Santa’ a thin strip of white sand and Caribbean blue water, the nicest we’ve seen so far. From there we checked out the beach in nearby El Combate where we discovered the locals' favorite Saturday afternoon pastime of floating in the waves with some beers or ginormous frozen margaritas. We followed their trail to a waterfront spot where we had some local seafood empanadas and ‘parcha’ (passion fruit) mojitos.

At this point we had to hurry to the Saturday evening baseball game in Mayaguez. There are five teams in the Roberto Clemente Baseball League in Puerto Rico. That night it was the Mayaguez Indios against the Carolina Gigantes. For $8 we sat just above first base, and right beside the volunteer team band-Sonora de Bacalao. Whenever the Indios batted, they had chants and songs backed by bells, shakers, trumpet, and many drummers, each playing the head of a conga with the body cut-off just below the tuning nuts.

The experience at the stadium had some differences from MLB games we're used to. No up-to-the-minute stats or scores from around the league, no ‘Kiss Cam’ voyeuristically trolling the audience, no Harleys delivering relief pitchers to the mound, and no Badger Mutual Insurance runs. And definitely no 'big-screen' showing replays-just the boisterous guy sitting directly behind us who recorded the entire game on his phone and shouted ‘sacalo’ (throw him out!) when any opposing field coaches and players were on the verge of being ejected from the game. Our ears are still ringing a little…

Despite a crowd that couldn’t have been more than 500 people, the energy was kept high by the unofficial mascot, a fan dressed in an ‘Taino’ Indian costume dancing the salsa, sliding into a fake home plate (aka an old gym towel), and delivering birthday cake to his fellow fans. Hopefully he at least gets free beer.

The game basically fell apart in the bottom of the 6th. It was tied 3-3, then a hit batter loaded the bases, a balk scored a run, and a disputed pick-off was called safe in favor of the home team. It was then 8-3 and two coaches for the opposing team had been ejected in grand fashion. The official Indios mascot tossed a comically oversized suitcase towards the opponents dugout as the fans chanted ‘Get out’. When they continued to argue with the umpire-who was so short he didn’t have to bend over to call balls and strikes-the crowd sang ‘Cielto Lindo', throwing salt on the wounds of those crying babies.

It took over 3 hours to get through six innings, and that’s when we left to find (non-fried) food. We assume Los Indios ended up winning at the rate it was going. All in all, a fun game indeed.

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