Once-thriving Puerto Rico mountain town finds itself at economic abyss amid population flight

ap ^ | September 18, 2015

[PJ-Comix]

In more recent years, it had become a tourist destination for people coming to shop for crafts at its open air market and to visit the Lares Ice Cream Store, the most famous on the island. The shop, now closed, featured exotic flavors like sweet plantains, garlic and cod fish and was such a fixture that tourism dropped 80 percent after it shut down last year.

I'm sorry to hear that. I saw this ice cream store featured on Andrew Zimmern and wanted to visit in someday.

[txhurl]

Your post on the wild horses of Vieques during a hurricane a month or so back got me researching the island, I read all the sites of private houses and villas/hotels for rent. Their availability is now about 85%.

Wonder what the PR people would do if asked whether to re-open the base. Maybe a little ‘private’ security is what’s needed to clean up the drug problem.

[PUGACHEV]

It’s a little off topic, but I recall going to an old coffee plantation in the mountains just outside of Ponce, PR. It was a beautiful place, now kept as a museum. It had a water turbine made in West Point, NY in 1840 that still ran perfectly and drove a huge millstone/crusher device. The power from the turbine came from a little water course not more than one foot wide or tall. There hardly seemed to be enough power in the water to run all that machinery, but there I was looking at it. The water from the plantation was diverted from a larger stream that ran through the site, and that was the doom of the whole enterprise. It seems that under Spanish law, the water belonged completely to whomsoever had possession of it, but when Puerto Rico came under U.S. jurisdiction, the water rights had to be shared with downstream property owners.

[T-Bone Texan]

Yeah, my wife considered the presence of tiny ponies to be a bit magical.

I immediately identified them as a hazard to navigation. They do not flee from cars.

[Vigilanteman]

Belize has been a favorite destination for years. It shares a border with Honduras and Mexico but enforces them both. English is the official language. Government has been stable since independence. Population density is similar to Kansas, right down to a substantial contingent of Mennonite farmers.