My first outing while in Puerto Rico was for shopping. There is a new super Walmart in Toa Baja that is all the rage with the locals of the several Toa somethings and other neighboring towns; to that place my brother drove me when I asked to do some light shopping. What a mistake! I went in for a bag of bread and a few household items that were in short supply at home; three hours after I was panicking in the arts and craft aisle trying to figure out how I was going to fit all those cheap art supplies and the other random stuff I had grabbed in my luggage. Which ones to take? Why was there everything and anything I could ever want? And so cheap! And then my phone rang and my brother asked if I had somehow hitchhiked home and left him alone in the store because he had been looking for me for the last twenty minutes. We managed to make it out of there alive and not broke. There is something that my family and friends in Puerto Rico had yet to understand: no matter how much the local sale tax raises the price of things in the island, almost everything will always be at least 25% cheaper than in Qatar—sometimes much more than that if you count sales—and that is always a good excuse for shopping. I am not proud of it and must plead temporary insanity due to good deals’ deprivation while abroad, for my unintended shopping spree.

There were other shopping adventures but let’s move on and talk about something that we can all agree on: Puerto Rican coffee is awesome.—Ok, there is the remote possibility that I am exaggerating on this one; however, if you had tried it, then there is a good chance that you’d agree with me.

I find the everyday local brew nice but every time I am here, my family tries to impress me with some artisanal roast or other. A couple of years ago, at the instigation of my dad, we made a tasting trip to El Museo del Café in the North central town of Ciales. We were hooked. Naturally, the first thing that AwHus asked for when he came out of the plane was “Café don Pello” del pueblito de Ciales [donde se rumora que] hay una piedra bendita, que la vieja que se siente amanece jovencita, citing the song that I taught him a while ago.—In the little town of Ciales there is a blessed stone, whichever old lady that sits on it will become a young lass by dawn.—I haven’t been able to find the stone yet, but the coffee is excellent. They roast it and grind it on site and the aroma, wafting over the greenery and karst mountains, is simply amazing, and my awesome husband wanted to impress his friends at work with a sample of the smooth, rich brew.