Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

We had planned to go diving nearby today, but we got a call yesterday telling us that the conditions were too rough. So we've reshuffled our plans a bit. We spent the day wandering around Ponce, discovering that restaurants are closed for the holiday (tomorrow is Epiphany, Three Kings Day, which is a bigger deal than Christmas), and visiting the art museum.

It's a good art museum, with some standout pieces, but not huge. It turned out that it was free to the public and swarming with children, to celebrate Three Kings Day. There was entertainment in the courtyard and crafting (make your own crown!) on one of the balconies. After browsing the galleries, we watched a band procession and saw the arrival of the three kings (with a surprisingly large motorcade).

They picked up an even bigger motorcade later on. Our hotel fronts the main square, and at first I though half of the city must be on fire because there were so many sirens, but it turned out that it was just the Three Kings and their Turbo Schoolbus with a bunch of police motorcycles and SUVs.

Since all of the restaurants we'd meant to try were closed, we asked at our hotel desk and got a recommendation for the restaurant at the hotel/casino across the square. It turned out to be fantastic. There's a local dish called mofongo that's made with mashed plantains. Here there was a variation that used mashed cassava (yuca) instead. I'm pretty convinced that cassava is the best of all starches.