Today was our last full day in Puerto Rico. Quite fittingly, we spent our last day in Old San Juan, as we did on our first day here. This time, however, instead of a city tour, we had to experience one of Puerto Rico’s biggest celebrations of the year: Las Fiestas de la Calle, or the Saint Sebastian Festival. We left our complex at 8:30am and arrived at Old San Juan around 9am. Even this early in the morning, there were a several people there. I was excited to see how many people would show up, since Maria said that later on in the day it would be nearly impossible to walk due to there being so many people. We agreed to meet at the Totem at 3:30pm and dispersed amongst ourselves in the crowd.
Our first stop was the artisan tents. There were several tents full of different homemade artwork ranging from paintings, jewelry, and wall hangings. Each piece of artwork was uniquely made and it was easy to see that time and effort was put into each piece. It was so interesting to see the different artwork that these Puerto Rican artists created and nice to see that local goods were made available at such a big festival. I was excited to buy presents for my family members and loved ones while directly supporting Puerto Rican businesses. We also went to small, local shops and some of these places also sold local goods. The themes of the shops ranged from Taino heritage to art galleries to tourist gift shops. I enjoyed looking around and see how the Taino, Spanish, and African aspects of the Puerto Rican culture influenced its people and how culture has manifested itself in their artwork.
Next, we decided to buy some food from the kiosks. We bought pinchos, which is fried pork on a stick, and arepas, which are cheese-filled corn breads. I had ordered pinchos during the beginning of our trip and I had to have the delicious pork one more time before leaving Puerto Rico. We then stopped by the bar and got some festive drinks. One popular drink was a foot and a half long tube full of a Sangria-flavored drink called Gasolina. While at the bar, we saw that a parade was coming our way so we decided to go to Saint Sebastian Street and watch. The parade started with young people on stilts dancing to music created by people playing drums. They held signs that said things like, “Cristo te amo!” Which means, “Jesus loves you”. The parade stopped about 10 minutes later and a lady prayed over the festival for a while. After that, there were dancers dressed in traditional Puerto Rican skirts dancing to more drums. Everyone was having a good time and even those in the crowd could sing along to the songs that those in the parade were singing. We have learned that Catholicism is an important part of the Puerto Rican culture, and this was reinforced after watching the parade.
After the parade and after walking around looking for the bathrooms, we met once again at the Totem. We met a nice, elderly couple and enjoyed dancing to the live music with them. We danced and listened to music for about two hours before we had to head back to the bus. I had fun laughing and dancing with my classmates and watching the huge crowd of people around us do the same. Although we were all exhausted and sweaty from the thick crowd of people and direct sunlight, we all had enjoyed ourselves. Some of my classmates compared the festival to the Minnesota State Fair, although it was much bigger than that. All in all, it was a good way for us to fully immerse in Puerto Rican culture, from its people, to its artwork, food, music, and dance. It was the perfect way to end our time in Puerto Rico.