You don’t have your own wheels???

In America (a colony of ) – the car is your best friend. We didn’t plan on renting a car on Vieques – after all the island is not large, and you can always take the publico (taxi). From our house in the village of Esperanza, you will get through the village on foot in 15 minutes, and the distance to the public beach Sun Bay is about the same. So, this was the plan – feet and taxis.
The second day, we decided to take the publico to the main village Isabella II (yeah, its named after a queen) to get some baby food and to visit the vegetable market. We started walking (Me with F on my stomach and B with E in the stroller) towards the “strip” where the publico’s stop, and stopped by the mini market for some drinks.

As promised – wild horses on the way to the mini market

The guy at the mini market is a chatty man and asked what our plans were, we told him, and he looked like he has seen snow in hell: You don’t have your own wheels??? Outside the store, after having moved a few meters, a pick up truck stops and an old guy with a very strong New York-Spanish accent and a “Vietnam veteran” cap said: Get in! I’ll give you a ride! Felipe (“Pepe”) didn’t have any plans for the day, so he took us to the veggie market, helped carry our harvest back to the pick up and continued to the super market. Then he gave B his number and told us to call him whenever we needed a ride.

We did our chores in the super market and had some nice goat stew for lunch. Then we wanted to try to catch the fish market as well before going back, and asked for directions. “Well, its down by the pier, but you don’t want to WALK there, its at least 10 minutes”. Well, we did, and got some nice lobster and fish.

Then – after just a few hours in Isabella II – we were completely drained. The thing about Vieques is that it is HOT. Oven-like bake temperature, indescribably exhausting. And we can take quite a lot by now! We just wanted to get a publico as quickly as possible. But where were they??? We didn’t see any, we called our two numbers, we got another number from a smoothie-making woman (she probably saved my life, by the way) but no answer. Finally, we managed to get another number and a taxi came.

Next day – still optimistic without wheels – we wanted to try the Sun Bay beach. Still same procedure, E in the stroller and me with F on stomach, now with umbrella. A few cars stopped on the way asking if we needed a ride, but it was an easy road, no hills – piece of cake compared to some earlier places. But my goodness, the heat! And – on top of it, E had a tantrum of some kind and screamed the whole way there. Arriving at lunch time, we discovered that all the restaurant offered was the fried, fried or fried, so the whole expedition resulted in us turning around and going home to eat, exhausted, and staying at home the rest of the day.

Chicken in our front yard

Chillin’ at home

And today there is a Suzuki parked in our driveway.