Category: travel

This was our second excursion.  Typically the volunteering trips only have one excursion per trip, but the staff at Plenitud insisted we take two.  For this one, we headed to Playa Sucia, which is Spanish for “dirty beach.”  But it really wasn’t that dirty (there was some trash just north of the beach, but the…

This was another work day.  I don’t recall the details of what we did, but here’s another picture from Plenitud: We typically found work to do in the learning center in the afternoon when it rained.  On this afternoon we shucked a massive container of peanuts.  While we worked I told the students stories about…

We worked in the morning again.  But one of the staff members had also heard about a Jazz Festival in Mayaguez, about an hour away from the farm, that afternoon.  Since we kept getting rained out anyway, and because it was a Sunday, we ended up going out to the Jazz Festival that afternoon/evening.  While…

This was another work day.  But, if my memory serves me correctly, we also had a special treat.  Because we were only working half days and getting rained out in the afternoons, the staff at Plenitud arranged for a dance demonstration.  Some local dancers who dance a Puerto Rican traditional dance style, Bomba, came to…

This day was like the previous one, following the standard schedule.  But we did have our first novel activity that the staff arranged because we were stuck in the Learning Center in the afternoons: Salsa lessons.  They knew a young woman who was quite good at Salsa who came out this night and gave us…

This was a pretty typical day on the farm.  We got up at 6:00.  I read at the gazebo while some students did yoga.  We ate breakfast, then went out to work on projects – the ones I mentioned in the previous post (e.g., road maintenance, planting, weeding, etc.).  We’d usually work from about 8:00…

The staff at Plenitud are, well, they’re hippies.  And I’m totally cool with that.  In another life, I probably would be too.  Anyway, I only mention that because it helps explain some of what we did during the time we were there.  Like, for instance, every morning at 6:00 am one of the staff members…

I was invited to go with UT students on another service trip.  This time we went to Puerto Rico to live, work, and learn on an eco-farm called Plenitud.  The farm is run using permaculture principles which, in a nutshell, boil down to utilizing sustainable agricultural principles based on natural ecosystems.  For instance, permaculture principles…

Debi’s mother and brother came to visit us over the holidays and we decided to go on some adventures.  Included on the itinerary was Weeki Wachee State Park, which is most famous for its mermaids.  It was, undoubtedly, an interesting experience.  The park is rather rundown and definitely not of the caliber of either an…