Esperanza - local kids
The following day we took a cab ride across the island to spend a few hours exploring the only town of any size besides Isabela Segundo ---> Esperanza. Esperanza is charming in its own beat-up way. Positioned on a pretty bay on the southern half of Vieques, it is reminiscent of being in the Florida Keys. Our drive to Esperanza was highlighted by seeing horses tied up in front of many houses, not unlike a parked car! There are a lot of small, wild horses running around the island ---> these are “Paso Fino”, descendants of horses brought over by Spanish conquistadors centuries ago. Be careful if you rent a car here as I heard several folks talk about hitting a horse with their car and spotted two vehicles that seemed to have experienced an unfortunate encounter with a Paso Fino.
Esperanza - local transportation
There are only a few art/gift stores, several bars and one museum, but the town has a great vibe. All these centered right along the shoreline and the pretty boardwalk, the ‘malecon’. We enjoyed watching a bunch of children run off the pier and swim in the bay, and had a tasty lunch at Banana’s. Of course we purchased the necessary tacky magnet for Vieques in Esperanza too!
The museum was the Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust, which is worth a quick visit. There's no admission charge and its teensy (they claim to have the world's smallest aquarium and I believe 'em...but it's fun), though it offers some quality tidbits about the area and its history. The gift shop had a nice selection too, especially some nature/science books and we picked up a couple for Spencer.
Two of the most endearing things about Vieques are the native frogs, coqui’s, who lull you to sleep every night with there melodic croaking, and Coqui Fire, the locally made hot sauce! We love the flaming coqui on the label, as well as the public notice that “no coqui parts” were used to concoct the sauce. But the neatest aspect is that there are ten varieties, ranging from a ‘sweat factor’ of one through ten. In addition to varying degrees of spiciness, the flavorings are unique to each variety…we liked the Papaya Lime Sauce (sweat factor 8) the best, as you might guess from the pictures.
It was a lot of fun to visit different restaurants on the island, as virtually each one carried some Coqui Fire – but you never knew precisely which variety you would get. It was great to get introduced to a different version by simply dropping in a new eatery, and we found this added an appealing bit of local intrigue.
No coqui parts were used in the
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Coqui Fire!!!
