We wanted to go to the Fiesta de Santiago in the town of Loiza Aldea, a mostly black community descended from Yoruba slaves. The festival began as a worship of traditional gods disguised as worship of the Catholic saint Santiago (St. James). It is now a nine-day affair, featuring parades with masked and costumed dancers and drums. We went on the third day of the festival, a Saturday, and since the guide book gave no indication of location, we figured that it would be obvious when we got to Loiza.
Andrew, Rebecca, Sam, Danielle, and I set out in the rental car. We arrived in the early afternoon, and as we drove down the main street of Loiza we saw lots of people sitting on chairs by the side of the road, as if they were waiting for a parade. We drove by a stage on which musical instruments were set up, and we drove under some flags. There were food stands along the side of the road and people selling traditional masks made from coconuts. We got to the end of the town without seeing any festival center, so we turned around and started driving back the way we came. We passed a group of people in costume with masks, so we asked them what time the festival started. They seemed very amused by us gringos and shook our hands, and told us that the parade would be at 3:00. We decided to go in search of lunch.
We saw a sign outside the entrance to a parking lot advertising a restaurant. At the end of the parking lot was a gate with guards, so we went up and asked the guards about the restaurant. One of them called someone at the restaurant, and at first he said that the cook was gone, but then he said that the restaurant was indeed open. He opened the gate for us, and we drove into a resort where people were walking around in bathing suits. We walked into the restaurant, where a few people were sitting at a counter watching bad television. Through a door was a room with pool tables and video games. We sat down at one of the tables, and the guy behind the counter came up and asked us what we wanted. We got the impression that we really weren't supposed to be sitting down and ordering food--the place seemed more like a snack bar than a restaurant. I asked the guy ("waiter" didn't seem like an appropriate description) if there was a menu, and he proceeded to tell us that they had chicken wings, burgers, french fries, and shrimp soup. We ordered some food, and after some while it arrived. It was decent, but not great, and Andrew said the shrimp soup was bad, and overpriced.
At this time it was about 3:30, since it had taken so long for the food to arrive, but we figured that the parade would go on for some while if it had to go all the way down the street, and it probably wouldn't start on time anyway. But when we got back out, there was no sign of a parade anywhere, although people were still sitting by the road. The instruments that had been on the stage were gone. We drove back to where we'd started, and where there was a field full of horses that we had assumed had something to do with the parade, but there was no sign of festivities. We went up to a guy selling masks from his car. He didn't speak English, so I asked him in Spanish what time the parade was, and he replied "one hour." I then asked him if he meant one hour earlier or one hour later than the current time, but he didn't understand me, so I asked him at what time the parade was. He replied "six." This didn't make much sense, so I gave up.
We walked down the street for some ways in search of a store selling masks that we had seen, but we didn't find it and decided to turn back. All the townspeople sitting by the road stared at us. Sitting by the road appears to be a popular pastime in Puerto Rico. We went back to another bunch of people selling masks, near our car, and we watched a man carving a mask out of a coconut. A man in that group spoke some English, and he told us that the parade had been in this town yesterday, and an entirely different town earlier in the day. Sam and Danielle bought masks, while Rebecca, Andrew and I went to McDonalds for milkshakes.
Disappointed, we decided to go the mall (the largest mall in the Caribbean) to see a movie. Unfortunately, when we got there the only movie that looked any good (K-19 with Harrison Ford) had just started a short time previously, so we went to Borders instead. I bought a CD by Allison Krauss, who sang some beautiful songs in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?.