Puerto Rico - A Real Fireworks to Discover Kayak

Puerto Rico. Its first inhabitants , the Tainos , Puerto Rico called " Boriquén ", the "land of the proud lord ." A wild land , bordering worlds Arawak and Carib , studded in the center of mountains covered by tropical rainforest.

What remains of Puerto Rico, five centuries after the Conquest , this paradise ? Numerous beaches, clear the sand, often planted with coconut trees , which each year attract 2.5 million visitors ( mostly American ) . Lukewarm water for bathing. No ordinary berries, illuminated at night by bioluminescent microorganisms ! Puerto Rico is a real fireworks to discover kayak ... Extraordinary framed preserved , too, such as El Yunque forest, watered by 6 meters of annual rainfall !

Puerto Rico - as they say here - stands out as an unusual melting pot. His cultural background is definitely Hispanic . The architecture of Old San Juan can be seen , with its powerful forts, walls and houses declining a charming range of pastel colors. The power of religion , the taste of the fiesta, the passion of the music go in this direction.

Today , the future seems to draw further north : already associated with the United States, Puerto Rico dream 51st state of the Union.

Culture Puerto Rico

A melting pot

From the beginning of colonization , the Spaniards set their sights on women taínos "if well proportioned " - according to Christopher Columbus. Quickly , slavery has seen the arrival of tens of thousands of Africans taken from their continent.

But the plantations , voracious , and the development of trade , continued to require labor : Chinese immigrants , Italian , French , German , Lebanese, and Venezuela have followed throughout the nineteenth century. One would think that after the Spanish-American War of 1898, the island would become a Yankee turf. Nay : the period saw a new influx of Spanish immigrants .

Let us add the Cubans who fled the Castro regime in the 1960s , and the Dominicans in search of a better life - more likely to have recently installed. Briefly, a mixture of sacred origins !

Muñoz Marín ( Luis )

Among the few Puerto Ricans known abroad , Muñoz Marín (1898-1980) is a good example of this generation born Spanish and American become . Poet and journalist in his youth, editor of the newspaper La Democracia , senator in 1932 , he first made ​​the spokesman of the independence of the island. Excluded from the Liberal Party for that reason, he participated in the founding of the Democratic Party of Puerto Rico and became president of the Senate.

Returning his jacket , or simply pragmatic , he adopted as and when a position more favorable institutional rapprochement with the United States.

He threw two parallel major campaigns : one designed to eradicate poverty through agrarian reform , the other to attract investors to the island. A double success, which led to his being repeatedly reelected governor ( 1949-1965 ) . He was instrumental in obtaining the commonwealth status in 1952.

Grateful , Puerto Ricans have named San Juan airport in his honor.

Music

Like all Caribbean , Puerto Ricans can not live without music . The island is one of the cradles of arisen from the traditions of Spanish and African rhythms Latin rhythms . Among the favorite instruments are percussion ( bongos , congas , timbales ) - inseparable from the salsa - but the maracas, the guiro ( gourd carved with " scratch ") and guitar. But not just any guitar : the cuatro , which despite its name, actually has ten strings ! Mixed with drums, it gives jíbaro farmer on an air of nostalgia puertoriqueña ...

Often associated although they are very different , the bomba and plena are among the first musical forms appeared on the island. Plena was gradually shaped by African slaves in the plantations of sugar cane from the seventeenth century. Before improvised (and repeated in chorus ), it is punctuated by maracas and drums echoes amounts - one large and one small , are responding . It is inseparable from the dance. Plena , more multicultural, also later . Born around 1900, it is based on texts messages, and more often satirical protest . His instruments are the guiro , cuatro and the tambourine .

Side traditions, danza is the image of the Puerto Rican music of yesteryear, mixing classical and Caribbean influences. The hymn "national" The Borinqueña is also made ​​on the rate of a danza . This style emerged in the mid- nineteenth century, can be both sang and danced , hence its name.

Among the Puerto Rican musical glories is also high position the singer and bandleader Tito Rodríguez ( 1923-1973 ) , famous for his cha-cha -cha and furious sentimentality of his boleros . And more : Mr. Tito , Tito Puente , born the same year as Rodríguez (1923-2000) , but in New York , leader of the mambo and cha-cha , the recipient of five Grammy Awards.

Also included in another genre, the Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, who ended his life in Puerto Rico and there began a festival of chamber music with his name . What is left today of the golden age ? Lots of nostalgia and the voice of Ricky Martin , the last great Puerto Rican singer dated to have acquired an international reputation.

salsa

But what would a music section not to mention salsa ? It is the initiative of Puerto Rican and Cuban musicians that style developed in New York in the 1960s . There is a bit of everything that makes the Afro-Caribbean musical traditions montuno Cuban , Puerto Rican bomba and plena , Dominican merengue , but also jazz, mambo , rumba, cha-cha ...

Quite a cocktail of sounds, combination of bass guitar, wind instruments, maracas , drums , güiros , claves , cow bell and we probably forget . Big local names have marked the history of salsa, as Héctor Lavoe ( the false air of Elvis Presley ) , voice almost as high as that of a castrato , associated with trombonist Willie Colón, Pete " El Conde " or Cheo Feliciano Rodríguez , alias El Señor sentimiento ...

Taínos

Statistically, the first inhabitants of Boriquén ( Puerto Rico ) became invisible : their descendants now account for only 0.2 % of the population of the island.

It was long believed that slavery and decimated by new diseases, Arawak people had disappeared in the first half of the sixteenth century . DNA tests in 2003 showed the opposite: they revealed that 61% of Puerto Ricans living on the island have Taino blood - against only 27 % of African blood and 12% of European blood !

The same research estimates the total population of the island on the eve of the conquest between 200 000 and 400 000. To try to communicate with the lost piece of local identity, will visit the Centro Ceremonial Indígena Tibes , near Ponce. An Indian guide will help you discover the passion forgotten lore of his ancestors.