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| Puerto Rico |
Puerto Rico is a small Caribbean nation, comprising several islands, with a population of a little under 4 million.
Rather similar so far to New Zealand - however the entire area would fit between Wellington and Palmerston North!Spanish and English are the main languages spoken, official currency is the US dollar.
Puerto Rico is a "freely associated commonwealth of the United States".
Puerto Ricans are US citizens, but they don't pay US tax, and they do not vote in US federal elections.
The US looks after "external" governement functions - Customs, defense, foreign policy etc, while the Puerto Rican government looks after local affairs.The capital city is San Juan - on the northern side.
San Juan seems to be the center of the resort areas of Puerto Rico, and by fortuitous accident, our guys and girls get to spend a couple of nights there before moving on to Ponce :)Ponce, the host city to the ITF 6th Junior World Champs, is the second largest city in Puerto Rico, on the southern coast of the island.
It is called "La Perla del Sur" (Pearl of the South), and was founded in 1692 by the Spanish.
Ponce is Puerto Rico's principal shipping port and one of the busiest ports in the Caribbean area, handling tobacco, coffee, rum, and sugar cane.
People from Ponce are known as: Ponceņos
There are just under 200,000 Ponceņos - not quite twice the size of Hamilton or Dunedin.The Welcome to Puerto Rico site has fascinating information, with the novel twist of birdcall sounds that play when you access its pages.
It includes authentic local recipes - you may need some imagination and a little help from Altavista Translate, because many of them are in Spanish.