It's a hot, hazy, Sunday afternoon in Ponce, Puerto Rico. The skies are greyed out by the long traveled sand dusts from the Sahara, which have crossed the Atlantic as it has occurred for millenniums. The town is quiet, people walk lazily around the tree lined and centennial buildings adorned plaza.
Others sit on benches under the centuries old umbrella shaped trees, refreshed by the mist of the lion guarded fountain, enjoying the delicious ice creams from Los Chinitos, the decades old famous ice cream parlor at the town square, across from the legendary black and red fire house, El Parque de Bombas.
Los Chinito's ice creams are delicious, no matter what flavor you get. I'm having my favorite, guanabana or sour sop, which melts under the intense heat, prompting me to lick it quickly. It's always hard to chose between the so many delicious flavors, orange, coconut, passion fruit, peanuts, chocolate, or the decadent creamy vanilla, among others.
But neither the ice cream, nor the fountain mist are enough to make you feel cool, so we decide to take a drive up to the mountain top country house, near the boundaries of Ponce, Jayuya and Adjuntas, to get a bit of relief from the scorching heat. As we reach the half point of the climb, the temperatures start dropping to more comfortable levels, while a fine mist rain falls, almost like snow flakes, blown from one side to the other.
On the way up we found many mango trees with ripe fruits. I stopped a few times to pick the many different varieties of the fruit, most of them the small, round, reddish and yellow sweet mango rosa, the tiny yellow mango jobito, and the sweet and tangy, yellowish green mango largo, my favorite.
As I gather some mangoes on the roadside, a beat up white Jeep Cherokee, driven by a dark tanned skin, unkept curly haired guy, stopped for a few moments and observed what I was doing. Then he and the dirty blond, short haired lady that accompanied him continued their way.
I had seen the same guy drinking a beer earlier, when I passed him on the roadway, as he managed the curvy uphill road at low speed, giving me the impression that he could be drunk. A few minutes later I passed the Cherokee again as it was stopped at a local roadside bar, which the guy and the gall had entered. A bit further down the road I found another tree with my favorite mangoes, mango largo or mango de piña, so I stopped to get some.
As I was picking mangoes the Cherokee drives up once again, this time very slow as the blood shot eyes guy and the lady looked at me directly, saying nothing, even though they had the windows down. They passed slowly by me, and just as they passed my car, in which my wife Lucy and my mother in law sat, they stopped. The Cherokee then started to return towards me in reverse crossing the lanes as it got close to me. My wife who was in our car which was parked a bit of a distance away, saw what was happening so she started to honk the horn on the car to warn me of the situation. Not knowing their intentions, I acted as if nothing was happening, ignoring their presence, but with a heightened sense of alertness, with the fight or flight reflex ready to be engaged.
As I glanced with the corner of my eye I could see the lady getting something from the floor of the backseat of their car. The guy then yells at me with a obvious drunken voice. Amigo! As he moved something up from the back seat outside my view. Ven acá! He says. How can I help you, I replied. Here, take this, he says. Then to my surprise, he moves his two hands up with two huge mangoes, which dwarfed all the other ones I had picked, Take these, and don't let them get too ripe, as these will not get yellow like those you have, pointing to the handful of miniature mangos I was holding. Totally in shock and still trying to asses the situation, I took the two mangoes, as I thanked them for their unexpected nice gesture.
As they continued on their way, I returned to our car were my wife and my mother in law waited. What happened? Lucy asked. This, I said showing the handful of mangoes. What? She insists. What did they want? Look at these, showing her the huge mangoes. We were scared for a moment, she said. We all breathed a sign of relief, as we laughed of the moment. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover, I said.
We then continued on our way to the country house, where we enjoyed the cool afternoon, savoring some mangoes, waching Ponce in the distance sizzle in the hot afternoon.
