Butterfly Art by Perrington in San Juan Puerto Rico
1. Butterfly Art
When yous first walk into The Butterfly People shop in San Juan's onetime city, you feel as if you just walked into an exotic butterfly garden. Y'all are surrounded by Lucite encasements of collywobbles of a variety of different species and in every colour you can imagine. The shop has a cute garden in the back and the light makes everything in the store sparkle. The butterflies glow and shine through their Plexiglas boxes which are small enough to fit into your bag or large enough to cover a wall. The butterflies expect as though they might fly right out at you. Of course, they won't, they're not alive, simply they are advisedly preserved in artful settings by Resat Revan and his wife Cirene, who buy collywobbles from native sellers in tropical locations around the world. On top of their shop is their studio where Resat designs and produces these cute and vivid displays. A piece of butterfly fine art features anywhere between two and i hundred butterflies.
Price: $30-$3,000.
Where to find it:
The Butterfly People
world wide web.butterflypeople.com
257 Calle De La Cruz
Quondam San Juan, PR
787 723-2432
Daily: 11am-6pm
Friday: Airtight
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2. Cigars
The Spanish brought them dorsum to Spain from Puerto Rico and called them "cigarillos." Cigar making is still considered an art form in Puerto Rico. Until the late 1950s, Puerto Rico was among the globe'due south largest tobacco exporters, but the industry has since declined. There is a diversity of Puerto Rican-made cigars, just 1 of the oldest and all-time-known brands from the island is Don Collins. Don Collins cigars are handmade in the oldest surviving cigar factory in the Caribbean area. The factory itself dates back to 1506 and is available for tours. Simply you don't have to go to the manufactory to take in the olfactory property of the famed tobacco; just walk into whatsoever one of the tobacco shops in San Juan or head straight to the Don Collins shop. Don Collins cigars use 13 unlike kinds of Puerto Rican-grown tobacco produced by independent farmers on the island. A Lonsdale bundle will run you nearly $140.00, while a bundle of Puros Indios costs $225.00. But if you want to try a few different ones, sample packs are available, ranging in price from well-nigh $40 to $70, depending on how many cigars are in the pack.
Price: $2-$17 per cigar.
Where to discover it:
Don Collins Cigars
world wide web.don-collins.com
59 Calle Cristo
Old San Juan, PR
787 977-2983
Daily: 10am-8pm
Offline reading and travel directions:
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three. Mundillo
The art of bobbin lace making adult in Puerto Rico well-nigh two centuries ago, originally to adorn highly styled garments, such equally the ones worn by the clergy. Today, this specialized lace continues to be used to decorate infant and toddler vesture. Near every Puerto Rican baby, at some point, is dressed in a Mundillo lace ensemble. Mundillo is a special kind of knitting with multiple threads that produce intricate and creative knits. The beautifully crafted Mundillo lace is fabricated predominantly in the town of Moca, in the western function of the island, where most of the lace makers live and continue to teach the art. There is even a Museum of Mundillo in Moca and the town regularly hosts a Mundillo festival. Most of the wear comes in pastel colors, like light yellow, lavender, turquoise, pink, besides as beige and white. This traditional Puerto Rican lace is also used to make tabular array cloths, bedspreads and handkerchiefs.
The lace makers bring their carefully crafted baby jumpsuits, dresses, headbands, booties, blankets and bonnets to sell in San Juan, usually at artisan festivals. Merely if you lot happen to accept missed all the festivals, you tin still purchase Mundillo at San Juan's famed Plaza Las Americas, the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean area. In fact, many of Puerto Rico's artisans have found a home at Plaza Las Americas either in a freestanding kiosk or at the shopping center'south third floor artisan gallery.
Prices: range from $fifty for a simple infant outfit to $500 for a highly styled coating.
Where to detect information technology:
Mi Pequeno Angelito
Plaza Las Americas
1st Floor – next to Sears in front end of the Fountain
San Juan, PR
787 376-5156
Daily: 9am-9pm
Offline reading and travel directions:
You tin can acquit this commodity in your mobile device to read offline and create a self-guided walk to visit the venues featured herein with the GPSmyCity App (available on iTunes App Shop or Google Play Shop).
4. Ceramics
Art is everywhere in San Juan and art and crafts shops can be establish throughout the narrow, winding cobblestone streets of the sometime city. Many of the artists have been schooled at ane of the local art institutes, while some are simply self-taught. Ceramics are one specialty that you lot will see in many different shops and galleries, only at Puerto Rico Art & Crafts artisans take a unique opportunity to testify off their creations. The shop allows artists to accept their own shelf or wall to display their work. The ceramics really stand out here with larger items, like colorful plates and bowls, to smaller objects, such equally cups and vases. The shop is located in a restored Spanish colonial building in the heart of Old San Juan, and artists from all over the island are featured here at different times during the year.
Prices: $6-$900.
Where to find it:
Puerto Rican Fine art & Crafts
www.puertoricanart-crafts.com
204 Fortaleza Street
Sometime San Juan, PR
787 725-5596
Monday-Saturday: 10am-6pm
Sunday: Apex-5pm
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5. Pilon
Mashed plantains is 1 of the most pop dishes in Puerto Rico. Well-nigh every creole restaurant on the island features some kind of mashed plantains or "mofongo" stuffed with dissimilar sorts of meat and seasonings. However, in lodge to make this traditional dish, you demand a pilon that is used to blast the fried unripe green plantains. Pilon is a Puerto Rican wooden mortar and pestle which tin can besides exist used to beat spices. At one fourth dimension, it was fifty-fifty used to grind java. Some pilones are made from the wood of Guayacan trees and can be decorative as much as useful. It is said that the Taino Indians used big hollowed out tree trunks to make their waist high pilones. Today, you can find pilones of different sizes, modest - to grind up spices, as well as bigger ones.
You will see pilones sold at a number of shops in San Juan, but some of the almost interesting ones can be found at San Juan'southward highly popular shopping mall, Plaza Las Americas. On the third floor of the mall, there is a special gallery that features crafts of the local artisans seeking to sell their work to a wider clientele. There, yous will find many of the local crafts, as well as some of the about beautiful wooden pilones.
Price: $25-$300.
Where to find information technology:
Plaza Las Americas
3rd flooring Paseo Cultural Ricaldo Alegria (well-nigh JC Penney)
San Juan, PR
Daily: 9am-9pm
Sunday: 11am-7pm
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6. Bags
Climbing upwards and down some of the hills of Erstwhile San Juan can really tire you out, especially if yous're carrying a heavy bag or backpack. A local bag designer has made a splash with her lightweight and stylish cotton bags that can exist worn cantankerous body, over the shoulder or even around your waste, simply have room for all of the essentials. These numberless are also convenient if you're riding a bike, considering of their lightness. The shop'south owner and designer sacrifices nothing in manner while insisting upon the bags practicality. The exterior is made out of cotton, but lined with nylon. The different fabrics all come from Puerto Rican suppliers and there are always 15 different designs in the store on whatsoever given day. You tin can choose from totes, clutches or messenger style bags, all in a variety of colour combinations. The bags are commonsensical, notwithstanding trendy, and are all manufactured in a co-op in Puerto Rico's beautiful mountain town of Utuado; they are but sold in San Juan.
Price: $twoscore-$75.
Where to find it:
Concalma
www.concalmalinea.com
Calle San Francisco 207
Quondam San Juan, PR
787 729-0800
Monday-Saturday: 10am-6pm
Sunday: 10am-4pm
7. Vejigantes
These colorful decorative masks represent 11th century Spanish Moors and are ofttimes seen during Carnival or the St. James Festival in Puerto Rico, which takes identify in July. These bright clown-similar masks accept protruding horns, oversize lips, noses and eyes, and are oft worn with as colorful costumes. The masks engagement back to the 1700s' Castilian traditions and represent a spiritual battle between Campaigner James and Spanish Muslims. The masks can exist quite scary. They represent "evil" in the fight betwixt expert and evil that often is the theme at carnivals effectually the world. The Vejigante masks of Puerto Rico come from ii towns of celebrated importance.
Loiza is a pocket-sized town whose population was one time made up of freed or escaped African slaves. The masks in Loiza are made from coconut shells and take a potent African influence in their tradition and blueprint. In Ponce, Puerto Rico's 2d largest metropolis, the masks are made of newspaper-mache. The art of mask-making comes from both Castilian and African civilisation and has been passed downwards from generation to generation. These decorative masks can be found in different colors and sizes and hang nicely on a wall.
Price: $eighteen-$150.
Where to notice it:
El Galpon
154 Calle del Cristo
San Juan, PR
787-725-3945
8. Wood Carvings of Saints
The festival of the Three Kings is probably more than celebrated in Puerto Rico than even Christmas. In almost every crafts store in San Juan you will find shelves of wood-carved saints or "santos" in all sizes and styles, most often representative of the Three Kings. Historically, these wood images of saints were used as objects for prayer. Today, the saints stand for an important function of Puerto Rican culture. When the Castilian arrived on the island in the late 1400s, these representations of saints were used to help in efforts to convert to Catholicism the ethnic people of the island – first, the Taino Indians and, later, slaves from Western Africa. Saint carvings somewhen evolved to become more than a part of the art culture leaving behind much of the religious attachments. These statuettes tin be unproblematic or ornately painted and tin exist hung on the wall or stand up on their own.
Yous will find these wood carvings of saints at many shops throughout San Juan, but El Galpon, located in a niggling aisle right off 1 of the master shopping streets, has a special collection displayed along the wall, and the shop's possessor will tell y'all about the history of the saints and their origins.
Toll: $45-$1,000.00.
Where to find it:
El Galpon
www.elgalpon.net
154 Calle Cristo
Former San Juan, PR
787 725-3945
Daily: 10am-6pm
9. Spices
Puerto Rican cooking oft involves cilantro, a lime sort of season that tin can be found in a lot of unlike Latin American cooking practices. Simply even more popular than cilantro in Puerto Rico, is recao, a more aromatic, jagged edged long leafage kind of cilantro. Some of the other favorite flavors on the island include orangish, lime, mango and a diverseness of peppers, depending on what'southward in season.
If you want to taste some of the different seasonings of Puerto Rican cooking, finish past Spicy Caribbee, a quaint little shop, located in one of Old San Juan'southward precious alleyways, which offers tastings of their spices, jams and sauces. All the seasonings here have been inspired past the owner's travels throughout the Caribbean and her wish to create Puerto Rico'due south all-time herb combinations. The spices come in bonny souvenir-size jars and bottles that are easily packed. The owner of the store, Nereida Williams, created the spice recipes herself and they are almost all made with local ingredients. Some of the biggest sellers are the "Herbed Sea Common salt," an accommodating seasoning that is bully with pork, craven or fish, the "Steak Seasoning" made with the local recao leaf, and the "Lime, Orangish, Pepper" which is salt-free. So, if you desire to bring dwelling a lilliputian sense of taste of Puerto Rico, you can choice up a jar or two and savour the flavors of the isle long after your trip.
Price: $5-$10 per jar.
Where to notice it:
Spicy Caribbee
www.spicycaribbee.com
154 Calle Cristo
Old San Juan, PR
888 725-7259
Mon-Sabbatum: 10am-6pm
Dominicus: 11am-5pm
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10. Rums
Though other Caribbean islands produce a variety of rums of their own, over 70% of rum sales in the The states come up from Puerto Rico. Ane of Puerto Rican leading rum labels is Don Q, produced past a family distillery that has been around for 145 years. Don Q is renowned for its clean cease and comes in light, night or naturally flavored varieties with coconut, lime or passion fruit flavors. The process of rum making begins with crushing carbohydrate cane; eventually, the produced spirit is anile in oak barrels and so blended to get just the correct taste for each diversity.
In Onetime San Juan, merely beyond from Pier One on the waterfront, is Casa Don Q, a small museum dedicated to the history of rum making in Puerto Rico. The museum has a staffed bar offering gratuitous samples and you can even order their specialty drink, called a Dulcinea, made of orange, pineapple, coconut foam, grenadine syrup and Don Q Cristal rum. At Casa Don Q, yous can pick upward a variety of bottles to take habitation, including Don Q Cristal, Gilded, Citrus Lime, Passion, Coconut or Mojito. There is likewise Don Q Anejo and, for a splurge, Don Q Gran Anejo which is aged betwixt 3 and 12 years and is top of the line. Don Q Gran Anejo was given a five-star diamond honor by the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, making information technology the first rum ever to receive such a rating.
Cost: $15-$55.
Where to observe it:
Casa Don Q
www.donq.com
Paseo Gilberto Concepcion de Gracia
500 Bldg. Edificio Ochoa
Onetime San Juan, PR
787 977-1720
Tuesday-Saturday: 9am-6pm
Sundays-Mondays: Closed
11. Guiro
Music is definitely a key role of Puerto Rican civilization and the island is known for several musical instruments and their unique sounds. Today, Puerto Rico is often associated with its popular reggaeton, likewise as salsa. But the island's more traditional music includes Bomba, Plena and Danza, all very distinct musical styles that have evolved to some degree, but have long histories. Bomba and Plena come from West African musical traditions, and often tell a certain story through words and music. One of the instruments you volition most likely observe accompanying Bomba or a Plena, or any other Puerto Rican folk music for that affair, is Guiro.
A Guiro is believed to have originated with the indigenous Taino Indians. This percussion instrument is fabricated from a hollowed-out gourd with parallel grooves carved into its surface and it makes a rasping sound when stroked up and down with a scraper. The straighter and more than consequent are the grooves of the Guiro, the better is the quality of the instrument. The Guiro is often played past a vocalist and comes in a variety of sizes.
Toll: $8-$16.
Where to find information technology:
Mi Pequeno San Juan
world wide web.mipequenosanjuan.com
152 Fortaleza Street
Old San Juan, PR
787 977-1636
Daily: 10am-6pm
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12. Hammocks
Hammock weaving has long been a specialty in the Puerto Rican town of San Sebastian, located in the northwest corner of the island. The boondocks fifty-fifty hosts a hammock festival in July. Fable has it that hammock weaving, but like and then many other crafts in Puerto Rico, has been handed down from the Taino Indians. Even the word "hammock" has virtually likely derived from the Taino discussion "hamaca" significant a comfortable lounging chair. While most hammocks are designed and made in small towns across the island by individual craftspeople, you can find these authentic and durable hammocks being sold in a handful of places in the city of San Juan. The hammocks are made from cotton and string and are sometimes dyed in brilliant colors. They come up in a multifariousness of sizes, like a chair for one person, or a double chair for ii. Some hammocks can fifty-fifty hold upward to 450 pounds.
Price: $50-$200.
Where to detect it:
La Calle Shopping Mall
105 Fortaleza Street
Quondam San Juan, PR
787 725-1306
Daily: 10am-6:30pm
13. Java
In San Juan, ordering a loving cup of coffee or a "cafecito" is a role of just virtually everyone'due south daily life. People gather at about any hour at one of the old urban center's outdoor plazas to sip some coffee and engage in lively conversations with friends. Coffee was once one of Puerto Rico's top exports until a decline in production forced most of the smaller coffee plantations to close. Recently, there has been a resurgence of pocket-size family farms coffee product and a handful of micro-roasteries and coffeehouses take opened, serving single-origin coffee grown in the island's interior mountains.
1 of the newest to open in San Juan'south historic old city is Cuatro Sombras – which means Four Shades (or shadows) and refers to the four unlike trees that provide shade to their coffee beans while they grow. The Santa Clara java farm had its doors closed, just like many others in Puerto Rico, back in the mid 1950s. Fortunately, these days, the descendants of the original family decided to dedicate themselves to reviving the farm. As a result, Cuatro Sombras, certified for making specialty java, now offers their well-baked, make clean tasting coffee to local coffee lovers and visitors akin. An 8-ounce latte costs $2.09.
Price: viii oz. purse of coffee beans is $11.77, including revenue enhancement.
Where to find information technology:
Cuatro Sombras
www.cuatrosombras.com
259 Calle Recinto Sur
Old San Juan, PR
787 724-9955
Monday-Friday: vii:30am-6pm
Sabbatum-Sunday: x:30am-6pm
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Other Interesting Souvenirs from Puerto Rico
If traveling to Puerto Rico is not on your immediate agenda, or you lot merely can't afford an actress infinite in your luggage, fortunately, these days, you lot can observe a wide selection of authentic and truly interesting Puerto Rican souvenirs online. Presented here are some of the Puerto Rican products sought past strange visitors, now available online for your convenience.
1. Hand-Crafted Decorative Plates - If you fancy erstwhile-style classic ornamentation and decorative plates in particular - the ones hung on the wall for the sheer of beauty of them, non for putting some food on, then Puerto Rico could be one of your favored destinations producing such plates in slap-up varieties. The designs include local birds, women and other beauties of Puerto Rico.
ii. Pique - Authentic Puerto Rican Hot Pepper Sauce - In Puerto Rico, pique (hot sauce) is as common a condiment every bit ketchup is on the mainland. The kioskos (nutrient stands) throughout the isle ordinarily take 2 or 3 fresh varieties for your frituras (fried foods). Fabricated with whole garlic, peppers and peppercorns, and so marinated in vinegar over a period of time, these piques are hot and delicious. Fabricated locally and packed with season, the pique sauce is peachy on everything, from the lightest veggies to the heartiest steak.
3. Puerto Rican Traditional Snacks - Crunchy and tasty beef & cheese turnovers (empanadillas de carne), cakes, sorullos, arepas, tacos and alcapurrias make up the variety of foods fit to satisfy your gustation buds with Puerto Rican flavor, as they are stuffed with it from tip to tip. You lot tin can as well indulge your sweet tooth with the tropical taste of Puerto Rico, even if y'all are thousands of miles away, treating it to some Puerto Rican lollipops or dried fruits. The taste Puerto Rico actually loves!
4. Caribbean area Handmade Soap - Handmade in Puerto Rico, this Caribbean soap reveals what the tropics are all about. Other than the sweet aroma, the lather gently exfoliates the peel and is renowned for its moisturizing and detoxifying properties thanks to the presence of fresh coconut milk & kokosnoot meat, oatmeal flakes, vanilla & goat's milk, every bit well as Dead Sea mud.
Source: https://www.gpsmycity.com/articles/68-13-distinctively-puerto-rican-goods-to-bring-home-from-san-juan.html
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