We were in Yauco a week ago, then at Milagro in Las Cruces this weekend. Didn't get to spend nearly enough time at the former, or have much reason to spend much time at the latter (since Bernie was away).
Vieques was nearly perfect. Yauco was hot. Crash Boat Beach isn't the same place it was when I was a kid. The house I "grew up in" isn't even there anymore. The sugar cane fields where I got off the school bus are now tight little rows of cinder block houses. Matter of fact, there aren't any cane fields on the entire island anymore with the last sugar mill closing its doors roughly a decade ago.
I wonder if coffee will eventually go the same way.
From a 2005 Puerto Rico Herald article: Ironically, local and federal government subsidies to low-income families have worked against the Puerto Rico coffee industry. "Coffee picking is a low-wage job, and a lot of government subsidies end up being incentives not to work," Irizarry said.