Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

Mayaguez today is a heavily populated area with a large college crowd. Its universities have a reputation as having the Caribbean's best schools of medicine, and Mayaguez, because of the student crowd, has a reputation as a good party town. This could also be attributed to Mayaguez's beautiful beaches.

Mayaguez also has many touristic attractions and is close to the Porta Coeli Church[?] a legendary church in nearby San German[?].

Because of its universities, Mayaguez attracts all kinds of different people among its international and domestic medicine students, along with the local families.

Mayaguez has many large malls, the Mayaguez Hilton hotel, and the biggest beer manufacturer in the Caribbean, the Cerveceria India[?].

The Hilton Hotels branch has been there for decades.

Mayaguez's BSN professional basketball team, the Tainos De Mayaguez, is named in honor of the city's Indian heritage, and its baseball team, the Indios De Mayaguez, honor both their Indian heritage and the beer company that has become famous all over Latin America. The Indios have won many Puerto Rican baseball championships and Serie Del Caribe[?] championships. They are coached by Chicago White Sox first base coach Tom Gamboa[?].

Mayaguez's airport, Eugenio Maria De Hostos[?] airport, has long had airline services. In the 1970s it had domestic service from Prinair. After 1985, both American Airlines (with American Eagle) and Eastern Airlines (with Eastern Metro Express) started flights there, but Eastern went bankrupt in 1991 leaving American as the only operator. Nowadays, Pan Am is said to be planning to start Mayaguez's first jet service ever, with Boeing 727s flying between Mayaguez and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In addition, Fina Air has announced it will begin flying from there to the Dominican Republic.

Famous Mayaguezans[?] include singer and tv show host Rafael Jose, singer Chucho Avellanet[?], his nephew , former Menudo Roberto Avellanet[?] and the late former Mayaguez mayor, Benjamin Cole[?], whom lasted 40 years in a row as mayor, which is a record.