It is a bit of a museum more than the actual thing but the Arawak Indians really invented Soccer and Rock 'n' Roll!!
Just north of the city of Ponce is the Tibes museum and ceremonial site. There is a small museum that gives the visitor an incite into the tribe and tribal life in the area. Just outside the building is a small bridge leading to replicas of the village and numerous ancient sport fields. The area is quite beautiful with paths and numerous types of native trees. We spent an hour here and found the paths easy to walk so it's very handicap friendly.
I learned a lot on my visit to this center. I didn't know there were other Indians before the Taínos who lived in PR before Columbus arrived. Very interesting.
The facility closes at 3PM, but get there by 2PM if you want the guided tour. Nice museum with lots of information. The best part was a 40 min. guided walk onto the ball grounds and village site. The guide was exceptionally knowledgeable on history and plants.
The best place to see in Ponce and learn about the Taino culture. There are artifacts, burrials, and the ceremonial center itself.
A few of this are located around the island been Tibet in Ponce and one in Utuado the only one open to the public. Close to Tibet while constructing water reservoir Portugues another one was found and one in Mayaguez with a Dolphin draw on the rock plus one in the north close to Arecibo. Suddenly this important pieces of the Taino culture get lost in space and the rock are flying into USA museum to be evaluated... yea right.
I visited the Tibes Ceremonial Center when my daughter came for vacations and she wanted to visit the Indian Center. At first, I wasn't even sure if this still existed, but lucky for us it did. I remember going on a school trip back in the day when I was young. The Museum was interesting and it had a lot considering the size of the building. We watched the video and we toured the grounds with our guide. He was a very interesting and knowledgeable person and we enjoyed our tour immensely. The only bad thing was there were no places to get a bite to eat inside the site or nearby. So we had to leave when we got hungry!
We visited the Tibes Ceremonial Center and were fascinated with the historic place. There's a $3 fee with parking included. There's a very small museum, a short film and a site visit. We learned much about indians, pre-tainos and tainos. We visited the place were they carried out their everyday life, which was amazing. We rediscovered out roots. It was a great learning experience.
The Ceremonial Center has a small museum that defines the known history of the tribes who lived in the ceremonial area over many years. The museum is small, but enjoyable to view and very informative.A guide who speaks English and Spanish takes small groups of visitors to the ceremonial grounds and along the way explains about the vegetation, trees, etc. I found it most interesting to learn how people from many years ago used plants and fruits, and bark to promote health and healing. There has been much digging in hopes of finding clues to enhance the understanding of the people who originally lived in the area. The findings have been a surprise in that history goes back farther than anyone expected. There are the remains of huts, walls, and ceremonial grounds. Our guide was excellent and very knowledgeable. Our visit was interesting, stimulating, and very informative. We highly recommend a visit.
Yous will find this difficult to locate but there are signs off the main roads. We eventually had to ask for directions as the signs stopped as soon as you turned onto a local road! Butit is worth persevering. It costs very little ($3 with concessions). The attached museum is good and it is helpful to visit that first. Websites and reviews talk about having to take a guided tour. Whilst this would be informative t's not compulsory. We just wandered round the site on our own. You need to visualise what it would have been like, but it is good to see things of pre-history.The site was only discovered in the mid70s after a flood unearthed some stones. Quite lucky: if it had been found earlier than doubtless everything would have been lost (ie used for building materials etc).It is closed on Monday, but is open on Sundays