Piraguas are sold by vendors, known as piragüeros, from small, traditionally brightly colored pushcarts offering a variety of flavors.

In Puerto Rico, the word piragua refers to a frozen treat made of shaved ice and covered with fruit-flavored syrup.

Those shaved-ice cones filled with Caribbean tropical syrups, not only ease the body during the hot summers, their sweet goodness reminds of us of who we are and where we come from, without words.

"[13] EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock noted that the EPA had helped the Puerto Rican government negotiate over $1 billion in new water treatment improvements, and added, "As this commitment is fulfilled, the water will just get cleaner and cleaner whether it is coming out of a tap or is served in a piragua (no, not a canoe, but a Puerto Rican snow cone) – regardless of the weather.

Piragüeros with their piragua pushcarts can be found in Spain and Hispanic neighborhoods in Bridgeport, Chicago, Jersey City, Miami, Newark, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.

The Puerto Rican piragua has been the subject of paintings and sculpture, a children's book, and songs in a Broadway musical: Other regional versions: