This is my first trip to Puerto Rico, and it definitely has been a great experience, not what I expected, but still great nonetheless. Puerto Rico surprised me in many ways, from terrain to lifestyle. For the first and biggest surprise I experienced, was realizing how mountainous the whole island of Puerto Rico is; I expected the east end with the rain forest would be the only place to find a few mountains. But in reality the mountains sprawl across the middle of the island, this causes there to be a greater diversity in climate than I previously thought existed in Puerto Rico. With the extent of the diversity, there are many different ways to grow the same crop, which I thought the limited space of an island wouldn’t allow for. The biggest example is coffee, I never realized that the elevation would differ so much that the crop had to be grown different ways in various locations on the island. In high elevation you don’t need as much shade because of the cooler temperatures. Meanwhile. at the lower elevations farmers choose to grow foliage to provide shade for the coffee plants, creating the cooler temperatures needed for the coffee to thrive. The cover that some farms plant can be almost anything, some places choosing to plant another, taller crop, which then serves two purposes. I also found it interesting how the process of processing coffee has not really updated that much, at least on a small, quality production scale, the steps are essentially the same. At Hacienda Buena Vista they set their washed beans out to dry on giant shelves, the same way they did it back in the 1800s. At Cafe Gran Batey they had a large oven that dried their beans, but in order to cut costs due to high fuel prices, they built a greenhouse. And in that greenhouse they had long tables and set out their beans to dry, essentially the same thing that Hacienda Buena Vista did in the 1800s. Even though there is the potential for new technology to be utilized, Cafe Gran Batey chooses the process similar to the older ways.

As for lifestyle that surprised me, I expected significantly less fast food places, or I guess I expected more places that would be specific to Puerto Rico and Latin America. But in reality the majority of fast food places I saw, were the exact same as those found in the US. I suppose I had this idea because I forget that Puerto Rico is actually a commonwealth of the US and therefore, I expected it to not have too many similarities. I also found interesting how early shops and stores close in Puerto Rico, I guess I’ve just become accustom to the stores in the states staying open late into the night, that I never considered a grocery store would be closed after dinner. I guess that’s because people have other things to do at night than go grocery shopping. I also thought it was cool that when in El Yunque it wasn’t just for tourist. The visitor center was geared to informing people, and the tours seemed to be more filled with tourists; but the actually hiking to the waterfall seemed like something that families might do as a day trip. I thought that was particularly great to see, because that means that the Puerto Rican people appreciate the rainforest and hopefully will be more apt to help conserve it. But at the same time there was a complete lack of recycling at most food places. So while they might enjoy the rain forest, they’re missing a very easy way to help the environment.