The amount of surprise Puerto Rico gave me is almost indescribable. Personally, I have never been to a foreign country, I had never been on a plane, and I had never seen an ocean beach or true tropical plants or experienced the humidity and heat of areas closer to the equator; so saying Puerto Rico surprised me is probably a huge understatement. I had no idea what to expect when I came to Puerto Rico, but I basically imagined the typical beach in a movie, some sunshine, and lots of tropical flowers. I guess you could call this a pretty naïve viewpoint when traveling to a foreign country- or blissful ignorance- whichever you prefer.

I think the biggest surprise to me, other than the weather, was the cultural differences of Puerto Rico and the United States. In the states, there’s an uncountable number of different cultures, but in Puerto Rico the culture is more focused. Although Puerto Rico is extraordinarily proud of their culture and country, they have also been very influenced by the United States. Basically everywhere on the island we ran into people that spoke English rather than Spanish, and also really embraced American items alongside their normal culture; this was so different than what I expected, as I didn’t really know how much Spanish or English would be spoken or how much I would really be able to understand.

A huge surprise to me was the difference in beaches around the island, and the difference in weather in different parts of the island. I imagined the weather being pretty much the same all over the island, but I quickly realized that there are dryer areas and wetter areas of the island, correlating with the rainforest, farming areas (plains), and beaches. The weather and different ocean tides also effect the beaches; causing each beach to vary in its roughness, sand quality, and water temperature. I think it was blissful ignorance that made me originally think that all beaches were built the same, but I was very wrong. The second beach we visited near Mayaguez was black sand, and much deeper right off the coast, with darker water in comparison to the third beach we visited. The third beach we visited after snorkeling was white, fine, sand, with shallow waters right off the coast and almost crystal clear water. Due to the differences in the beaches, it also made some more popular to visitors, human and animal, than others.

Another small surprise to me, was larger amounts of agricultural activity than I expected. I knew that the island was a large producer of certain fruits and coffees, but I didn’t realize just how much of the island farming took over. From the forests to the plains, agriculture is a huge industry on the island. Compared to Illinois, agriculture probably takes over more of a percentage of the island that the percentage of the state of Illinois. Each of the areas produces their own specialty crops- Illinois with corn and Puerto Rico with fruits and coffee- but they seem to produce and package their products in the same manner and with the some of the same issues. Both producers are working to preserve the Earth they use, along with making a profit and doing research to further the development of farming across the world. For example, when we visited Martek’s farms on Tuesday, we learned that the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez was working on a similar experiment with Nitrates in the Martek’s fruit trees, as the University of Illinois was doing with their local corn. Each are working on developing similar ideas to further the development of agriculture so that the world will be able to profit long term from their ideas.