One of my favorite experiences on this trip so far has been hiking the dry forest and swimming on the beach near Guanica. We all climbed into the rental van, excited to spend the day outside and exploring. Our first surprise came when we reached the park entrance and found the gate closed and locked. Apparently, since the day was a holiday on the island, the gatekeeper had decided not to show up, so we were locked out. Nothing was going to stop us from getting to the beach, though, so everyone piled out of the rental van and started trekking up the road into the park. The walk to our trail seemed to take forever, and was uphill for most of the time, so everyone was hot and sweaty as we searched for the trail head. We saw a dead crab on the road, which was a little exciting, but other than that the walk was mostly uneventful. As we continued to walk, I started to get a little nervous that we had already walked past our trail, and that we had hiked this far just to have to turn around. It was a relief when we finally located the correct trail and were able to officially start our hike.
The dry forest was absolutely beautiful, and it was cool to see the variety of plants and animals that inhabited the area. There were plenty of lizards, which seem to be very common all over the island, but there were also some things, such as cacti, that I hadn’t seen much of in Puerto Rico. Parts of the trail were a little uneven, and everyone stumbled once or twice along the path. After we had walked about halfway there, Dr. Rodriguez had us take a little detour so that we could visit one of the oldest trees in Puerto Rico, which is approximately seven hundred years old. The weathered, ancient tree had roots jutting out all around it, which provided a perfect place to sit, drink some water, and take a break from the sun. After we had all rested for a while, we climbed back up to the main trail and continued our journey to the beach.
We took a quick break on the roots of this ancient tree, estimated to be over 700 years old.
By this point, I was very hot and sweaty, so I couldn’t wait to be on the beach and in the water. Everyone started walking much quicker, eager to get there. When we finally reached the ocean, I was so excited to be there that I slipped on the path and nearly fell, accidentally flinging my water bottle at another student. When we reached the sand, everyone applied lots of sunscreen and ran straight into the cool, refreshing surf.
I have loved all of the beaches that we have visited so far in Puerto Rico, but the one thing in particular that stood out for this beach was the giant waves that we were able to splash around in. I was caught off guard at first by the force of the water, and some got into my eyes, which was very painful because of my contacts. Even though my eyes were stinging a little, bodysurfing through the waves was still a super fun experience. We stayed in the water for a long time, until the waves started to get a little tiring to ride out, so we headed back to shore for a while.
I was sitting in the shade with some other students, eating some pretzels and sipping on water, when one of the students ran up to us, very excited to be holding a coconut that he found on the beach. He was absolutely determined to open it, because he thought that it would be fresh. I was pretty skeptical at first, but after a lot of effort and struggles, he succeeded in opening the coconut, and it was just as fresh as he had hoped it would be. I drank a little bit of the coconut water, which I didn’t love, and then we cracked the coconut open all the way so that we could eat the meat. I’m normally not a huge fan of coconut, but on such a hot day, it made a pretty amazing snack. All of the boys then decided that they all wanted coconuts of their own to crack open too. A few of them were rancid, which was both disappointing and disgusting. However, they were able to find some good ones, so there was plenty of coconut meat to go around.
After a few hours on the beach, the rental van showed up again to bring us back to the apartments. Even though I had an amazing time out in the sun, I was worn out from our long day of adventure and fell asleep as soon as I sat down inside. I was tired, sunburned, and completely content after spending a perfect day on this beautiful island. I will definitely have many great memories, not only from this particular day spent in Puerto Rico, but from every day spent here as well, and I am positive that I will make even more for the duration of the trip.
I enjoyed reading your post! Puerto Rico is definitely an island of adventures. For the Open House Booth, we should highlight the changes in ecosystems and beaches on the very same island. While one beach had strong waves, the other was very calm. Why were there locals at the calm beach and barely anyone at the more powerful beach? Maybe it’s a touristy thing to enjoy crashing in large waves. Whatever the reason, it’s important to document our observations and create a section in the booth comparing the greatly varying beach types that exist on the island. We could also do the same with the forests – both the dry forest and rain forest. Again, very different ecosystems exist on the same island. We need to show the middle schoolers pictures of both and maybe give them some possible reasons as to why they’re so different.