Global Studies Puerto Rico

  Morning:  We started the morning promptly at 7:00 am with breakfast at our hotel, Hotel El Guajataca. We then checked out and started our drive to Ponce at 8:00 am. On the way to Ponce, we first stopped at Castillo Labadie. Castillo Labadie started operations as a plantation that cultivated coffee in 1905. However, after the Spanish-American war, the plantation changed to harvesting sugar cane which became the newest cash crop and biggest export from Puerto Rico. The plantation is located on 1,260 plus acres of land in northwest Puerto Rico and has been long since abandoned, only having its gardens taken care of. While it was interesting to see the plantation we were unfortunately unable to go inside the building, and many of us felt a heavy presence on the grounds of Castillo Labadie.      The next stop on our journey to Ponce was La Guardarraya for lunch. La Guardarraya is located in the southern part of Puerto Rico and is about 30 minutes outside of Ponce. ...

  We started the day with breakfast at our hotel, (Hotel Guajataca), and met our new tour guide, Melina, who is from West Puerto Rico. After breakfast, our group ventured toward Abolición y Revolución in our van.  During the ride there, our tour guide Melina, discussed the brief history of Quebra Dillas, which is the location of where our hotel is located. QuebraDillas is known as the “Pirate City.” The area is a big tourist attraction because of the stories of pirates hiding there and the caves that populate the island. She also spent some time explaining the history of sugarcane on the island. Sugarcane arrived on the island 1523 and for a while it was one of the island's greatest sources of income. With the slave trade beginning to grow more and more and the push for more and more sugarcane, the amount of slaves on the island started to grow. Unfortunately a series of natural disasters would wipe out almost all of PR’s supply of sugarcane in the 50s and the island would swi...

The day started very early with a 6:15 am departure towards Hacienda la Esperanza, a mangrove farm in Manatí. We got there at 7:30, ready to learn and work on the farm. The first task they gave us was to remove the weeds from the young trees’ pots. After a short break, we filled some small organic bags with soil for a future batch of plants and re-seeded plants that were without a bag of soil. A positive initiative was done by the farm in the past couple of years: The organization is committed to giving four of these small bags to every family in Puerto Rico desiring to plant them every year. This shows that the production of the farm is big enough to sustain the surrounding areas in trees which can be seriously damaged during hurricanes.  Next, we took a visit to the small museum they had in the main casa. We looked at the many different machetes that were used by slaves on the plantation. The machates were all very different, the materials used varied from metal, wood, plastic an...

  El Yunque Today we traveled an hour from Miramar to El Yunque National Rainforest ( the only rainforest in the United States). Although, there are 21 subtropical forests in Puerto Rico. Within El Yunque it rains approximately 250 inches a year, which is 50 more inches than needed for a forest to be classified as a rainforest. El Yunque is 38,000 acres in area and is home to over 240 different species of native trees. The winds and rains the Forest experiences come from the northeast and because the forest is comprised of mountains it blocks the weather drafts to the south side of the island; thus, the south of Puerto Rico only receives 30 inches a year or less.    Jibara’s Borqiuen Resturant Jibara’s restaurant is located along the coast in Luquillo. In 2018, the restaurant lost electricity and since then it runs on an electric plant or a facility designed to produce heat generated from fossil fuels. This sheds light to the island's approach to restoration after th...

MORNING  3/13/23. We had breakfast at Carthage Express, and after breakfast we met in the plaza with our tour guide Jorge. Jorge gave us a brief overview about the three different flags that are represented in Puerto Rico, employment on the island, and the history of the plaza that we were standing at. The main part of the morning consisted of a visit to the fort in San Juan, Castillo San Cristóbal. The fort was completed in the year 1783, while touring we stopped at a few spots to discuss the significance of that part of the fort. The tunnel leading through the fort was designed to make it extremely difficult for the enemy to enter the main part. The dungeon was built a certain way so that echoes wouldn't travel, this made it impossible to hear the screams from prisoners. It also had one window, this lack of light would make soldiers overtime slowly lose their sense of time, and their minds. As strangely as it sounds the cannons were one of the most interesting parts of the tour. ...

We began our first full day in Puerto Rico with breakfast at Manolín, a cafe near our Airbnb in Old San Juan. Some members of our group watched the Baseball World Cup, which has been going on for multiple days now, and is closely watched by many in Puerto Rico and beyond. After breakfast, we ventured to Loíza, a quaint coastal town near San Juan. Here, we took a walk around the coastline and saw the area where Roberto Clemente, a famous Puerto Rican baseball player, died in a plane crash. Clemente is extremely important to the people of Puerto Rico, as he paved the way for future baseball players. His number (21) can be seen on jerseys throughout Puerto Rico meant to commemorate his legacy.  On the walk, our tour guide explained some of the history of the Taíno people, the indigenous group in Puerto Rico prior to Spanish colonization. He explained the common myth in Puerto Rico that there are two indigenous groups and outlined the creation of said myth by Spanish colonizing forces....