Vamos a Puerto Rico!

Ekka
Apr 25, 2019
2 min read

I have traveled to Puerto Rico twice. Once when I was about twelve years old and the second time was two years ago with my university's swim team.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States. Since 1898, It has been a US territory. The island is located in the Caribbean Sea, east of Dominican Republic. There are many mountains with coastal plain in the northern part of the island. Puerto Rico has steep mountains to the west coast of the sea and has sandy beaches alongside the coastal areas.

I traveled to the magnificent island with my swim team. It was our training trip to prepare for the MAAC Championships in February. We stayed at an exquisite hotel that was twenty minutes from the pool that we used to practice. Every morning and afternoon, we traveled to the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus to practice in their warmup pool and then jumped into their main pool; they were both cool. Since we went during the wintertime, we were able to get a nice tan and enjoy the warm weather.

Despite all of the swim practices we had to prepare for the championship season, we participated in the festivities of the Three King's Day. The holiday in Spanish is called Dia de Los Tres Reyes Magos. The town of Mayagüez came to life. The town had colorful lights, delicious food, people cheering and laughing and dancing. Everyone had a wonderful time, the dia de Los Reyes Magos.

Our hotel was close to the beach. So, when there was a gap between morning and late afternoon practice, my teammates and I would go to the ocean, to catch some sun and swim. We also got to explore some of the touristy spots of the island. We went to see this beautiful waterfalls called Gonzalandia Waterfalls San Sebastian. I was able to high jump from the middle part of the waterfall, that was cool.

I explored this tourist attraction when I was younger, El Yunque National Forest. The Rainforest is of the most biologically diverse of the national forests hosting hundreds of animal and plant species. The next day, we visited Old San Juan. The homes in Old San Juan had exquisite Spanish Colonial architecture with bright colors.

Old San Juan is a historic district located at the "northwest triangle" of the islet of San Juan. The architecture of Old San Juan has been a key to San Juan's current status as a tourist destination. We also got to visit the Castillo San Cristobal in San Juan. It is also known as Fort San Cristobal. The fort was completed in 1783. It covered about 27 acres of land and basically wrapped around the city of San Juan. It was a neat fort to check out and the weather was not too hot, so that made the trip better.

I would come back to Puerto Rico again to explore more parts of the island and to explore other tourist attractions such as the Bacardi Factory Tour, Parque Nacional de las Cabernas del Rio Camuy, Cueva del Indio, Playa Negra, and Cabo Rojo. It is a great escape to a tropical place to relax.