We start off the day a little later around 8:30am, which we had to pack snacks because we weren’t planning to stop for lunch because it was going to be a short day. We went hiking at El Yunque Rain Forest and visit a few awesome places before meeting our destination, where the clear waterfall resides. Before hiking we had an overview of the different species, animals and organisms that lived in the rain forest. In the video Benicio del Toro mentioned about the three significant things that made the rain forest possible- water, sun and rock. The coqui was also talked about in the video because of the unique sound it makes.
The first highlight of my day was the hiking to the tower and clear waterfall. While hiking, I noticed how different the trail was in comparison to what I had in mind. I thought the trail was going to be all mud and dirt, but it was cement and rocks smooch together. Because the trail was made like that some people in the group including myself thought it was difficult to walk on it. However, we made it to the beautiful clear waterfall fine, where there were many tourists who were swimming and taking photos. At first I didn’t want to get into the water because it was cold, but I decided to challenge myself and ended up going into the water with half of the group. It was probably one of the many things that I’m happy I did. After being in the water for about 20 minutes we hiked back, where Sarina (classmate) had an epic moment. Whenever people came the opposite direction we had to move aside because the trail was so narrow it was hard to fit two people on it. Instead of stepping aside Sarina took a huge leap and fell face forward, but she was totally okay and laughed it off. It was a funny but scary moment.
When we got back to the apartment we were so tired that we took at least a 1-2 hours nap, while waiting for Maria (professor) and her husband to come teach us how to cook Puerto Rican food.
The second highlight of my day was the cooking tutorial and me being able to do it myself. I had never cooked Puerto Rican food before, so I was super excited to learn it since I love to cook. Maria taught us how to make arroz con gandules, while her husband taught us how to make mofongo. I found it to be super amazing on how closely their cooking style was to my culture’s cooking style. We cook rice similarly, but just without the Goya sazón. For the mofongo, they used a similar smasher utensil (pilón) that my family used to smash pepper, but instead of smashing pepper we smashed fried plantains with garlic and oil. The whole meal was DEALICIOUS! I especially loved the two sauces: the hot sauce (sriracha, mayo and ketchup) and the non-hot sauce (mayo and ketchup). I am definitely planning to make arroz con gandules and mofongo again!