Traveling the world one step at a time

By: Pamela Ortega

Plantains, pina coladas( http://www.elboricua.com/pinacolada.html)  and Puerto Ricans captivated me as I traveled through Puerto Rico. Witnessing Puerto Ricans engage within themselves, all while tasting perfectly made food was a diamond of its own. People don’t lie when they say Puerto Rico is the land of enchantment. My journey through Puerto Rico has taught me to discover the hidden gems in the world. As I move forward in life I plan to travel, not to the common popular cities everyone travels to, but to the small hidden towns with bright gems to offer. Puerto Rico showed me to look beyond San Juan, instead discover the wonders in Luquillo (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g635965-Luquillo_Puerto_Rico-Vacations.html) and Fajardo. Often time people are so over consumed by the marketing tactics of the travel industry, that they don’t stop to think about the hidden towns that are often forgotten. I hope to apply my knowledge of real traveling to my future endeavors.

Tourism is the simplicity of visiting a place and claiming to be there. It is a basic concept that is a multi billion-dollar business. Tourism limits the tourist by only providing a handful of places to visit and take photographs at. Thus, it is essential to engage in travel in order to become a traveler. My tourism experience limited me in fully engaging with the people. The activities we did in San Juan, were strictly tourism related events that focuses on places. Having Jose as a tour guide, allowed us to experience more of a travel experience.

The media can positively and negatively influence a travel experience. The booming tourism industry tends to focus on a single aspect of the touring location. Although the tourism industry focuses on prime tourism parts, some travelers go outside the box and publish work about their unique experience.

http://www.nytimes.com/travel/guides/caribbean-and-bermuda/puerto-rico/overview.html

http://www.seepuertorico.com

http://www.travel-journeys.com

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/how-to-find-authentic-travel-experiences

http://welcome.topuertorico.org/tinfo.shtml

El Lechon Asao

By Paola Lopez

As my sister-in-law said, “it sucks to be a pig in Puerto Rico.” This judgment is true and highly verified by Anthony Bourdain’s food pilgrimage to Puerto Rico. His travels through the island took him to “food” famous towns like Cayey the home of Lechonera, Isabella for mofongo, and Bayamon for chicharones. Bourdain’s travels define anti-conquest travel writing; he specifically travels to diverse and uncommonly visited palate enticing destinations to tempt those at home to explore new cuisine. Anti-conquest travel writing according to Pratt “European bourgeois subjects seek to secure their innocence in the same moment as they assert European hegemony.” No longer does the travel writer of the era look to the savages as someone to conquer, but the people take on a new persona as something to analyze, to digest—and Anthony Bourdain does certainly digest!


Bourdain’s extensive culinary background and his quick wit give him the edge in the travel writing/film business. His dry, Marlboro loving, and food fascination are what keep his television show intriguing along with the “gastronomic masterpieces.” Bourdain’s goal throughout the series is to meet, greet, and eat with the locals. His crass temper sometimes did not get him very far with impatient and understanding Puerto Ricans; one particular public car driver dropped him off earlier than anticipated calling him a pendejo or idiot—to be nice. However, his perseverance to get the authentic experience paid off when he admirably stated that Puerto Rico is the “crown jewel of the Caribbean.” Bourdain executively carried out his agenda to taste and see the varied forms of pork, the Puerto Rican fast food of pastelillos, sorullitos, plantains, and tostones. Any form of travel writing that is transposed to become more appealing to a wider audience is fantastic! As our visit with Norma Borges, El Nuevo Dia newspaper, reminded us to include graphics with detailed and visually cueing words. I would love to have a lax career savoring odd and delicious cuisine from around the world. It would be great to know how culturally connected the pork and the various other foods like the plantain and penepen are to the Puerto Rican culture. From our lectures and various discussions with the locals we were able to connect the use of foods is tied to how can one food item be used six different ways, and so the people survive off one particular food item yet do not develop an aversion to the food.