This morning I made the two hour drive to Guanica where I caught a short boat ride to Cayo de Aurora, also known as "Gilligan's Island" by many. Gilligan's is a tiny island off Puerto Rico's south coast only reachable by a boat ride. Often wooden boats can be seen 'parked' on either of its coasts as locals barbecue fish with their families and jump from the mangrove roots into the various streams that cut through the island. Quite possibly, the difficulty in accessing Gilligan's is probably the reason it has yet to be engulfed by mega hotels and the modern tourism industry.
This is one of my favorite spots indeed; far from the metropolitan area, rarely the vacation spot of tourists, and nearly virgin in many ways. The sands are clean and white, the water is clear and shallow, and a complicated maze of mangrove trees create natural 'rooms', each with its own slice of coast. I strung up a hammock in-between two mangroves in the water, rolled up a towel for a pillow and spent a few hours jumping in and out of sleep with a book in hand.
From the moment one leaves the center of the island, one is greeted with layering monster hills, while fields of plantains and what I believe to be coffee fade into a sea backdrop. Upon arrival, whenever I wasn't being lazy in my hammock I was exploring the island. I encountered what looked like a small quicksand pond, a coral-coasted side of the island I've never seen, and diverse lifeforms. Tiny fish would zip around between your legs, crabs would run from you and slip into the cracks of rocks, and pelicans would watch you from a distance.
While driving back, I pulled over and bought a paper bag of fresh-off-the-pan tostones. A few feet away, a deaf man sold ice cold coconut water (in the actual coconut or in a cup). Todays' activities were fulfilling indeed, reminding me that everywhere around me, the pleasures of nature are just around the corner. I live in a country where one can pick a fruit from a tree, knock coconuts from palms off the side of the road and carve out their inner-paste, walk barefooted on topsoil, and bare your back to the sun in front of your house without fearing the criticism of neighbors. I have fond memories of road trips to the south of the island where we would pull over off the side of the road and fill up empty chicken feed sacks with mangoes.
I spent my entire life in suburbs and apartment complexes, but the vast majority of my memories can be dated back to the short summers and occasional Christmas trips to the island. Such is not limited to Puerto Rico for only a few days ago an American friend of mine was telling me about his dominating childhood memories of visiting his grandparent's farm on his school breaks. My trip to Washington state last year provided yet another enlightening encounter with the wrath of nature. Direct contact with such environments provide children with more stimuli than I could ever imagine being available in an urban or suburban setting. Rene Dubos in his book "So Human An Animal" notes that "the senses of human beings who live close to nature are much keener than those of civilized man... persons who have removed themselves from technicized environments commonly display increased ability to perceive colors, sounds, and odors."
Entertainment, education, and recreation within a city life are limited by what has been created by man. The only way to experience the same natural forces that carved our species into what it is today is to leave the boundaries of the city and head for the hills. Dubos continues; "man often ignores the ancient evolutionary components of his nature and lets his behavior be completely ruled by directives that are culture-inspired and original from the cerebral cortex." Even the few parks and green areas within a city's limits are simply the slithers of wilderness that have either been recreated by man himself or spared from his destructive habits. As American literary critic Leo Marx said, "the machine is his garden".
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