Amazing View

Tropical rainforests, palm trees, paradise beaches, and Spanish style towns, Puerto Rico is a popular vacation destination. This Caribbean island also has old and rich history that draws people deeper into its history and away from the becahes and the bacardi factory. Secluded and windy path leading to a family run coffee plantations and ancient Indian burial grounds, and one of the largest cave systems in the western hemisphere have more to offer than what meets the eye.

The island of Puerto Rico is 100 miles long and just 32 miles from north to south, but if it were to be flattened, the area would cover three times that area as a result of the densely forested mountains. This topography concentrates the population of nearly 4 million in a few, dense urban centers, where car ownership is sixth highest in the world, while up in the mountains, the farming techniques have not changed for over 500 years.

Due to its varied landscape, the island has three different kinds of weather mainly – (1) tropical: the beaches on the north coast, (2) Rainy – endless rains in the forests of the mountains, (3) Dry arid: mostly in the southern coast. There is a saying that weather was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Rico has plenty of traces of its past with its primitive carvings, in architecture, in cuisine, and in farming techniques. The people of Puerto Rico comprise a number of different ethnic and geographic heritages with roots from Africa, Spanish, Dutch, English and the indigenous people.

Puerto Rico is an interesting part of the United States; it has arrived a strange but fruitful relationship with the United States, enabling citizen status, but no voting rights. Although there is a strong relationship with the mainland, nearly 3 million working in the U.S., Puerto Rico like to stay independent when it rejected a referendum recently that decided against becoming the 51st state of the United States.

Although Puerto Rico is predominantly Roman Catholic, spiritualism still flourishes. The Puerto Ricans enjoy a tight family atmosphere with Sunday picnics on the beaches a traditional pastime.