Dear Puerto Rico, 

For Mother’s Day 2017, I was lucky enough to provide my mom with a trip to visit you, a first for both of us. The trip was the week before I left for my freshman year of college, which was 6 hours away from my family, so Puerto Rico was the most perfect mother-daughter bonding vacation. 

Since I booked the trip that May until we left in August, I spent all summer planning excursions and fun activities for us to do while there. Planning the days was easy in that I never ran out of things for us to do, but hard in that I had to fit an entire beautiful island into a short six days. 

When we arrived, we explored Old San Juan and the National Fort, whose historical facts were a perfect, informative way to start this vacation. As we were walking around the Old Port, we purchased coconut water fresh from the coconut, a tasty refreshment on the beautiful, sunny day. A highlight was visiting and taking a tour of the Bacardi Rum distillery and land, along with drinking the famous tropical sunrise cocktail. I tried my first dish of paella that night, a dish that I am expecting to be eating a lot more. Our day tour of El Yunque National Forest was by far the most breathtaking experience I have ever had—between the plants, wildlife, and the waterfalls, which allowed me to check swim under a waterfall off of my bucket list. Luquilla Beach had beautiful clear blue water and was an amazing display of your local food and culture. Another insane bucket list experience was kayaking through a mangrove canal into bioluminescent bay, a once in a life time encounter with wildlife. We spent an entire morning at Mar Chiquita Cove, whose beach had sand that I had never seen before, followed by the Vega Baja Playa, which had amazing vendors near the beautiful beach. We were lucky enough to stumble upon Calle San Francisco, which was packed with shops and street performers; we even got to see a proposal! We were able to attend a Spanish mass at San Juan Bautista Cathedral, followed by snorkeling at Escabron Beach, which had amazing and colorful coral and fish. Because I am an adrenaline junkie, I forced my mom to go on a zip-lining, cave-rappeling, hiking experience at Campo Rico; the final zipline landed in a treetop mojito bar, where I had my first ever shot of moonshine. 

It was obvious to us that Puerto Rico was an amazing, sort of secret treasure, and that we only scratched the surface, so we have all intentions to bring the rest of our family back to show them the amazing time we had. 

Unfortunately, just 3 weeks after our perfect vacation to your beautiful, natural island, it was struck by Hurricane Maria. When I heard the news, I was devastated, completely shocked when I saw pictures of the places that I had visited not even a month before. My heart was with you then, it is with you now, and it will always be with you, and I hope when I return soon, your island will be thriving even more than before, because the people of Puerto Rico and the beautiful nature deserve the best.   Puerto Rico, mi corazón está contigo.