Last weekend, I had the absolute pleasure of experiencing the beautiful island of Puerto Rico for a wedding. The wedding by the beach was both sentimental and invigorating, and though I could write about it in great detail, I would be lying if I said it was my favorite part of the trip. The following day, the wedding party and guests embarked on what the Boricuas call Chinchorreos. It is essentially a gathering of friends who go on a road trip bar/food crawl around the island. Our group had two hooked-up school buses that pretty much drove around the entire east side of the island while stopping at various chinchorros, which are a sort of dive bar/shack that sells highly affordable yet delicious food and drinks. They are humble and the opposite of pretentious. Along the way, we got to take in some of the breathtaking scenery of mountains and oceans while encountering other chinchorreo buses and locals who more often than not looked happy to have seen us as they waved or saluted. We ended the night with the pinnacle of the trip for me: El Yunque, the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest System.
We hiked up into the forest with relatively steep hills and various signs reminding us to respect this sacred Taíno land. After a long, hot day throughout PR and much drinking of Medallas, Modelos, and Pitoros, this was not an easy task for the group. However, upon reaching the waterfalls and natural pools, it was entirely worth it. I cannot even begin to explain the euphoria I experienced during the hour or so I was cooling off in the refreshing water. There was a cliff about 20 feet high that I jumped off several times that made me feel like what I imagined my older family felt like in the countless cliff jumping and river stories from Dominican Republic I had heard. The most special part involved climbing down a bunch of rocks with a select group of adventurers led by the drunken bride. We reached another natural pool that had a small waterfall that encompassed a cozy mini cave that could fit a handful of people. To get there, you had to swim furiously against the current of the falls while grabbing onto various rocks. I got in there and helped my loving partner get in right after as we joined the bride and others under the power of the waterfall. The joy printed on everyone’s faces inside the mini cave was so apparent and electrifying that I knew right then and there that this was one of the best days of my life.
This moment was so lovely that it got me thinking about a lecture from college where my professor asked the class to think about the best day we’ve ever had. The professor used our anecdotes to discuss the psychological constituents of a great day. It essentially comes down to our psychological needs being effectively fulfilled within the day. Under the blanket of self-determination theory, there are three psychological needs that help drive motivation. Also known as “organismic psychological needs,” these three are autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Autonomy is the need to experience oneself as the main controller of one’s behavior. It is essentially the need to be the writer of your own story.
Competence is the need to be effective in engaging and meaningful tasks within your environment. We crave activities that are not too boring nor too challenging and make us feel skilled.
Lastly, relatedness is the need to build close and warm emotional bonds with others. We yearn for connections that are based on trust and reciprocated caring for our well-being.
My swim in El Yunque perfectly tied in all three of these elements which led to a highly engaging evening. Swimming in itself is rather freeing, but being able to swim within the raw nature of a rainforest with no lifeguards whistling at you is autonomy at its best. I felt free to have fun with nature how I pleased and although simple, that feeling is hard to come by everywhere. My competence was satisfied by the challenge of climbing up and down rocks and jumping off cliffs and swimming into waterfalls, all potentially dangerous things. There is just something extraordinarily special about coming face-to-face with a challenging task, one in which that makes you feel alive by raising your heart rate and successfully completing it without harm. I myself am not a fan of heights at all, so to jump off any cliff is a big win in my book. Finally, being able to experience all this joy with the love of my life is all the relatedness I need. However, the party I was with all gave me an enhanced sense of well-being. Having a drunken bride lead us to this wonderland with a genuine want for us to have fun and fall in love with the land like she has is truly special and something I am not quite sure I’ll experience again.
This gem of a day was then wrapped up with my partner and I walking hand-and-hand feeling refreshed by the waters to the evening serenade of Puerto Rico’s iconic frog, the coquí. These frogs are synonymous with Puerto Rico as many of their species are endemic to the island. There is even a saying that goes, “Soy de aquí como el coquí,” which translates to “I am from here like the coqui.” The male coquis around sunset begin their mating calls which in Pokemon fashion sound exactly like their names (“Co-Kee”).
As a Dominican-American, there was a part of me that was worried about fitting in with Puerto Rico as the two cultures (though more similar than different) have had many conflicts among their natives. I couldn’t help but feel as if the coquis’ calls were a way for the island to tell me that both my partner and my inner Taino spirit were accepted here. For anyone who has seen Princess Mononoke, the coquis’ calls felt exactly like the tree spirits, whose presence is an indicator of a healthy forrest. I felt welcomed and it gave me a great sense of peace that connected me beyond the psychological and physical realm but to the spiritual one as well.
Cosmic Latte 