{"id":717,"date":"2026-04-23T19:08:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T19:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/?p=717"},"modified":"2026-04-23T19:08:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T19:08:45","slug":"puerto-rico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/puerto-rico\/","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

At the end of our Atlantic crossing, we arrived in Puerto Rico. Many people probably know the name and may vaguely know that it is somewhere in the Caribbean. In fact, however, Puerto Rico is not an independent country but part of the United States. A strange part. Puerto Rico is not a state, but a colony. Yes, you read that right: a colony. Even something like that does not seem to bother the self-proclaimed number one democracy and police officer of the world. Puerto Ricans do receive a U.S. passport. However, they cannot vote in presidential elections, their government is largely determined by the United States, and the people here have no real say over their budget either. Whoever sits in the White House effectively decides the fate of the Caribbean island and its inhabitants. That is how our Puerto Rican friend Vianca, whom we had met during our Divemaster in Utila, explained it to us.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Even so, one can almost understand the United States, because Puerto Rico has a lot to offer, even just from our perspective as tourists. First of all, there is the capital, San Juan, which is truly beautiful with its colonial character. A path winds along the coast, where the old city walls meet the sea directly. The old fort was still used as a military base until World War II.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Naturally, though, the city did not hold us for long. We rented a car to explore the island, or at least as much of it as was possible in the short time we had. On our three-day road trip, we discovered Puerto Rico\u2019s stunning natural beauty. At sunset, we paddled our packraft, which we had brought along for our adventure in Patagonia, though more on that another time, completely alone on a lagoon. This was long before hundreds of other tourists arrived to admire the spectacle of bioluminescent water. During our hike in the mountainous, rainforest-covered interior, the thick clouds cleared at the exact moment we reached the summit, revealing a view all the way down to the sea. And when the Caribbean heat became too much, we cooled off with a swim in one of the many beautiful rivers nestled in the middle of the rainforest. That was Puerto Rico for us: another fascinating stop on our journey, where we learned a little more about U.S. politics and were able to explore yet another piece of beautiful nature.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of our Atlantic crossing, we arrived in Puerto Rico. Many people probably know the name and may vaguely know that it is somewhere in the Caribbean. In fact, however, Puerto Rico is not an independent country but part of the United States. A strange part. Puerto Rico is not a state, but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/explorando.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}