Woohoo! Today we went to the Caguas Botanical Garden. Ive been waiting for this visit for a while now and Im glad it finally came. The Caguas Botanical Garden is located in Caguas, the largest city south of San Juan. Caguas is known for being the city where Africans, Europeans, and the indigenous Taino mixed to create the new Puerto Rican identity.
Our day consisted of a tour around the gardens, led by our guide Jeffrey Glogiewicz, where we classified and identified trees and other plants while at the same time I tried my best to stay along and get some shots. It was tough to shoot and pay attention to the descriptions but somehow I managed. Besides showing us endangered plants, such as 3 species of Calabash trees found only on Puerto Rico, Jeffrey also showed us some some rock monuments and told us about some ancient Taino stories they represent. Some of them were the Taino story of creation and the story of why the Woodpecker and why it has a red throat. As we ventured further into the garden, we observed and learned about Taino medicinal plants. Some plants also had ceremonial purposes such as tobacco and yuca, also known as casava.
During lunch, Mr Glogiewicz took us for a short tour of the Caguas town square where he treated us to ice cream at a popular local ice cream place. This was pretty awesome! It rained right when we entered the parlor but as soon as we finished it stopped and it offered a great opportunity to take some shots of the town center.
After the tour we headed back to the Botanical Garden and were given a short presentation that highlighted Taino agriculture and the important contributions they made to Carribean agriculture. After this our time at the Botanical Garden was finished but I really didnt want to go! The rain from earlier presented some excellent conditions for shooting and I wanted to go for one more walk around the place and shoot more. Earlier the lighting was pretty harsh and I wasnt able to get the shots I wanted :P However, the rest of the group was ready to go and I didnt want to make them all wait. I was tempted to sneak off though but I know that wouldnt be nice In the end, I decided I should be happy with the shots I got. I mean at least I did have time to take one more shot of the lotus flower outside!
A big thank you to Jeffrey for the awesome tour!
No comments:
Post a Comment