This weekend our exchange student coordinator took all of the exchange and international students on another trip! We went to the REAL Gilligans Island of the southern coast of Puerto Rico! If you look at the map, 
you can see we had to take a bus from San Juan to Guanica (southwest part of island), and this took a little over 2 hours.Once we got there, some people who volunteered first actually got to kayak over to Gilligans Island, which was really just a 5-10 min boat ride off the coast of Guanica. The rest of us took a short ferry ride over there.
Gilligans Island was seriously tiny and there is NOTHING on it (except a few picnic tables). But seriously, not even a bathroom. I was told that only 250 people MAXIMUM are allowed on the island at a time and ferry goes back and forth there only from morning till the sun starts going down.
So, needless to say, this untouched island had water clear as glass to the bottom and all kinds of fishies and JELLY FISH!! which terrified me. They were the smaller kind of jelly fish that are not deadly but they will sting you and it will hurt!
So, we spent the day taking turns kayaking around the island, exploring the little trails on he tiny island and just soaking in the beauty of it! Around noon-ish, our exchange coordinator, Lillian, had ordered food to be brought into the island for us so that we could have a big thanksgiving feast! She brought us Turkey, Rice, Potatoes, salad and the best part...pumpkin flavored FLAN! The flan was amaaaazing!
Towards the end of our adventure on Gilligans Island, my friend Morgan, who brought her scuba gear, had found an area on the side of the island where there was a fisherman cove, and past it there were gi-normous, beautiful conch shells! The fisherman I guess just come through and have tools that take out the animal in the conch shell and throw the shells up on shore. It was like finding a treasure though they were s pretty!
So, when she brought some back, Alex and I wanted to go out there and get some for ourselves. Only problem was, to get there, we had to swim miles and over beds and beds of jelly fish that lined the floor of the sea, she said. PLUS, over by the shells, she had found the remainders of a dead SHARKKKK!!! ahhhh!
For some reason though, I was determined to get some conch shells! So, Alex and I swam behind her all the way there. Then on the way back, we had to swim on our backs with big heavy conch shells resting on our stomachs!! ha. It was probably funny to see. But, anyways, we got our shells and made it back without getting stung by jelly fish!
On the way back to San Juan, Lillian took us to Ponce,which you can also see on the map. Ponce is a very pretty, and big city in Puerto Rico.
It is also where one of the best Salsa singers of all time was from, Hector Lavoe! So we were able to walk around for a half hour, get some ice cream and go to the little booths in the center Plaza. It was so pretty and decorated with lights already for Christmas! 
Also there was this really cool firehouse too that looked like some cool castle!
We finally managed to get home around 8pm that night and were sooo tired. But I had a great time at Gilligans Island!
