After eating lunch, the trip leaders let us free to roam the colorful streets of Ponce. However there is always a catch.
Within a randomly chosen group through cards, we had to complete a challenge revealing collaborative, leadership, and communication skills while also exploring cultural diversity and historic preservation within Puerto Rico.
The challenge involved:
🏁 **Amazing Race: Ponce Edition** 🇵🇷🌴
1️⃣ 🗣️ **Learn a local saying** – Ask someone in Ponce to teach you a phrase and what it means.
2️⃣ 🍲 **Favorite dish** – Ask a local what their favorite Puerto Rican dish is. Find out the recipe and how much it costs to make.
3️⃣ 🍮 **Dessert challenge** – Buy a local dessert, bring it back, and sell it to the group as *the best dessert ever!* 😄
4️⃣ 🍍 **Mystery fruit** – Get someone in your group to try a fruit they’ve never seen before and record their reaction.
5️⃣ 🛍️ **Plastic-free souvenir** – Find a cool souvenir with no plastic packaging. 🌱
Have fun, be creative, and take photos/videos! 📸🎉
I was lucky enough to be able to work with my peers Kobe Mwah ‘26 and Deea Balanel ‘27. Once the trip leaders let us off, we were excited to tackle our first task, learning a local saying. We approached an old woman sitting on the edge of the street on a picnic table. She greeted us with a warm smile, and despite not knowing an inch of Spanish, we were able to use the resource of google translate to help communicate the message.
“Ponce es Ponce y lo demás es parking” meaning “Ponce is Ponce and the rest is parking”. Refers to viewing the city of Ponce as the heart of Puerto Rico jokingly disregarding neighboring cities and major tourist attractions like San Juan.
Next, we were able to ask a local what their favorite dish was, and while we did this, we asked another local where the nearest supermarket was to find out how much it costs to make.
After several minutes of walking around the humid city of Ponce, encountering bursts of color, kind acknowledgement, and music we entered a boutique and purchased a plastic free souvenir, a bronze key chain with the Puerto Rican flag on it. But of course, we couldn’t forget the mystery fruit and dessert. So, again we utilized the help from a few fingers pointing and google translating from the locals, to find these specific items. Once we purchased a papaya, we got a thoughtful middle-aged man behind a stand to cut a small slice and Deea, who had never tried papaya before, did the honors.
After this task was complete, we had one more task in order to finish the Ponce challenge. Walking around the streets was thoroughly enjoyable, and again we were able to ask another local who led us to a coffee shop to get dessert. We purchased a delicious guava filled pastry called Panetela de Guayaba, with a gooey and chewy guava filling, and a harder powdered sugar outer layer. Kobe mentioned that if you like raisins, you’d like this sweet treat. After the challenge; an excelling experience of learning about Puerto Rican culture the group came back together to share their groups findings and we answered an essential question that Jaydon Hierro ‘26 and I asked “After shopping at the plaza of Ponce what do you notice that’s different from home when shopping?” We also discussed encounters with locals, mentioning their pure welcomeness, and willingness to aid touri
sts/travelers throughout the beautiful city of Ponce, while also embracing pride for their home.
