Tourist For A Day At Arecibo Old Town

Today I was a tourist for a the whole day. I was ordered to disguise myself and act as a tourist for a whole day as a class project. The purpose of this was to study the way people treat me, judge me or think and even act around me just for being a tourist.

To accomplish this project I went to my hometown, Arecibo. I knew if I went to Old San Juan I might see someone I knew there and It would made me feel ridiculous. It would also made me not stand out because Old San Juan is always full of tourists from all parts of America and even Europe. In Arecibo I went to the Cayetano Coll y Toste house at Old town. I knew tourists there would probably be from other parts of the island and not from the states or other native language place. I wore an orange maxi dress with a straw hat and some green contact lenses. The day before I tried to get a bit tanned by taking a walk on the beach while the Sun was still up. My mom and my best friend who I went with said I nailed it.

I have to say I was impressed by how nice I was treated. At first I was trying hard not to laugh because I thought the hostess at the Cayetano Coll y Toste house was onto me. But I did a pretty good job. They asked where I came from and what brought me to Arecibo. Of course I lied. I said I was from Brazil and that I went to Arecibo because of the Radio Telescope and was just passing through. They recommended me certain places to visit including "Cueva Ventana". I tried so hard not to laugh, I have been to that place so many times and here I was getting recommendations. The worst thing that could happen, happened. I got asked if I knew any words in Spanish, I was like "I'm doomed I'm gonna have to fake my Spanish accent but I don't know how Brazilians Spanish sounds like". I said "hola" and we all started laughing. I said I was in a hurry so they even gave me a mini tour around the house for free. I was amazed how interesting it was to be there. I have never been there before even though I was born two blocks away from Cayetano's house. Being there for the first time disguised as a tourist felt random to me.

After that we just walked around, pretended to take some pictures and just talked and talked in English to see people's reaction. As a bilingual island you would think people are accustomed to English language. But people would give us stares or just kept looking at us, especially the public bus drivers. It seems they are not used to people saying everything in English. I do not judge them, being born and raised in Arecibo I know we barely receive tourists there and many of the elderly people do not speak English, some barely know how to write in Spanish.

My conclusion from the experience is that since we do not receive many tourists in Arecibo, when one comes to the town they're overly polite towards the tourist to leave a good impression. I believe overall tourists are treated with more kindness because they contribute to the economy of the island and we need them to keep coming. There will always be someone who treats them with hospitality because they feel proud of being puertorican and living in the island.