“This Strange World” Thoreau wrote, “it is more wonderful than convenient,” and his words came to me as I packed my hiking boots and helmet, laxatives and Dramamine, batteries, baby wipes, and a neon orange safety closet. After almost a year of bureaucratic ordeals, I was finally going to Mona. The two most popular tour companies never wrote me back, so I planned the trip with Jaime Zamora, an independent guide who has been exploring the island for over 40 years. But it was better that way. I loved the purity of his passion and his contempt for institutions. Instead of a website or brochure, he directed me to a private Facebook group where he kept a meticulous archive of old maps, news clippings and personal photos of objects he found on the island: a creamy conch shell with a hole in it; decorative broken urn handles.
In December, the stars suddenly aligned: Our permits were approved, the seas calmed, and we assembled a team. I crossed Midtown with cash in my coat to contact a captain named Mikey. My friends Ramón and Javier passed by. so does my friend Eliza. Our photographer, Chris, would bring his partner, Andrea. Jaime recruited some old comrades: Chito, Manuel and Charlito, the cook. Conservationist Hector Quintero, known as Quique, signed on and suggested we invite Tony Nieves, who had recently retired from 33 years as director of Mona Island. Finally, Jaime texted to say that the moon would be full for our visit: “In a week,” he promised, “your magic will begin to shine.”
The boats arrived at the pier at Joyuda, on the west coast of Puerto Rico, near dawn. We were relieved to find that the sea was calm:plancha‘The” said the captain, like an ironed sheet, only this kind once or twice a year. He warned me not to get the wrong impression:Mona no es así.” However, I felt it when we passed the proper passage of Mona, where the waters of the Atlantic and the Caribbean meet in a cauldron of treacherous crossings. The bow began to jump over the waves, so that we had to hold fast to the rail to keep our tails from getting bruised. I realized that I had never been so close to the water for so long—I had always approached Puerto Rico from above—and I tried to imagine the first people who came here, paddling out with no land in sight, searching the sky for gatherings of clouds, the sign of green breathing things.
In recent years, I have been unlearning the standard narrative about pre-colonial history. In Puerto Rico, the Department of Education still promotes the tired narrative that the people who welcomed Columbus were simple and docile, with a rudimentary culture. But Reniel Rodríguez, an archaeologist, told me that recent research is very clear: The migrants who left Central America and the Amazon basin to populate our archipelago were great sailors, like the Polynesians, who navigated by stars and currents and wind patterns. During generations of immigration, they formed multinational polities and maintained vast trade networks: jade from Guatemala, gold and copper alloys from Colombia, jaguar teeth from continental jungles. None of these materials arrived by accident. As we drove along, I wondered what it was like to bring, say, a parcel of guinea pigs from Colombia to Puerto Rico in the bottom of a wide canoe.
