Puerto Rico - Day 2 - El Yunque Rainforest

Having consumed a few Medalla's and cocktails at the casino the night before, this morning started off a bit slugish. After a quick breakfast, we made our way down to the main pool at El Conquistador. The sun was beaming, yet the heat was broken up frequently by the ocean breeze. If I haven't mentioned it before, the view from the resort is amazing. Here's a photo Ashleigh took of the main pool. If you look to the far left you can see the edge of Palomino.

We spent a little over three hours around the pool. If you look near the center of the picture above, just underneath the far right folded umbrella, you can see our four chairs. However comfortable we were, when the breeze seized to exist the heat was unbearable. As lunchtime neared, we decided to load up into the car once again and make our way over to El Yunque National Forest (covered by clouds in the distance below).

El Yunque National Forest (formerly the Caribbean National Forest) is an active rainforest. The clouds you see covering the peaks of the forest are almost always in place. From El Conquistador it took us about 20 minutes to reach the entry of the rainforest. Our drive through the hills of El Yunque took us up 11 kilometers of winding road through small hillside towns and a number of roadside creeks and waterfalls. The first stop for most visitors is El Portal Visitor's Center (seen here with Ashleigh at the entrance).

We were eagerly anticipating hitting the sites, so we didn't spend any time at El Portal. Before long, we reached the first major waterfall, La Coca Falls, which is located just off the main road. Ash took this photo of Tim in front of La Coca.

La Coca is always the first nature stop on the way to some of the walking and hiking trails further up the road. Up until this point, the sky was still somewhat sunny with a light sprinkle. However, as we progressed further up into the forest, the sprinkle became a drizzile, and eventually full-fledged rainshowers. Our next stop brought us to Yokahu Observation Tower. From this 60-foot tower we got an amazing view back down to the sun-drenched coast and even a distant view of El Conquistador (the structure to the far right on the coast).

To help conceptualize where we're going and where we've been in El Yunque, I thought you might like to view a map of the main sights located within the forest.

From Yokahu Tower, we headed deeper into the forest until we reached La Mina Trail. This trail (surprise, surprise) leads to La Mina Falls, the biggest and best of the falls in El Yunque. By the time we reached the head of the trail it was absolutely pouring. I guess you could say we got the authentic rainforest experience. The entire La Mina Trail follows the heavy stream of water that ultimately becomes La Mina Falls. Here is a picture of the creek that was taken along the walk to the falls.

After about 30 minutes of walkways, stairs and small climbs we reached La Mina Falls. In previous conversations I had convinced Tim that he and I should climb into the pool beneath the falls and try to swim around the main fall (I had done this once about 6 years ago). However, once we got there I was surprised to find about 3x the volume of water from last time.

La Mina was way too powerful for us to challenge. After spending about 10 minutes appreciating the falls, we began our trek back to the car. On our original drive up to the falls we had passed an ice cream place, and we thought we'd hit in on the way out. At Steph's recommendation, we all got a local type of ice cream (the name of which has slipped my mind). Here's Tim and Steph enjoying theirs.

By now is was nearly 6pm, closing time for the national park. Time for some food and relaxation. We made it back to Abuela's and walked into a feast fit for a king. So, I'll end this blog entry with a before and after of Tim and Ashleigh's dinner. Enjoy.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.