Jueves: El Yunque & Laguna Grande

Thursday was our adventure day. We woke up early to get the rental car and then hit the road for El Yunque National Forest. On the recommendation of the rental car guy, we took the scenic route along the coastline and it was well worth it. There were some beautiful beach views and along the road there were tons of local food shacks like the one below:

We had little trouble finding El Yunque and made our first stop at the well-developed visitor center. El Yunque is the sole tropical rain forest in the US National Forest System and we were expecting cool and wet weather. No such luck as it was terribly hot the entire day and even under thick canopy, we were so overheated.

Our next stop was at La Coca Falls, some sad overrun waterfalls just down the road from the visitor center. As crazy as these falls were, they did not prepare us for the madness we would find once we reached La Mina Falls! The hike out is only about half an hour and it's nice, but once you get to La Mina there are hundreds of people cooling off in the natural pools there. It was a zoo!!! On our way back out of the forest we stopped at the Yokahu Observation Tower. At 1575 foot elevation, we had beautiful views of the surrounding forest and the ocean out in the distance.

Our time in the forest went by quickly -- there really wasn't much else to see. So we had a quick bite to eat while I dialed into a conference call for work and then we hit the road again. We had no idea where to go so we first wandered out to Loquillo which is supposed to be a nice beach, but it was a dumpy town so BP kept driving out to Fajardo. Well Fajardo is also a dumpy town so we tried to find things to do to kill time. By accident we found the place where we were to meet our kayak tour so at least we knew where to go!

Eventually we ended up at the El Conquistador Resort which is gorgeous. We were wishing we had found this place an hour earlier, but at least we got a chance to hang out there and enjoy the beautiful views.

Finally we got back to the docks where we were to meet Kayaking Puerto Rico, the group that was going to take us on our bioluminescent bay tour in Laguna Grande. We first got a crash course in kayaking and then we hit the water. Just as we were getting into our kayak, it started to rain and both BP and I were hoping that it wouldn't rain the entire tour. Luckily the rain passed quickly and we got the swing of kayaking.

This tour was awesome! It really was the highlight of our week in Puerto Rico and a not-to-be-missed activity. We kayaked through a dense mangrove forest and although it was still light on our way out, it was quite dark on the return trip, so I was glad we opted for the early-evening tour. Once out into the open lagoon, we had to wait a bit until it got dark enough to see the bioluminescence. It was so cool! You could agitate the water and it would have an eery glow. We were out for maybe 20 minutes before heading back to the docks but we had so much fun and the tour guides were awesome -- knowledgeable, professional and fun! Unfortunately we have no photos from the tour since it was so wet, cameras were not recommended. But at least we have our memories to remind us of the cool experience.

Our drive back to Condado was easy but still took us more than an hour. We witnessed an accident on the highway -- more proof that Puerto Rican drivers are insane. We were just happy to make it back to the condo unscathed. We were glad to have taken the scenic route earlier in the day because the road back was mostly strip malls and fast food joints.