Saturday, June 27, 2009

The Rain Forest

The El Yunque Rain Forest...

Getting ready for our hike through the rain forest
We climbed to the top of this tower to see the views below....

These are the views of the rain forest canopy.  It's a fairly new canopy due to a hurricane a few years ago
Since there's so much rain, the trees adapt by growing their roots outside of the ground
We were really hoping to see "rainforest animals" but this is the only one we actually saw on our hike
Just pictures along the hike
Never a dull moment....The leaves are HUGE due to all the rain
Okay, so there isn't too much to do in PR as far as sight seeing goes.  We planned two excursions, one to this rainforest and one to the Bioluminescent Bay.  The Bay is a place you kayak out to and all the fish and microorganisms glow in the dark.  Pretty neat we heard.  But we didn't end up getting to go because they messed up our tour times.  So anyway, we ended up just doing the Rainforest.  

Now they told us it was a low impact, 30 minute hike to this waterfall.  Let me just tell you, they lied!!!  I can't believe I made it!  It was really a tough hike.  On this narrow path we walked up and down hills and steps.  It was wet and slippery and people were passing you on their way out while you were trying to get in.  Mimi and Meemaw had to turn back.
Hikers:)
And all that hiking was for this!!!  What???  We were a little miffed when we got to this waterfall.  It was pretty wimpy.
But most of them went for a dip.  Heck!  Might as well since we walked all that way!!  It was freezing they said.
After about 20 mins at the waterfall, we had to walk the same path back.  It wasn't any easier the second time!  But we made it and now we can say we've been to a rainforest.

Oh and if you ever go, wear tennis shoes.  Most of us just had on flip flops.  Well, they did say it was low impact....

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