El Yunque

Sunday, the 30^th of January we headed to El Yunque Rainforest, but it was raining a lot, so we didn’t get to go on the hike we wanted to because we wanted to hike a trail that boasted a wonderful view, and the whole peak was veiled in a thick grey cloud, but we did hike the La Mina/Big Tree Trail (which is pretty much paved the whole way). The La Mina Falls trail was closed for construction, but we barreled past the orange tape barrier determined to hike somewhere to find the only maintenance/construction being done was to pour some more concrete on the trail. It was beautiful, and the whole time we were alongside a small creek that ran down huge, smoothed out boulders creating a series of tiny waterfalls that would swell with sound when the rain fell harder. When we arrived at La Mina Falls, a huge Waterfall lay before us with a huge bridge across it for viewing. Lots of kids and families were swimming in the pool just below the falls, and tons of tourists were there. I think they thought we worked for the Park since we were dressed in field clothes and hiking boots. We continued past the falls to the other half of the trail; Big Tree Trail. The Big Tree Trail to La Mina Falls was lined with tourists of all ages, and sizes; some were wearing fine Italian leather sandals, some had clear ponchos provided by their hotels and I even saw one woman warily wobbling down the wet and treacherous concrete donning a pair of heels! I think we maybe hiked about 2.5 miles both ways, but some of the tourists seemed out of breath and taken back by the “strenuous” activity. We rushed past a throng of sun-burned guys with beer guts, one who adamantly announced to his buddies “If I had known it was gonna rain I wouldn’t have come!” “Welcome to the Rainforest!” I shouted. One lady tapped her husband on the shoulder and said “honey, move aside for the professional hikers.” I was amused; I guess there are lots of people out there that seldom leave their couches, at least that day they were out and about in a beautiful rainforest.

Karst Country of Puerto Rico

On the weekend of January 29, we decided to take a trip to the Western part of Puerto Rico to go to see a bit of Karst Country, where the limestone has been eroded by rainwater creating caves, tunnels and sinkholes. 6 of us crammed into Alejandros little Toyota Corolla and headed off to the West, driving for a few hours with four of us in the back seat. I felt sorry for my travel companions, as I had a lot of trouble sitting still in the car. A vast division of steep rolling hills defines the landscape; the formations are strewn across the topography that are sometimes called haystacks due to their shape. We headed to Cueva Clara in Camuy, on the early afternoon; a cave system formed as water containing carbonic acid eroded away the surrounding limestone deposited by the accretion of seacreatures over eons of time. According to one website (I don’t remember which, so sorry for my lack of sound research here):

“The Río Camuy Cave Park features a very large cave system covering 268ac/109ha and thought to be the third large cave system in the world. A trolley bus transports visitors to a 200ft/61m deep cave, or sinkhole, which is now a preserved area known as Cueva Clara Empalme. The caves feature various rooms, in some cases with extremely high ceilings, stalagmites and stalactites, and rivers rushing through. A guided tour leads visitors through the Cueva Clara Empalme.”

The tour had a guide, but it was mostly audio. We all had on these audio devices with headphones and would push a button to cue the voice at each numbered station and a radio-voiced man would describe the feature you were near. Our favorite and most cheesy was “La Bruja”: As I turned the corner in a narrow hallway in the cave, a small formation was above me, lit so you could see the profile of a witch. Just then, my audio recorded let out a shrill cackle “Ah ha ha ha ha!” “Mire La Bruja!” The man said, “Isn’t she great?!” To this day we all cackle in the forest and yell out “La Bruja!” The cave had two huge entrances, the second of which opened to a gaping hole where an underground river ran below. My favorite part, though was looking at the plants that covered the entrances. Ferns and mosses and other small vascular plants stretched toward precious light and energy. Some plants were growing upside down, clinging to the stalactites above, and some had huge roots that reached down, over 100 feet of root that looked like fine straws dangling off the edges of the cliffs above the sinkhole. Overall – a really cool cave, but Carlsbad is bigger!

In the afternoon, we headed to a smaller cave that was called Cueva Ventana in Arecibo. Mostly locals visit this cave due to its ambiguous location. We pulled off the major highway, parked at an unassuming Texaco gas station and walked up a small dirt road until we came to a hole in the ground, a huge gaping hole where we heard the chatter of indistinct voices from the vast damp darkness. I put my headlamp on and we walked down a series of steps and limestone into the hole. The floor of the cave consisted of a soft, white sandy substrate, and there were lots of stalactites and stalagmites, but most did not appear “alive” – they were brown and black from the oils of lots of people handling them, and some jerks had even carved their names into the ivory white – now greasy black formations :( It was pitch black inside and as we made our way around in the soft sand I was in awe that this cave was just open to the public. I saw a small speck of light in the distance and as I walked towards it, the cave begin to open to a huge, magnificent view overlooking the flat depositional valley with green pastures and a beautiful river carving through the hill-studded landscape.

We all sat down and soaked in the view, each silent in our own thoughts as we glanced across the landscape. Alejandro broke our trance; “If we hurry we can make it to the beach for sunset!” We hauled out of the cave and down to the car. Alejandro drove us through a creepy-looking mangrove; the dark shadows of trees formed a tunnel that enveloped the narrow road below. We pulled into a spot called Mar Chiquita, and it looked like a bit of the land had stretched out from both ends to eat the sea, as though it were about to phagocytose the ocean. Huge waves squeezed through the narrow gap between the toothy rocks, and we sat in the red, coarse sand to gaze on the sunset. Emily and I decided to walk up on the rock outcrops that surrounded the small strip of beach; they were made of cemented sand that was sharp, and small and large huecos with seawater were randomly scattered. I walked to the edge (but not too far; the sea is still a mysterious element in my world) and looked down to see where the water had weathered the rock into flat palisades, where the waves would crash and water would drip off in flat waterfalls.

After Mar Chiquita, we headed to a local Pizza Parlor and stuffed our faces, then crammed back into the car, satisfied and lethargic from our carb intake to head back to El Verde in Rio Grande.