When we went to bed last night, we decided to wake up early the next day so that we could get to the rainforest early. We noticed that the rainforest seemed to have more rain in the afternoon. I set my alarm for 6:45 and was out on the patio sipping coffee with Mark a little after seven and …. it was raining in the morning this time. We decided to take things a little bit slower, so we let the kids sleep in a and we had a leisurely breakfast and got on the road around nine.
The El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Forest System. It was about an hour drive from our condo and the first thing that we did was start winding up the steep mountain road into the rainforest jungle. There were huge fern, trees and banana leaf trees, and lots of other trees that I don’t even know the name of, but it was just wall-to-wall green and dripping with moisture and beautiful.
Our first stop was actually at a waterfall that was right on the side of the road. It was a pretty high waterfall that cascade all the way down to the side of the road. Parking was a bit of a problem because I think the area was still under construction after hurricane Maria in 2017, so this particular place had the parking lot under construction. The bathroom is under construction and basically no parking. We found a spot on the side of the road and walked back to the waterfall. All of us had to go to the bathroom badly! Owen, Mark, and Kaia decided to scam her up the side of the waterfall behind a huge boulder and relieve themselves. It didn’t look like anything that I wanted to do or a scenario where I would actually be able to pee in the wilderness, so I just waited below.
Our next stop was a watchtower of sorts that looked out over the entire valley. The view was stunning and we could see the turquoise waters of the coast often in the distance. This place also had bathrooms available. Yay! And a nice bench where we could grab a sandwich.
Next, we headed up the road and got to the Juan Diego waterfall trail. This ended up being a relatively short trail mostly because we didn’t go all the way to the top. We saw a cute little waterfall in private pool off to the left almost immediately as we started the trail. But we kept on going to the main waterfall hole. Once we got there, some people told us that we could continue up the incredibly steep and muddy trail to see the next waterfall at the top, which was supposed to be beautiful. But we kept eyeing the trail and seeing the people coming down, absolutely covered in mud because they had to scoot their way down, and we decided that it was a no go for us. The main waterfall and swimming pool was also packed with people. So we all kind of looked at each other and decided to go back to our private little watering hole. The waterfall wasn’t as large, but having it all to ourselves was priceless! We swam in the little pool, walked into the waterfall, and of course took lots of photos!
We hopped back in the car and headed up the road to another little trail. This one was to another swimming hole. This trail was a little bit longer, almost a mile, and we walked through the tropical jungle, which was beautiful. The Sounds of Nature were so loud! Mostly it was chirping birds. We finally found our way down to the little swimming hole and it was a lot like the deep creek swimming hole before the rapids. We didn’t really want to take a full on swim because the water wasn’t very warm and the sun wasn’t out, but we did get in and sit on some rocks and have the rapid sort of flow over our feet. Just being in that natural setting and sitting there with just nothing but the sounds of nature was incredibly relaxing!
Next on our agenda was a natural waterslide. We had read about it and seen pictures and it looked like something that was doable. When we got there, it was a lot different than we expected! Some young guy was sort of telling us where to park and it was a little bit more expensive than we had read about. We walked down this and incredibly steep Concrete path until it sort of gave way to a bunch of boulders and roots and mud pits. The parking attendant had told us that they had had a flash flood here yesterday and so some of the waterfalls were closed, but there was one waterslide that was opened, but the water level was a little high. We really didn’t know what that meant but once we got down there, we saw that this waterslide was a lot larger than we had anticipated! Thankfully, there was a small tour there with a tour guide, showing people where to sit and how to go down the waterfall. We watched a few people bounce their way down the rocky side of the mountain and Three of us decided that it was not something that we wanted to do. Owen, however, was of course, completely willing to go for it! Once the tour left, he climbed up. The side of the rocky cliff, sat down and bounced his way down the slide. He swore that it was actually a lot smoother than it looked, but none of us were convinced to do it after watching him go! And, when given the chance, he did not choose to go again!!
This wasn’t really a spot to put on a dry clothes and it was actually earlier than we thought it was going to be so we decided to head to the coast to that beautiful beach that we saw from the tower. It’s called Laquillo Beach I was very close by to where we had planned on going on our last day, tomorrow. We found a great parking spot, headed straight to the beach through our towels on the sand and spent about an hour bobbing in the water. It was very nice to have the full sunshine, the palm trees, the mountains, the music, and just the relaxing vibe of the beach after spending a day in the sort of damp and dark rainforest once we had dried off and we’re starting to get hot again, we headed back to the car, tossed our stuff in and walked up and down the strip to find a place to eat.
This beach features about 50 different food stands all in a straight line, all offering different things. It was really cool to walk up and down. Read the little menus see the drinks being served and decide on what we were gonna eat. It was actually a little overwhelming because after walking the strip, once we still weren’t sure where we wanted to go! I had a recommendation from a gluten-free app for stall number 33 so that’s what we chose! I got an amazing steak mofongo bowl that was full of flavor and felt so authentic!
After dinner, we walked around a little bit more, but quickly decided to head back to the condo for a more relaxing and slow pace evening. We did a little laundry, took turns in the showers and caught up on some emails and notes