Tags
Cloud forest, El Yunque National Forest, Food kiosks, Playa Luquillo, Puerto Rico, Rainforest, Travel
Monday, August 11: This morning, Mike gets up early and walks to our local Quiznos to pick up egg and cheese sandwiches and coffee, which we polish off in our room. Then we head to Charlie’s Rentals to pick up a Kia Rio for the next 4 days. The lady at the desk asks us if we’d like to opt in for a service similar to EZPass, which will enable us to drive through the automatic pay lanes at toll booths. After we say we’ll take it, she warns us that the toll lanes work by photographs. She says we shouldn’t freak out if a red light flashes or an alarm sounds, that we should just drive on through. She says that in the end, the tolls will be communicated to the rental company and we’ll settle up when we return the car.
I never like it when alarms sound or lights flash, especially when I’m the suspected perpetrator. Today, every time we go through a toll plaza, the red light flashes and a loud grating alarm goes off. I tense up each time, turning around and looking to see if a police car is speeding after us in hot pursuit. I do this every time, and Mike gets a big laugh out it. He finds it funny that I think a police car is waiting at the ready to chase toll violators. This provides him a lot of amusement during the four days we have the rental car.
Other than the toll alarms, the drive is fairly straightforward. It takes us about an hour to get to El Yunque National Forest, a tropical rainforest of 28,000 acres in the Sierra de Luquillo. It’s run by the US Forest Service and has a network of signposted, short, paved and relatively mild trails.
The El Portal Visitor’s Center is a pretty cool open air building with local artisans selling arts and crafts.
El Portal Visitors Center at El Yunque
El Portal Visitors Center at El Yunque
Leaving the Visitor’s Center, we see some beautiful tropical flowers including this Bird of Paradise.
Bird of paradise near the visitors center
The first thing we encounter is La Coca Falls, an 85 foot waterfall that cascades over some boulders. It’s right along the highway and is swarming with people.
La Coca Falls
Our next stop is Big Tree Trail, a half hour each way through tabonuco forest to La Mina Falls. The tabonuco forest grows below 2,000 feet and receives less than 100 inches of rain. Tall straight trees, such as the tabonuco and ausubo, tower over us, and we’re surrounded as well by epiphytes (including many orchids), flowers and aromatic shrubs of many types (Lonely Planet Puerto Rico).
Big Tree Trail to La Mina Falls
The trail is paved and damp, with leaves underfoot, and what do I do but slip and fall on my butt right at the beginning. I jump up, wiping myself off, but not quickly enough to avoid having a number of fellow walkers worry over my well-being.
Big Tree Trail
Root systems on Big Tree Trail
Big Tree Trail
Big Tree Trail
Ferns on Big Tree Trail
Big Tree Trail
Big Tree Trail
Moss covered rocks on Big Tree Trail
The trail is quite busy, but nothing prepares us for the crowds at the base of La Mina Falls, with its 35 foot drop. We’ve worn our bathing suits, and as it’s quite hot and sticky, we have been looking forward to dipping in the pool at the base of the falls. However, the crowds turn us off to this idea.
La Mina Falls
We climb up a trail to the left of the falls, where I’m able to cut some of the people out of my photo. It is quite picturesque, and we wistfully dream of having the pool to ourselves. But alas, it’s not to be. This is not my idea of an idyllic stop, so we traipse back along the 0.86 mile trail to the trailhead.
La Mina Falls with people cropped out!
We continue driving up Highway 191, looking for the Mt Britton Trail. We see the peak with the Britton Tower perched on top, and at first we think we’ll pass. It looks like too much work! Ultimately, we change our minds, and I’m so glad we do. This is the best hike in the park, not nearly as crowded, and the forest here is beautiful.
Destination: Mt Britton Tower
This trail is a 0.8-mile, 45-minute hike up through mid-level vegetation into the cloud forest that surrounds the peak, named after a famous botanist who worked here.
Mt Britton Trail
Mt Britton Trail
Roots on Mt Britton Trail
Moss and creeping vines on Mt Britton Trail
Mt Britton Trail
The trail is a continuous climb on paved surfaces to the stone Mt Britton Tower, built in the 1930s. When not shrouded by clouds, panoramic views extend over the forest to the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean. It is shrouded by clouds today, but we still get quite nice glimpses of the mountainous landscape.
In the cloud forest, Mt Britton Tower
Cloud forest, Mt Britton Tower
Cloud forest
Cloud forest
Mike in the Cloud Forest
Mt Britton Tower
The walk through this forest is so lovely, especially with the musical serenades of the coqui frogs and the birds. I’m so glad we did this hike. It is the highlight of our day. 🙂
Mt Britton Trail
Mt Britton Trail
Mt Britton Trail
By this time we’re getting hungry, so we decide to drive to Playa Luquillo, a balneario (a Latin American seaside resort town). We want to check out its 60 famous food kiosks. I don’t know what I thought kiosks were, but I certainly didn’t expect them to look like storage units containing restaurants.
Food kiosks at Playa Luquillo
We walk down the sidewalk in front of the kiosks, and at each entrance, we’re invited by restaurant staff to come inside and eat.
Food kiosks at Playa Luquillo
Food kiosks at Playa Luquillo
We finally decide on Kioska Terruno (#20), where we order two Medalla Light beers. Mike gets a small crema de platano, a plantain cream soup, which is pretty horrible and tasteless. I order a chorizo a parrilleros, or grilled chorizo. This is our first disappointing meal in Puerto Rico. At least the beers are refreshing. 🙂
Terruno
Terruno
When we return to our hotel, we go out to the beach for a bit. I walk around photographing the cool beach grape trees and palm trees that provide a kind of buffer zone between the high rises and hotels and the wide expanse of sand.
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
Beach grapes
Beach grapes
Beach grapes
I stroll along taking pictures while Mike goes for a swim along the length of the shore.
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
the beach near our hotel in Ocean Park/Condado
After a while, we return to the hotel, where we have rum and orange juice drinks in the jacuzzi. This could get to be an addictive habit. 🙂
In the evening we walk around looking for a restaurant in our area. We don’t want to drive the car into Old San Juan and fight traffic or be frustrated looking for parking. Nor do we want to pay $35-40 for a taxi both ways. We finally settle on Bebo’s Cafe, right next door to the restaurant where we ate last night, Basilia’s. Bebo’s is equally unattractive (brightly lit, unadorned, and bursting with boisterous Puerto Rican families). We have a pretty good meal here at a decent price.
Mike orders a Cuba Libre, which he’s disappointed to find is just a rum and coke with lime. I’m settling for another Medalla Light, as I’m not a huge fan of hard liquor, rum included. I’ve only been drinking it because it’s famously produced in Puerto Rico. I order a meal of Arroz Camarones, or shrimp rice, which I mistakenly call Paella Camarones, because the dish is listed under Paella on the menu. Confused, our Spanish-speaking waitress brings me a seafood paella including calamari, which I hate. This causes quite a stir, but the way the menu is written is confusing. I really can’t eat the calamari, so I have to send it back. Mike orders Asopao de Gandules, a thick chicken and rice soup. We feel bad about the confusion, and the owner tries to make sure we feel plenty guilty about it, but in the end, we make up, all apologizing to each other for the misunderstanding. We order a flan to top off our meal.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day, so we’ll have to figure out what we can do that’s mostly inside.
notes from north america 
In a perfect world rain forests would be lush and lovely but cool and refreshing, all ponds would have reserved spaces for all comers, restaurant menus would be readily understand and wait staff would remember that without the customer they’d have no reason to exist. In a perfect world . . . But in the real world this is all the stuff of memories.
That’s the truth, Carol. Travel is not always perfect, and sometimes we have to face a number of disappointments and challenges along the way. It’s all part of the process. I think most of us face frustrations as well as moments of beauty and pleasure in our travels. I like to paint the picture as it really is, rather than making it sound all glossy & wonderful. Overall, it was a lovely day, especially that Mt Britton hike, which was well worth the effort. 🙂
I loved El Yunque – it was easy to get around but you still felt like you were in the thick of the rain forest. The view from the Tower was amazing – you could see all the way to the coast when I was there. So glad you got a chance to go there before heading out to China.
El Yunque was easily accessible, for sure, and it did enable us to have the real rain forest experience. Mt Britton was the highlight. I guess the crowds avoided it because of the steep climb. I bet the view would have been amazing from the tower without the cloud cover!
China’s coming up; I leave on Saturday! I’ve been so stressed, and so busy!! 🙂
Oh my, how quickly the time passed. Breathe in the thick of preparations….looking forward to your reports from China 🙂
Thanks, Annette. I shouldn’t be wasting my time on blogging right now when I have so much to do, but I always tend to put off the stressful stuff until the very end! Just call me Miss Procrastinator! 🙂
Except for the crowds at the falls, this place looks idyllic. Many restaurants in the small villages we toured while in Mexico looked similar to the above, and even more drab, but offered up some the best meals we had.
Yes, LuAnn, it was very idyllic, except for the people. We found the other hike up to Mt Britton to be much quieter and prettier. I bet Mexico has equally colorful restaurants as Puerto Rico does. The food was delicious, but mostly deep fried and dense, and I put on a good solid three pounds, which it’s taken me two weeks to get rid of! 🙂