El Yunque Rainforest

This morning we headed out early for our much anticipated visit to El Yunque National Forest. I have wanted to visit EY since I was in first grade. Mami and Papi turned me down flat when I had the opportunity to go on a school field trip. They feared that I would get lost, and I give them a pass due to their age. The Abus' fear of such a beautiful place is baffling. A lot of people claim that children have been abducted there, although I can only recall one case. The Abus' cited cases of people getting lost for days. Sure, if you stray from the marked trails and have no sense of direction. They mounted a campaign to dissuade us from going before we even arrived. Abu went as far as insinuating that the park was closed. Nice try. P promised me that we would get there and he followed through. Other than our visit to Mami and Papi's grave, this is the most significant outing during our time here. It is something that I wanted to do with JJ and couldn't, I was not ready. Thankfully SS made it home in time to enjoy this with us.

We took the scenic route and that turned out to take much more time than anticipated. We planned on hiking several of the trails and take a dip along the waterfalls. That was an extremely ambitious plan and we will have to return. We arrived at noon, it rained during our first hike and that was it for us. We were bummed out, but intend on making it to the top of the El Yunque peak.

SS did very well and fell asleep as we were nearing the waterfall. You could actually hear the people and water below, and she just snoozed away. It appears that she is shutting out the stimuli by sleeping. Whatever works for our angel SS.

Out of shape people who strap twenty-five pounds of love to their back, and embark on a hike are insane.




Abu, don't listen to Baba,the Chupacabra is not real, and extraterrestrial beings do not cruise the forest for children to abduct.

SS's first encounter with a palm tree.

I have 25 pounds of love on my back.

SS demonstrating that the two landing naps were not a fluke. She can snooze during almost any difficult situation.

La Mina Falls. The place was packed, yet P managed to get a picture without a dozen heads.

The other side of the falls.

One would expect the noise to wake up SS.