With an early morning wakeup, our guide picked us up, and we headed to El Yunque. Our group was small and consisted of us three, our guid Shaly, and an older couple from Iowa. Going early, we were able to arrive and leave before the larger tour bus groups.

Our guide is friends with a local man who let us park on his land. He and his wife let a few groups park, and they also have land where they raise cattle and chickens, although they are vegetarians themselves. On their property, they had changing rooms for us. Mom and I came out in bikinis, and Dad came out in a speedo! Because of the water conditions, we were all given life jackets. I would have opted for a life jacket anyway because it’s more fun to float than to tread water.

We leave our phones and everything in the car, and Shaly has promised to take pictures and videos along the way. Thanks Shaly!

Shaly is a young Puerto Rican girl who is a preschool teacher and also a tour guide of El Yunque. She has a sing-songy voice, and is a very careful and thorough guide. Bamboo, an invasive species, grows quickly in El Yunque, 8 inches a day! It is sturdy to hold onto if you are slipping in the mud. The bottom part of bamboo is sharp like fiberglass, but higher up is safe to grab.

We didn’t see any rain on our day, but there is a tree that works like a meteorologist and flips its leaves to be silver side up to indicate coming rain. Here are pictures of mom with the leaf.

We learned about the coquí, a small tree frog native to Puerto Rico. It makes the sound of it’s name “coquí” and sounds like a bird call.

We heard a few in the distance, but here’s a video I found on YouTube that really demonstrates the coquí sound.

Shaly told us about her experience during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. She was completing her last year of high school and it got cut short. Afterwards, everyone was graduated once things were running again, even though they missed their schooling. She lost power for six months, and some areas didn’t get power back on until two years later. During the times without power, there was a lot of community bonding. Everyone got to know their neighbors really well. A few had generators, there were long lines for ice, and people would share meals with one another. The stars in the sky where so bright because the light pollution was gone. The water was shut off and and was only on for one hour each day at most.

When hurricanes hit Puerto Rico, people aren’t able to run away. They hunker down and board up their buildings, and move out of flood zones and stay with family and friends. Hurricane is actually from the Taino language (hurakán) and means evil spirits of the wind.

We wandered through El Yunque and Shaly warned us that we would slip a bit due to mud, etc, but it is kind of like dancing salsa! We got our hands all muddy and kept three points of contact with the earth as we traveled through a small tunnel, and scrambled down some rocks and up some other rocks.

My parents were definitely surprised by the level of intensity required in this hike. At one point, my mom lost her balance and almost tumbled down a small waterfall. Her fall was very slow and graceful, although unfortunately she did scrape and bruise her shoulder, arm, knee, and leg.

This is right before the fall.

We made it to an opening with cool water which was very refreshing for her injuries.

After my mom’s fall, Shalí and her were glued at the hip the rest of the hike. She showed her the exact footing, and my dad was behind my mom to give her a boost from behind! I asked my parents if they were planning to incorporate any of these necessary hiking moves into a physical therapy regimen. Seems like a good idea! I don’t think they are through with hiking, but a lot of these moves were not anything they had recently done or trained for. The other old couple from Iowa had an okay time hiking, but I could see them shaking a bit during certain sections of the hike.

Stepping on sharper parts of the rock gives better grip and provides a better walking surface compared to the smooth parts of rocks. Also pebbles are better than big rocks. Pretty much the more friction, the better. There were times that we placed our feet in the footsteps of where the water flowed because it provided better grip than the places outside of the stream. Shaly told us to “be like water.”

I’m not much of a hiker myself, but I traveled with little to no fear. My parents were a totally different story. You could see, especially in the movements of my mom, that she didn’t have much faith in the step she was taking, or the place she was grabbing, or even in her own strength. Each move was sprinkled with a bit of internal terror. I feel that way when I actually rock climb, but this tiny stuff I had confidence in my movements, and confidence that even if something happened, I would be okay.

We hiked up to a natural waterslide. Shaly told us that we wouldn’t be hiking back the same way, but it turns out that we would be hiking exactly the same way after the waterslide. We were bamboozled! I think she tells us that later so that we don’t give up and turn back.

Here’s the video of me going down the natural waterslide. Go check out my parents’ post to see their videos going down the waterslide. They are funny! rtwstreets.com

We made it back to the natural pool and one of the other guides who works with Shaly gave us some fruit. It is not even mango season, but this mango was exquisite! And any of the peels or pits, we were encouraged to throw downstream to feed the fish and for it to biodegrade.

Shaly showed us the pieces of clay and painted our faces with it.

We hiked back out of El Yunque, thanked the man who let us park on his property, and headed to Luquillo for lunch. This is a popular grouping of kiosks by the beach.

It was a Wednesday in the middle of the day, so some kiosks were closed compared to what it would be like on the weekend. We enjoyed kiosk #38 for some fried cheese (a food and kiosk highly recommended by Shaly and also a few other guides). While we were waiting to order, we were sitting on the perimeter of the kiosk, and a woman asked if I spoke Spanish, and I told her I spoke a little. She was selling baked goods and I bought a cake that had cream cheese and guava on it. It tasted like a pound cake and was very good.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the cake. We were too hungry and forgot. Here’s the fried cheese! I wanted my own order because I love fried cheese.

Then my parents stopped for a meal at kiosk #22. I wandered up and down the kiosks to see what I could see. I ordered the ball shaped item that is potatoes filled with meat from kiosk #57.

I went back to see my parents and tried some of their pinchos (skewered meat) and arepas with habichuelas (arepa with beans). Yum!

I was thirsty, so Mom and I went to the smoothie stand at the very beginning to order smoothies, while Dad payed for the meal. Mom ordered a Pineapple smoothie with milk. She wanted a milkshake, but the milkshakes were very cookie and ice cream forward. To our surprise, it came out served in a coconut. I ordered a parcha y limón (passionfruit and lemon) smoothie. Mine also came out in a coconut. We were concerned to take them back into Shaly’s car, but she assured us that it was okay. The smoothie stand woman told us that if we came back for a refill, the price would be $7 instead of $10.50. If I were in Luquillo again, I would come on a weekend day and I would have so many smoothies from her. There was a quiet beach there too, so it’s the perfect place to sample a bunch of different foods and drinks across 60 kiosks and enjoy the day.

We had a relaxing evening after the early morning and day full of hiking. We wandered around down a bit and found a restaurant off the beaten path where we all shared a sizable plate of mofongo.

Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish made from mashed fried green plantains, garlic, and chicharrones. This one had a better texture and had differences in each bite vs the first one I tried that appeared to be blended up. It is a Puerto Rican comfort food that is everywhere and comes topped with a saucy protein and is served with rice and beans on the side. We ordered ours with shrimp.

There are three types of mofongo:

1. Mofongo, which is made from fried green plantains
2. Bifongo, which is made from both green and yellow plantains
3. Trifongo, which is made from green and yellow plantains and yucca as well

I had an uber driver/chef who said he prefers bifongo the most. I have only tried Mofongo.

After our Mofongo, we enjoyed the rest of the evening on the rooftop of our hotel where we listened to some Bad Bunny and practiced our Spanish and hung out.