Wet and Wild

If you visit El Junque rain forest and it does not rain, you get your admission price refunded.

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island that is a territory of the United States.  San Juan is its capital city.  San Juan is also home to an airport that is serviced by AirTran Airlines.  Since Anne and Mark have been racking up frequent flier miles that they could now redeem from AirTran, they decided to spend the last week of winter break in Puerto Rico. 

Anne and Mark realize that some of the readers of this space may be somewhat geographically challenged, particularly on U.S. territories.  So, in an effort to help out, Anne and Mark have posted the approximate location of Puerto Rico (relative to some well-known landmarks).  You're welcome.

For orientation, this map shows the area directly south of Atlantis.

There are tons of recreational activities available on the island, as it boasts both beaches and a rain forest.  In a visit to either place, you are well advised to bring your swimming gear.  The rain forest is visited several times each day by, you guessed it, rain.  The beaches are generally clean and easily accessed and are suitable for all sorts of oceanside fun.

Anne and Mark first visited the El Junque National Forest.  This is the only legitimate rain forest in the United States.  As such, Anne and Mark (who are Americans), have spent some time in forests, but do not have a great deal of experience in rain forests.  So, on this visit they learned a few things.  First and foremost, the name - RAIN forest - is no joke.  It rains and stops and rains and stops and rains and stops.  Kind of like at the Rain Forest Cafe.  The difference is that the food at El Junque was a little better.  Go figure.

Before Mark attempted to climb it, this tree was perfectly vertical.  True story.

Mark was, as usual, tricked into hiking by the nefarious tactics of Anne.  As has been chronicled in this space on several occasions, Mark has a body type that is not built for hiking (or cardiovascular activity of any kind or vegetables or middle seats on airplanes or getting pushed around by small Venetian women or shirts that are XL or smaller or .... I could go on, but let's try to stay focused here).  After .7 kilometers (which is approximately "miles and miles" according to Mark's complaint filed with the El Junque National Forest) of hiking through "dense and undeveloped brush" (again, these are the terms taken from the complaint filed by Mark - the National Forest authority refers to the same path as a "partially paved trail"), Anne and Mark found the El Mina waterfall - one of the most popular sites for visitors in the forest.

For those of you who do not speak Spanish, 'El Mina' is Spanish for 'the Mina.'

Anne's death march through the jungle ("hike") began early in the morning, so when Anne and Mark arrived, no one else was present at the falls.  So, despite it being 7:30 am in early January, Anne and Mark switched over to swimming gear and jumped in the waterfall.

Mark takes advantage of 'nature's changing room' and shows off his sweet "6 months in Bulgaria" tan.

Anne's head floats into El Mina falls.

Later, on a separate day, in fact, Anne and Mark engaged in the beach variety of recreational activities that Puerto Rico had to offer.  They took a catamaran ride on the eastern side of the island (they were staying in a town called Ceiba, which is on the eastern side) and stopped off at a couple of places to snorkel.  At the second stop, Mark jumped in the water and, after a few minutes, spotted a stingray trolling on the sea floor.  Mark popped his head up to alert nearby snorkelers to this find.  One of the crew members on the catamaran heard Mark and suggested that Mark dive to the bottom and grab the ray on the outside of its fins and take a ride.  Needless to say, that catamaran company got a poor review on tripadvisor.com.

The other highlight of the snorkel adventure was probably the discovery of Anne's newfound calling as the fish whisperer.  While Mark splashed about in slow, lazy circles, Anne was consistently surrounded by fish of all stripes.  She even had them virtually eating out of her hand.

Nice grab, my friend.

After a long day of vacationing, there's no better way than to top it off with a walk on the beach.  Anne and Mark don't mind if they do.