The Action Adventure Blog

Puerto Rico - "2.5 hrs until sunset/2.5 hours to figure out where to stay"

The Island of Vieques is located about 15-20 miles off the East coast of Puerto Rico. After spending a night in El Yunque Danyelle and I targeted Vieques as our next destination for two reasons 1) it has what many believe is one of the world's best Bio-Bays 2) it seemed relatively non-touristy.   

So with our packs ready to go and our rental car parked in an extremely shady, barbed wire inclosed parking lot - BUT completely safe because my buddy Junior seemed like a cool dude - we set off on the Puerto Rican ferry system. 

In my previous post I closed with a conversation I had with a woman who grew up on Vieques, and her warnings that Danyelle and I should consider renting a room rather than camping, due to the high crime rate. 

The ferry left at 4:30pm traveling just under 10mph. We were going to arrive on the island with about 30 minutes of daylight. I figured we would have just enough time to reach the camp-grounds, and if we didn't feel comfortable spending the night, we would have to haul ass by foot down the beach to Esperanza(a 15 min trip by foot). Still, in Esperanza there was no guarantee we would find a room, as there aren't really any hotels. For example, one of the places we were advised to stay was with a couple of Americans who ran a restaurant called Bananas, and had a few rooms in the back that they rented out. 

While on the ferry I figured I should start up a few conversations to see if I could gather any more information. There were two individuals I was able to have a lengthy conversation with. Both lived on Vieques, but neither was a native. They didn't know each other before meeting in Vieques but BOTH spent most of their lives in Manhattan. One was an old white haired, red faced man in his 70's who grew up in Manhattan. The other was a woman in her 60's, born in Germany, but spent 24 years in Manhattan married to a newspaper writer. Both were merchants, selling their craft on the streets of Esperanza.

A picture from the ferry

 At first, neither of them seemed like they wanted to play tour guide to a couple of tourists, but were still willing to engage in some conversation. We talked about everything from the meaning of life and what makes us happy, to what wall-paper and ring-tone was best for the German woman's stone age cell phone. About half way through our 2 hour boat ride I asked them what they thought about camping on Vieques. I figured their opinion would be better than the woman I had met on the dock for a couple of reasons:

1. The woman on the dock may have grown up on Vieques, but she now lives her life in a Florida suburb with 2 kids teaching spanish and coaching swimming at a local high-school. She seemed to be a very sweet conservative woman living the American dream.
2. The two merchants had spent the last 9 years on Vieques. Their trade puts them right on the street, and in turn, right in the middle of all the action. To me, they would have the best knowledge of what occurs on Vieques.

ALAS - I finally got the answer I was looking for! I asked the German woman if she thought camping on Vieques was safe and her response was positively, YES! The old man agreed, but he agreed with just about everything the German woman said. Still, we new nothing was for sure until we got there and scoped it out.

After the ferry docked we jumped in a cab and headed to the other side of the island where our camp-grounds were located. At this point, I still wanted to get as much info about the island as possible so I started asking the cab driver as many questions as possible. It was getting dark and I thought it still might be a good idea to head straight to Esperanza instead of arriving at a shady place and then having to walk 15 minutes along the coast in the dark. But, to our excitement the cab driver also had only positive things to say about camping on Vieques. Hell yes!

As we walked up to the camp-ground the sun had just disappeared out of site, giving us just enough light to survey the camp grounds. I went up to the first person I saw and started asking questions. This individual was a nice old Puerto Rican woman in her 70's who spoke broken english. She wasn't camping but had stopped by to spend her day at the beach/camp-ground where her grandson was camping. He was on a high-school multi-day field trip to camp, and visit the Bio-Bay on Vieques. 

At this point Danyelle and I took a huge sigh of relief realizing the camp-grounds were probably as safe as it gets. As I looked across the camp-grounds, I saw about 13 tents all occupied by Puerto Rican families. 

We set up camp:)

 

Ok, enough rambling - the next post will cover how awesome Vieques was.

El Yunque Rainforest - Puerto Rico

What better way to start out a Puerto Rican adventure than camping in El Yunque's rainforest.

Trip Itinerary:

Goal of the trip - hit up the El Yunque National Rain Forest, roam the Island of Vieques and its Bioluminescent Bay, and explore the Toro Negro Reserve.

Danyelle and I were unable to make camping reservations at any location so we headed to Puerto Rico with just our gear(which of course included a healthy amount of beef jerky) and planned to wing it.

Here's a snapshot of what we brought.

 

El Yunque National Rainforest

The Forest gets its name from an Indian spirit Yuquiye, which means "Forest of Clouds", and covers 28,000 acres of tropical forest. You'll see in many of our pictures the clouds that surrounded us near and at the peak. The winds at the peak were also awesomely intense, as you'll see in a video below.

We arrived in Puerto Rico around noon and set out to secure some camping permits. Once we arrived at the Forest's head quarters it actually went pretty smoothly...we were given permits at no charge and lectured by a 70 year old Puerto Rican man about what I assume were the Forest's rules.

Permits in hand, we headed out to set up camp before exploring the rainforest and hiking to the peak, the following day.

 

As the sun went down we had just enough time to get our tent set up and cook some yummy bean burritos. I'd bought some homemade hot sauce from a little tourist shop on the way to El Yunque - although I didn't think it was possible to add anything to my burritos to make them taste any better than they already did, the homemade hot sauce definitely added a little kick and helped Puertoricofy our dinner.

One of the things I love about camping is the peacefulness of sleeping outside, but as soon as it got dark it was anything but quiet. I'm not sure what all I could attribute the sounds to but there were far to many to count. The only time the sounds of the Forest quieted was when the rain rolled through...as it did at least a dozen separate times throughout the night. Also, the intense humidity and moisture provided a unique experience as it caused little rain showers inside our tent as moisture developed above us on the inside of the tent and dripped down.

 
 At the break of dawn, we ate some oatmeal, packed up camp and set the camera up on a rock to take a picture. 

To the peak!

 

On our way to the peak we stopped at a waterfall to enjoy the views as well as take a dip. Although the tempetures in Puerto Rico consistently reached the 90's in the previous months, the water had a chill that would have normally kept me out of pool, had it not been in such a beautiful place. I will say though, after ten minutes or so, it got pretty comfortable as the cool chill of the water, mixed with the hot humid air above, was a great combo.

 

After a solid hike we finally reached our first stopping point, and entered the cloud level where we stopped at an old lookout tower a few hundred feet below the peak.

Although the peak had some good views there was a little gem just a few hundred feet from El Yunque's peak and maybe 50 feet or so lower in elevation. So we headed that way for lunch.

After a little climb/hike, 

 we were able to settle down for lunch, coffee and some killer views.

the views...

  
Some pictures from the hike...

 The Forest was thick...

 
 

Intro for the next post....the Island of Vieques and its Bio Bay:

After hiking El Yunque we made a sprint down the mountain so we could catch the ferry over to Vieques. We weren't sure what time the last ferry would be leaving so we had to hurry. The only info we had came from a map that had a little ferry boat on it with a dotted line going towards Vieques.

Once we arrived at the ferry and discovered that we had arrived with just enough time to catch the last boat of the day, I decided I would try to find out a little more about where we were going. After meeting an island native who now lives in Florida, but was returning to visit her mother, I told her that my girlfriend and I were camping on the island and asked her what she thought about it. Her response shocked me. She said the island had an extremely high crime rate and that crime is one of the main reasons she doesn't live there now. Genuinely worried for our safety, she began asking other locals about alternative places we could stay. After a couple conversations she told me about a small town called Esperanza where most English speaking people stay but said we might have trouble finding a place. It just so happens that the biggest festival of the year was taking place in the main town where the ferry would drop us off and that it was very likely every room on the island would be booked. Even the small little town of Esperanza.

So here we were, headed to Vieques after being told camping would be extremely dangerous but it may be our only option considering the festival would attract enough tourists to book every room on the island.

On the ferry headed to Vieques...