Puerto Rico (Part 2)

Puerto Rico has been a lot of fun and I think we could spend many months here and still not see everything. We spent one day at El Yunque, which is the largest tropical forest in the United States. It has a first rate interpretation centre, where we learned a lot about the forest and about the delicate balance between the health of the tropical forests and our environment. We also learned about how vanilla, cocao, brazil nuts and many other things are produced in the tropical forests. We hiked to one of the waterfalls, though because of its accessibility and popularity, it wasn’t quite like the ones we experienced on some of the other islands.

Our destination the next day was the underground river and cave system at Rio de Camuy and the world’s largest radio telescope at Arecibo. We arrived at the caves at around 12:30 to discover that 10 bus loads of school children had arrived before us. It was an easy decision to head off to the radio telescope and come back after the hoards had left the caves. The radio telescope is a very large dish nestled in a huge crater in the hills of northwest Puerto Rico. Scientists use its 20-acre, 1000 foot diameter dish to research the Universe. It used to be a U.S. government research centre but was transferred to Cornell University and the National Science Foundation to be jointly administrated. Because it is a working telescope the general public could only view it from a viewing platform attached to a visitor centre, but it was still an amazing site. In the visitor centre there was a short movie showing the workings of the dish and some very good displays and hands on activities. We learned about meteorites, comets, the planets, galaxies and more.

Back to the caves for a 3:30 departure on the trolley; they use the trolleys to take visitors down the switchback road that actually appears to be a giant sink hole. At the bottom we departed the trolley and walked for about an hour through parts of the cave system. The caves were quite wonderful. Some of the rooms were like being in a giant cathedral and other trails led us passed fascinating stalagmites and stalactites. We passed through a portion where hundreds of thousand’s of bats lived and both girls had to hold their noses till we were through. We were able to look down at the river Camuy which is the world’s third largest underground river system and up through giant sinkholes which are collapsed caves.

Our next stop was Gilligan’s Island. This is a series of small mangrove islands that are in a park half way up the coast to Boqueron. The snorkeling here started off pretty much like many others, actually with less life than others but it improved rather quickly. We were joined by this amazing little fish (still to be identified) who insisted on accompanying us on our circumnavigation of one of the islands. Even when we had to get up and walk through parts that were too shallow to swim, he stayed with us, usually right in front of our masks. Other highlights were the upside down jellyfish that looked like plants growing on the bottom. They had appendages that looked like leaves in colours of white, green & blue. We saw our biggest barracuda yet in a shallow pool and drifted with the current through a mangrove pass between two islands. The mangrove roots provide wonderful habitat to a very large variety of fish.
We are currently in Boqueron and readying ourselves for a midnight departure. The crossing to the Dominican Republic is about 145 miles and if all goes according to plan and the weather cooperates we will be in Samana by noon Monday. The Mona passage can be a nasty crossing especially for those coming south from the D.R.