Mom and Dad Visit Puerto Rico: Part 1

After along day of traveling from Chicago, my parents finally made it to Puerto Rico.  Thursday evening, they navigated their way from San Juan to El Verde.  I gave them a quick tour of their station before leaving for Luquillo.  It was a beautiful night to have dinner on the patio at Boardriders, and our hotel was just a couple blocks away.  The Luquillo Sunrise Inn is an adorable bed and breakfast.  Each room has a balcony facing the Atlantic Ocean.  At night we left balcony door cracked open and could hear the waves crash on the beach.

The view from the hotel room

Friday morning I was surprised to sleep in!  For as many family vacations as I can remember, my dad wanted us awake at the crack of dawn.  Now he was the one dragging his heels!  After breakfast we explored the touristy part of El Yunque.  Several vistas and short trails dot an eight-kilometer road that winds up a mountain.  Past waterfalls and overlooks, we found ourselves in the cloud forest.  At the highest elevations, the mountain is almost constantly topped with clouds.  We walked through a thick mist to a lookout tower.  At the top, the clouds broke just long enough to take a picture of the coast before they encompassed us again.  The gray mist in the mountains made me feel like I was on the edge of the world.

My dad and me at Coco Falls

On the Mt. Britton Tower in the cloud forest

After a day of hiking, we relaxed at the hotel for a bit before our nighttime adventure in Fajardo; a kayak tour of the bioluminescent bay.  The bay has perfect conditions to support tiny aquatic creatures called dinoflagellets. When disturbed, these microorganisms emit a blue-green light, similar to the way fireflies glow.  Only a handful of these bays exist worldwide, and three of them are found in Puerto Rico.

The tour started at the harbor in Fajardo.  The biologists guided us across the harbor and into a mangrove canal.  Under the mangrove canopy was pitch black.  Barely any moonlight made its way through the leaves, and I could only see the lights on my parents’ kayak ahead of me.  I glanced down at my paddles as I moved them through the water.  Faintly, I began to see trails of light as paddled.  The trails became brighter and brighter the closer we got to the bay.  We emerged from the canal into the calm lagoon where the biologists talked more about the dinoflagellets. Then we got to paddle around the bay on our own.  I couldn’t believe how bright the bay was as we moved through the water.  Its subtle beauty amazed me.

Our group paddled back to the harbor through the mangrove canal.  When we pulled off to the side and let another tour group pass, we could see the tiny creatures spark as they bumped into the mangrove roots.  It reminded me of shooting starts or fireworks.  Back at the harbor, my parents and I shared a chicken pincho (read: tasty grilled meat on a stick) as a snack after our adventure. Then it was back to Luquillo for the night.  Not a bad start to our adventures at all!