A Mere 586 Feet Underground - Ellison's!

Ok, so if you're a caver at all you have heard of Ellison's. Its a legendary cave located in North Georgia with Fantastic - the deepest single drop pit in the continental US at 586 feet. To give you an idea, the Washington Monument could fit into the pit! Rappelling into a pit like this is a bit intimidating to say the least, but of course a FANTASTIC experience.


My good friend Sarah wrote her account of our adventures in Ellison's and I thought I would just repost it here. :)

Last Thursday, July 2, Dana Wolski, Alissa Feucht, Charlie Emerson, Kris/ Klar Fausnight, Carl Fausnight, and myself headed up to the Pigeon Mountain area to camp out prior to most of our's first Ellison's adventure. I can't remember the name of the guy's land we stayed on, but there were some pretty questionable looking out houses and tee pee's, a pretty sweet looking traverse line that we didn't get to try, and a nice pavilion area complete with Christmas lights. We set up camp, ate some cold McDonalds, and consumed far too much wine.


The next morning we got a bit of a slow start. By the time we got ready and hiked up the mountain it was about 11:30 when we actually made it into the cave. We easily rigged the warm up pit and made it to Fantastic with out any major issues. The rest of us chilled out, had a snack and relaxed, while Charlie and Klar bravely rigged the pit. Klar and Carl were the only ones who had done a 500+ ft. pit before and the rest of us didn't really know what we were getting into.

We sent Klar down first and he made it to the bottom with out any problems. Alissa was next. She had a little trouble at the top since she was far too light to get anywhere with five bars on her rack. She was unable to get the last bar off with the weight of the rope, so she managed to swing over to the ledge and some how work the last bar out. She then continued to rappel the rest of the way with little trouble.

Dana was up next. Unfortunately we didn't have enough normal rappel racks and she was the one who got stuck using a mini. She had the same problem at the top that Alissa did but also managed to get the fifth bar off and continue down the rope. Since she was using a mini rack, she had a lot more trouble and pretty much had to feed the rope all the way until about 100 feet off the ground. At this point the rope became much stickier and worn and Dana could no longer even feed the rope into her rack. She was just high enough off the ground that communication was very limited, so she did the only the she knew to do and started to down climb. After about 30 to 40 feet she was too exhausted to go any further.

Klar and Alissa were able to talk to her a little bit at this point and tried to get her to do a change over. Unfortunately the gear wasn't appropriately adjusted for her height and the safety was too longto make that happen. Not knowing what else to do, Klar began to climb up the rope in order to do a pick off. The three of us at the top had no idea what was going on and we heard the words pick off and began to freak out. Klar made it up to Dana and sucessfuly completed about half of a pick off. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong but he put her back on rope and they finally realized it would just be easier to switch rappel racks. They both made it down safely and radioed up to us thate verything was okay.


At this point Dana had been on rope for over an hour and we realized that there was not going to be much time to explore the rest of the cave. Charlie, Carl and I still wanted to bounce the pit since we were already there and Dana needed some time to rest anyway. I got on rope next and decided to start with four bars since Alissa and Dana had already had so much trouble. I was also surprised by the weight of the rope and felt very uncomfortable not being able to pull up on it to stop like I normally do. I was unable to get a fifth bar on due to the weight of the rope and decided it would be best just to do a change over, climb back up to the top and start over with five bars. Unfortunately my gear was not properly adjusted either. The foot loops were too short to get the kroll on the rope above the larger than normal rappell rack. I had a short moment of freaking out while I was stuck on rope. Charlie talked me through it, and I eventually managed to work the rack out of the rope and climb back up to the top. At this point I was a little intimidated and decided I no longer wanted to do the pit that day.

Carl and I waited at top while Charlie descended with out any trouble to help the rest of them back out of the pit. About an hour later a very exhausted Dana and a Charlie made it over the lip and collapsed on the edge.

Klar and Alissa did a little exploring at the bottom while they waited and got to see some of the pretty crystal rooms. By this point Carl and I had become pretty cold and bored and had worked up enough courage to try going down again. This time I startedwith five bars and made it down with no problem. A few minutes later Carl made it down and joined me at the bottom. Once down there we decided it would be best for Carl and Alissa to climb up together since Alissa was pretty cold.


Klar and I decided to go exploring again while Carl and Alissa climbed. We took off at a very fast pace and managed to make it back to the north pole and back in under an hour. I was impressed by how beautiful the gypsum crystals were and by how clearly the fault line was defined. It was unlike any other cave I have been to. The north pole formation was very pretty as well, but much smaller than I was expecting it to be. Once the two of us made it back to the bottom of the pit and Alissa and Carl got off rope, we sent Alissa, Dana, and Carl out to the warm up pit to start climbing that.

Klar and I made it out of fantastic in about 45min. (I had a rope walker), and with the help of Charlie, we coiled up the rope and headed back to the warm up pit as well. We were all pretty exhausted and nobody really wanted to climb with the 600 ft beast attached to them so we decided to make a haul system instead. We (and by we I mean Charlie and Klar) set it up so the weight was 2:1 and got it up to the ledge pretty easily. Charlie dragged it up the rest of the way and then we made like trees and got the eff out of there. By the time we made it out we had spent a total of 12 hours in cave.

All in all it wasn't a complete failure even though we didn't get to do everything we had planned and we had a few amature moments. We learned that rappelling on rope over about 300 feet is much different. You can no longer use pulling up on the rack as a stopping mechanism, it is incredibly hard to lock off and to change the amount of bars you have on, and mini racks are pretty much a horrible idea. We also learned that everyone should adjust their gear so it is the appropriate size, everyone should know how to do change overs in their sleep, and pickoff's should only be done as a last resort and if the picker offer knows how to do them really well. I would recommend practicing at a wallwith a heavy weight at the end of the rope so you can know what to expect if you've never done a serious pit before. The important thing is we all made it out safely and we learned from our mistakes. It was still fun and the next time we return we'll know what to expect and be able to explore much more!

SERA Summer Cave Carnival!

I hitched a ride up to Lookout Mountain in North Georgia with my now good friend Klar. After our quick registration, we cracked open a beer, located our friends and set up our tent. We held many a crawl through the tiny black tube on the kid's playground contest (we all got some good bruises from this one!) and we all tested our limits in the Squeeze Box (think of it as limbo for cavers). I discovered that my head is the biggest part of me and could only squeeze my way through 5 3/4".

The night turned a bit crazy as Sarah & I introduced ourselves and partied with all of the caving "Gods" and preceded to turn even crazier in the infamous hot tub. Somebodies (leaving out names) naked beer run through camp supplied more beer to those of us that continued to drink and dehydrate ourselves in the hot tub.

Obviously all of us were quite chipper in the morning....but we met up with Ann as planned and packed into the car for the short drive to Anderson Spring Cave. After some peanut butter and jelly we began the plesant downhill hike to the cave. After a bit of searching through the woods, and spotting of the nearby road (the local farmer doesn't allow anyone on his land, so you have to get to the cave the long way) we found the small entrance with water flowing out of it.

I'm pretty sure river caves are my favorite kind as they always seem to be full of pretty decorations and hiking through water is pretty fun too. Our group (minus Ann) was dragging quite a bit so we didn't explore quite as much of the cave as we would have liked.

The second night was much tamer than the first and the next morning, a small group of us set out for Drag Fold Pit, part of the Mountain Cove Cave Complex. The rappel into Drag Fold is about 100 feet and it wasn't too drippy when we went. There isn't too much to see at the bottom of the cave, but Klar showed me some passage that he thought I could push since I'm kinda small.


The passage started out as a hand and knees crawl and turned from a belly crawl with decent room, to a tight, tight belly crawl with my back against the ceiling and me barely being able to push my way along. I experience my first ever clausterphobic feelings in this crawl because I knew that getting back out backwards, if I couldn't turn around, was going to be really fricken hard. Pushing my way through the passage and somehow avoiding breaking the 2 small columns. At the end of the crawl I came to a room that was just big enough for me to sit up in and where the air was blowing like crazy. There was a crack above my head that isn't big enough for a human to fit through, but I could see that it opened up into a pretty big room....I'm pretty sure if somebody cracks it open it would lead into 4 Kings Cave. This room was luckily big enough for me to somehow turn myself around in (glad I'm flexible) and I crawled my way back out!

All in all a great caving weekend!

Costa Rica - Day 4 - Aqua Agua

Another early morning and we were on the road heading north...attempting to find the elusive Rio Celeste. We didn't have an exact location, just a small town pointed out to us by a local tour guide from Fortuna. The drive took us through rolling hill country, resemblant of Dr. Seuss' cartoon movie "The Lorax".

Following the map and the few road signs that existed we wound our way to a small town where we stopped and ate breakfast and attempted to ask for directions. She pointed us in the direction we had just come from and a several miles down the road AK spotted an elusive sign for a tour agency that offered tours to the mysterious river. We made a turn onto the nasty, rocky road, crossed the sketchiest bridge yet and headed through pineapple plantations in hopes that we were on the right track.

I spotted the shack of a tour agency on the side of the road and three of us got out of the car and hesitently knocked at the door - which swung open, revealing an empty room with a couple of touristy posters pinned up on the walls and nobody in sight. Great, now what? A local farmer across the way must have seen us and walked over to help and pointed us further up the horrible road...back in the car and on we drove. I mean, we had wanted an adventure.

At the top of a particulary nasty hill we found there was a sign which pointed at a small path and said "Arbol de la Paz" or tree of peace. We decided to check it out and walked into the thick vegetation and found the BIGGEST tree yet. I have yet to see Redwood trees, so I don't have a comparison but this tree stretched up to the heavens above and would have taken at least 8 people linking arms to reach around because of the gigantic root system.

Several miles further up the road we found the park entrance (a small barely labeled gate) to Parque Nacional Tenorio - the park where the infamous Rio Celeste was located. We negotiated for a tour guide (who only spoke Spanish) and the three of us + 2 others set off on a hike into the rainforest.

We were barely into the forest when the guide pointed out a humongous leaf cutter ant hill that supposidly extended like a 100 feet underground. We somehow learned (all of our Spanish skills are pretty weak) that their are quality control ants that sit at the entrances of the hill and only allow in leafs that are up to their standards...cute little engineer ants. :)

We hiked underneath the amazing canopy, on balance beam bridges over trickling streams, and made our way down to part of the river. Rio Celeste is famous because its waters turn the prettiest light blue due to the combining of a sulfurous river and another river that is rich in calcium carbonate. Because of the chemical content in the water it is not safe to swim in all areas, but we were allowed to swim in some of the more diluted parts.

The first part of the river we arrived at had several mini rapids and my first hot spring! I hung out on the bubbly hot water, slowly cooking myself while the boys once again spent some time playing around in the cold, blue stream waters.

As the group hiked further upstream, the cool waters became continuly more aqua in color and were a gorgeous contrast against the deep green of the jungle. We eventually came opon the spot where the two brown rivers mixed to form the brillant blue shade...sometimes chemistry can be kinda cool.

Along the hike, the guide pointed out interesting plants, identified bird calls, pointed out signs of larger life (like tusks marks in trees from boars) and just chatted. It always surprised me how much I can pick up and the 2 other members of our group would occasionally attempt to translate some of the knowledge when we were confused.

Coming upon some stairs on the extremely well maintained path we hiked up, and up, and up until we reached the viewpoint looking down over the valley of Tenorio National Park below. In the distance we could see Tenorio Volcano, which consists of a total of 4 volcanic peaks. It was a gorgeous, misty cloud & rainforest view!

We continued down the path and heard the rushing of the famous waterfall below us. The waterfall is not too significant in height, but it drops down into a pool of the light blue water AND its a perfect place to go swimming...I finally decided to jump on in the chilly water! Sometimes settings are so picturesque that they just don't seem real, and this was one of those places. The three of us soaked in the beauty as we played around in the waters, not wanting to hike on out of the park.

By this time the 3 of us were pretty starving, but decided to continue on to Santa Rosa National Park and stop at a local soda along the way...unfortunately, this was the one strip of road that we drove on the whole trip where the sodas were nonexistent. We tried to appease our stomachs with the most delicious pineapple ever and we ate so much that our mouths literally hurt from all of the acid.

We head west along the northernmost highway and we could occasionally see across the border and catch glimpses of Lago de Nicaragua. The northern highway is primarily a dirt road and we were stopped and questioned at several military checkpoints which I assume was because we were so close to the border.

By the time we reached Santa Rosa National Park we still had not passed any restaurants or stores and were really starting to wonder what we would do about a meal that night. We talked to the awesome ranger and he called up the kitchen that is located at the park for both park employees and researchers that are based there and thankfully they had prepared enough food that we could eat with everyone! They were even nice enough to offer a vegetarian meal for me...even though I was hugnry enough at this point that I would have eaten most anything!

Before dinner, we set up our tent in the campground and ran into a girl wearing a batdana!!! Ok, I'm kinda a caving dork at a TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia) caving festival they sell tie dyed bandanas with bats printed on them....and I know that they can't sell these just everywhere so I thought I had found a caver. The girl turned out not to be a caver, but a bat catcher which I suppose is almost as cool, and she was setting up a net to catch and identify bats in the area with. Of all the mammals in CR (and there are a ton of them!) over half of them are bats! So, this girl was down in Costa Rica working on a bat research project and as a caver I thought this was pretty cool!

By the time we were done eating dinner, the sun had already set and this meant both bugs and bats were out in force. We literally walked back to the tent not talking, squinting our eyes and swatting at what seemed to be a million bugs swarming around us. Rather than sit outside on the nice bench at our camping site, the 3 of us hopped in the tent, zipped it up as fast as possible, turned on our flashlights and started swatting at the bugs that had managed to make it in there. We stayed up for a while drinking in the tent, while listening to the night noises of the jungle and the hords of bats that kept ramming into our tent. It was pretty early when the three of us fell asleep in the muggy, but bug free tent all on top of our sleeping bags.

Wonder Woman Triathlon

So, I had been training super hard...meaning, I had been running a couple days a week for all of 2 weeks and gone mountain biking a whole 2 times...and I somehow allowed AK to talk me into doing an offroad triathlon. I pretty much knew I was going to suck it up, so I joked about wearing my wonder woman costume and brought it along just in case I was feeling like a cape would help the day of the race.

AK & I drove up Friday night with our friend Daryl to Springfield, South Carolina where the race was being held. A couple of our friends planned on making the trip, but would come up on Saturday. We got there pretty late and had missed the big eve of the race pasta dinner, but the race director was so sweet that he invited us into his cabin and heated up some more pasta for us and gave offered us a beer. I of course turned down the beer, knowing that it would greatly effect my performance the next day....NOT! We chilled in the cabin for a while before heading out the campfire that a couple of the racers had going. We head to bed kinda early because I desperately needed my beauty sleep - I mean a girls got to look good for race day, right?

We woke up early the next morning and checked in for the race. We put our mountain bikes in the race racks (I'm sure there is a more technical name that I don't know) and went and grabbed our kayaks that we had rented and put them in the row of super fancy flat water kayaks next to the lake.

I went back to the tent to change into my race clothes and after a short personal debate - I was out in my finest crime fighting outfit. I figured the cape would annoy me since it goes around your neck so I tied it to my camel pack. AK and I were hanging out pre-race and just kinda stretching and warming up because I am hardcore serious and all...and somebody asked him where his costume was. He of course had not packed a costume...but, he did have some work clothes in his car. Hah, he went and changed into work pants, button up shirt, and a tie - we were ready to race! :)

We all clogged together next to the starting line and with the gun shot I was off like a speeding bullet...if a speeding bullet moves at a whopping pace of 6 miles per hour. This 7 mile run, would be the farthest I had ever ran...and my only goal was to keep running and I managed at least to do that. The run through the beautiful trails weaved in and out of the woods and around the lake and I'm sure it would have been absolutely beautiful if I wasn't nearly dying the whole time. At least I had a great support team with the "Go Wonder Woman" shouts every now and then!

After the run, was a 6 mile kayak around the lake - this was the part of the race that I was least worried about. Its not that I'm a big kayaker or anything...I probably paddle just a couple times a year, but at least I knew that I had actually paddled 6 miles in my life before (compared to the 7 mile run and the 10 mile mtn bike) and this was an extra fancy kayak with peddals that you steer with! We had to paddle our way around the lake 3 times and I was actually passing a couple of people which made me happy...really, really stunk for the guy in a white water kayak - he was doing nothing but paddling back and forth.

After the kayak, I hopped on my mountain bike and just prayed that my legs would somehow keep going for the next 10 miles. A lot of the biking was on fireroads, but these were sandy fireroads that made you feel like you were somehow peddeling backwards. The single track was hard and I was often off my bike pushing it up another steep hill since my legs weren't really going along with the whole not stopping thing. Overall, I got passed a ton and I got use to getting passed and was frankly ok that I was majorly sucking it up because the race was getting closer and closer to being over!

After what felt like an eternity, I crossed back over the main road and began biking towards the finish line and I hear "On your left." Ok, this is general curtosy on a bike or even when you are running and passing somebody and I had heard this all day because I had been passed many, many times, but my reaction than time was more of a "Not going to happen bitch" reaction. Well, I didn't say that but I would like to think that my reaction of speeding up and barreling down the road at warp speed, conveyed that. That girl behind me would be 1 of a whole 7 people that finished behind me. Well make that 8 because 1 girl totally cheated on the paddle - no way did she complete 3 laps!

Well, needless to say that kicking myself into warp drive did not make the victory bottle of rum seem like a very good idea and I gave myself a good 30 minutes and a whopping plate of food before I took my shot.

Unlike me, AK actually did really well at the race and apparently got to hear "I am NOT getting passed by a guy in a suit" several times during the race. :)

Well I had been hard at work sucking it up, a bunch of our friends had arrived and we had a great time hiking, drinking, and campfiring before once again heading back to reality.

Puerto Rico - Day 6 - Cave Mapping & Canal Tubing

Well, if you couldn't tell...we might have had a wee bit to drink for our "New Years" celebrations and woke up with plans to meet up with Caver Tom and his wife for some caving. Somehow with the confusion of the night before and the high tide....Dana had managed to misplace the keys. We searched the beach up and down, managing to find Dana's missing flip flop...but the keys were nowhere in sight. Assuming that they had been washed away to Poseidon we gave Tom a call and explained that we would be a bit late in meeting them and then called the rental car company to come drop off a set of keys. Dana decided that she would take a nap in the car and wait for the keys to arrive and Adam and I went to grab some breakfast.

Adam and my timing was perfect and the keys were dropped minutes after we made it back to the car. Right as we were about to pull away, an older Puerto Rican walked up holding....our missing set of keys. We have NO idea where he could have possibly found them since we were positive that we had searched every inch of beach, but our lost keys had returned.

We met Tom and his wife at a small town right outside of Guajataca National Park and followed them up the mountain to park on the side of the road. We all grabbed our caving and tubing gear and hiked into the jungle. The National Park services had recently published a new map of the park which included the location of Effrain Lopez Cave - which Tom was very opposed to because of vandalism in other more touristy caves in the area. He had taken it upon himself to hide the trail to the cave and was more than happy that the three of us just walked right on past the "trail". Once pointed in the right direction we walked down to the decent sized mouth of the short, horizontal cave. Tom got out his surveying gear and I was put in charge of the laser pointer that would help measure the size of the cave. The cave is relatively small, but very interesting since the ceilings are full of pockets that have been slowly worn away by the bats that reside within.

After the survey was complete, the 5 of us hiked back through the jungle and down to a canal that had been built to supply water to the town of Isabela on the north of the island. We blew up our inflatable tubes and the 2 Puerto Ricans donned their wetsuits before we set out floating down the canal that ran literally through the middle of the beautiful jungle. I got the fortunate position in the front and as we floated through the tunnels and underneath the bridges this put me in charge of unintentionally clearing the spiders out of the way for everyone else....lucky me. Some of the tunnels were especially long and curvy so you couldn't even see the exit - these were significantly more fun and terrifying to ride through with our lights off....and slightly reminiscent of a Willy Wonka boat ride.

Because of Tom and his wife's generousness for showing us around the jungle and even offering up their grass for us to pitch our tent that night - we offered to take them out to dinner. We ate at a local fast food type restaurant that they insisted had some of the best Mofongo - fried yuca or plaintains mushed together.

After dinner we followed them back to their house and Tom patiently drew us a map for our cave tubing excursion that we were planning for the next day down the Rio Tanama.

Sorry, lack of pictures due to the water activities....

Puerto Rico - Day 5 - "Surfing" Day

We woke up early and headed off to the beach in Rincon - a small surfers paradise on the western coast of the island. Upon arriving in town (and after a scary encounter going the wrong way on a one way road), we ate breakfast at a small cafe in town. From there, we drove down to the beach strip and found a surf shop to rent a board for the day. Dana had decided that she wanted a lazy day of drinking and relaxing on the beach, but Adam and I were going to surf. Well...at least I was going to attempt to surf. Even though it was early in the morning, the beach was crowded and there was at least one pro surfer catching some waves. I let Adam take the board out first well Dana and I strung up a clothes line to let our clothes air out a bit....nothing like the smell of caving clothes.


After a while Adam came back into shore and it was my turn to "surf". I had never been surfing before and the decent sized waves and the fact that there was a reef that I would be surfing over was more than enough to freak me out a bit. Adam decided that he would come float out there with me in one of our River Rat tubes so the two of us starting swimming out pass the break. About 4 falls off the board later (Adam had neglected to tell me to duck under the waves) I finally made it out past the break. Adam had explained how to pop up on the board, but I was definitely nervous! Adam was looking for the perfect wave for me to catch when all of a sudden one decided to catch me instead. The wave propelled me forward in the water at a MUCH faster speed than I had anticipated and by the time I was ready to stand up...I realized that I was directly over the reef and there was NO way that it was going to happen. I rode the wave all the way into shore and called it a day. It would be drinking and relaxing on the beach with Dana for me that day. :)


Dana was already a bit toasty so I joined in on the rum punch drinking and watched the surfers do their thing. After a while Adam was done for the day and joined in on the festivities. Since our New Years Eve Celebrations had been a little on the tame side, we decided that this would be our party night. :)


We decided that the beach equaled fancy dinner time, so we hit up a great seafood restaurant followed by my favorite drinking shack in the world. A tiny shack right along the beach strip with about 6 bar stools, no refrigerator, $3 rum punches, and a scary guard dog named Princess was perfect for a couple rounds of drinks. After our drinks we went to scope out a premium camping spot on the beach and we broke out our bottle of champagne that had been purchased earlier that day. The drinks caught up to me fast and I was the first to crawl into the tent, but not too long after Dana and Adam just laid back on the beach and fell to sleep. An hour or so later I was woken up by Dana frantically yelling at me to wake up. Confused and sleepy I poke my head out of the tent only to see another wave crash right near the tent and over the top of Dana and Adam. Apparently the beach did not have any non tide portion, so after much confused arguing we eventually moved the tent up to a small dirt road that went down from the parking lot....and went back to sleep.

Puerto Rico - Day 4 - Cave Day!

We woke up early from our uber exciting New Years. Having gotten directions to several caves from Caver Tom who is a Professor of Geology at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez over the phone, we set out Bosque De Guajataca to see what we could find.

Driving into the park, the roads approached a new degree of terrifying...dirt roads with cliff drop offs on one side made for maybe 1 1/2 cars to be able to safely drive down them. Our 1st cave of the trip, we named "Car Cave" as we were able to drive our rental car partway into it. The cave was rather insignificant in size, but entertaining enough when you drove into it.


We found parking next to the visitor's center that is under construction and got into our caving gear and ready for our couple mile hike to Cueva Viento. Along the path Adam found a small cave on the left side of the trail and Dana and I followed him down the small hole into an interesting small caves with a ton of formations for such a small space. We found another much larger entrance to the cave which exited into the thick jungle.


Cueva Viento turned out to be a very well traveled cave with a circular staircase going down into the cave that would have originally been a good 50 foot rappel. The cave was mostly just one big room, but the most interesting part was our 1st siting of a Gordo - a huge spider, scorpion looking insect about the size of a softball. Not sure if they are poisonous or not, but certainly wasn't going to tempt it.


We hiked back along the trail to our car and headed out of the park to find Infierno - another cave that Caver Tom had recommended. Infierno was a great cave with a great skinny muddy passage off to the left that was blocked by a crab - the gatekeeper of that section of cave. We ended up knee deep in mud in some sections and had a ton of fun in the less traveled cave.

After our fun caving adventure we grabbed a delicious dinner of ham and cheese sandwiches (mine just cheese) and set up camp in Guajataca just up a small dirt road from the visitors center that was still under construction. Now, we weren't technically suppose to camp here...but we had a great time drinking our Don Q and juice drinks and making sure to turn off our headlamps whenever we heard cars driving along the crazy dirt road.

Puerto Rico - Day 2 - Day on Vieques - an island off THE island

Ahhh, what a refreshing night of sleep in our humid as hell tin tent! We woke up feeling particularly sticky and already ready for a shower when it would still be a couple days until we got a chance.

We headed back down the mountain in our tent, stopping at lookouts along the way to check out the gorgeous view which I actually have a picture of from Adam's camera!



Our plan was to head back into town to pick up the permits that are required to camp nearly anywhere in Puerto Rico. Once we made it back into San Juan we caught a quick breakfast (we made complete fools of ourselves trying to get in because you apparently have to ring a doorbell to get into fast food restaurants around there....crime rate maybe high?) well waiting for the park office to open. Hah! Apparently the park office is closed for a very extended holiday for all of December and January. Oh, well for legal camping...

Since the bioluminescent bays are best to see on nights when the moon is nearly gone from the sky, we planned on heading over to the small island of Vieques and spending the night there. Knowing that the island was on the east side of PR, Dana managed to find a small dotted line on our PR map that had a little ferry symbol - to Vieques! Sweet! We headed to our departure city - Fajardo on the east coast of Puerto Rico.

We spotted this HUGE iguana right downtown Fajardo!


The ride over on the ferry was gorgeous and we arrived at Isabel Segunda on the Northern coast of the island. We found a small surf shop where we got the scoop on the best company to use for seeing the biobays - the tour happened to set out from Esperanza which is located on the southern coast of the island. Now, Vieques being an island and all seems to distort the islanders reality of distance - they made Esperanza seem like it was a days drive away when in fact it was a short 5 mile walk across the island.

After a delicious lunch, we began our hike across the island and within a mile of hiking we were already picked up on the side of the road by local who just happened to work for the exact company that we had scheduled our biobay tour with!

We arrived in Esperanza, a beautiful touristy town with a row of tour shops and restaurants on the street opposite the beach. We walked around the small town, watched an amazing sunset, and caught a late dinner before we met up with our tour company. The three of us, plus a couple of families were driven out on a bumpy dirt road in a van where our kayaks were waiting for us. Dana and I were in the same kayak, well Adam got stuck with the tour guide - who bet that I couldn't get a good picture of the biobay because it was near impossible.

We kayaked out and started to notice the blueish glow that started to surround our paddles as we navigated through the water. If you scooped your hand through the water it looked like blue glitter would trickle over your hand and the fish that darted through the water looked like shooting stars! We got to an area that was deep enough to swim around in without touching the bays murky bottom and we spent about 20 minutes swimming around in the bay. It was a surreal experience! But, it turns out that my waterproof camera was not so appreciative of the biobays as it malfunctioned and would not take pictures for the rest of the trip! Grrrr the tour guide won the bet!

After the tour, the three of us wandered down the strip of sand away from the crowded tourist section to find a secluded section of sand to pitch our tent on. We found a perfect spot right in between two bays and set up camp. We passed around our bottle of Don Q Anejo (definitely not as good as silver!) with our newly discovered favorite mixer - Carrot Orange juice.

The temperature continued to drop as we drank our rum on the beach and we spent the night in our tent attempting to sleep through the chilly, chilly night WITHOUT our sleeping bags. We had neglected to bring them to Vieques so we wouldn't have to carry them around everywhere with us (oh, and Adam had neglected to bring one to Puerto Rico period!). We got a very sparse amount of sleep in one of the most amazing camp spots ever!

Puerto Rico - Day 1 - Midnight hikes, coquis, and our tin tent!

Dana and I, best friends from Georgia Tech, had been looking for an exciting adventure to fill part of our first christmas vacation post starting "real" jobs. I found airfare deals to Puerto Rico and emailed Dana, within a couple hours she had replied with a simple, "I'm in!" email and I booked our tickets. Dana made a call to our good friend Adam, and he was in for an adventure as well! December 29th - January 6th the three of us were going to have a helluva time!

Dana drove down to Atlanta from Nashville the night before, we spent our time making sure our "essential pack" was equipped with the tent, first aid kit, headlights, inflatable tubes (yes, 100% essential!), trail mix, and any other spare ends and odds that we deemed necessary. All packed, we caught a couple hours of sleep before our early flight out in the morning. Adam would be meeting us in Puerto Rico as he was flying out from LAX.

Dana and I got a LOT of funny looks walking through the Atlanta airport in our hiking boots (mine were actually still wet & smelly from a caving trip the previous weekend) and helmets on our head (if we attached them to our huge backpacking packs they managed to swing and hit people). Everyone wanted to know where we were flying off to and we more than amused security! Our flight to our connection in Miami went without a hitch, and I found it amusing that when purchasing lunch in Miami and trying to switch to better seats for our next flight we were already met with a language barrier. Miami is still technically in the US, right? Oh, well a good chance to try to practice my limited Spanish.

Adam met us at our gate in Puerto Rico and we went off to collect our luggage. We spent a good hour panicked, thinking that our "essential pack" had not made it to the island. No pack = no place to sleep! Thankfully, the pack arrived and we hopped into our small rental car that was ours for the week of exploring!

It was too late by this time to try to get permits for camping in El Yunque National Forest - a real Rainforest, so we headed down to Old San Juan to explore for the couple hours left of daylight. After finding a parking spot, we wandered away from the port area that was filled to the brink with tourists. We wandered along the city walls until we saw Castillo San Felipe on top of a lush green hill. The three of us kinda think alike, and before we knew it we were all on top of the hill and exploring what we could of the fort.

Seeing a creepy looking cemetery - Cementerio Maria Magdalena, we decide that a closer look at the creepiness is a reason to walk outside of the city walls. I mean, my opinion is that the closer to the water...the nicer the houses....apparently going outside the city walls in Old San Juan = sketchiness! After walking outside the walls and feeling like every man, women, child, and pet staring at us like we more than out of place and unwelcome...the whole time only walking further, and futher from the only entrance point back into the city walls (thinking we could find another way back into the walls if we walked just a little further....) we finally turned around & made it back inside.

Dinner was overpriced, but tasty at Mira Bueno in downtown Old San Juan.

We decided that we didn't want to waste money on a hotel and the word hostel is pretty much nonexistent in Puerto Rico...so we headed in our car to El Yunque Rainforest even though we knew you were suppose to have permits to camp...we couldn't think of a better option than a bunch of wilderness to make us feel right at home for sleeping. We picked up the necessary and amazing Don Q (most delicious rum ever!) at a gas station on our way to the rainforest.

Getting into the forest, we rolled down our windows even though it was raining to let the sounds of the forest surround us (primarily Coquis!) as we wound up and down the mountains. The sign at the entry to El Yunque clearly said that it was closed after dark, but then again the gate was wide open, so we drove right in! About halfway up, we were passed by a police officer who immediately stopped and had us roll down our window to talk to him. Trying in my very broken Spanish to explain that we were camping by literally charading a roof over my head (yes, I now know its acampar) and that el permitio officio esta cerrado (hah!), I think he finally got so frustrated he just waved us onwards.

Finally arriving where we deemed would be a good place to sleep (in our tin tent) we decided that we donned our head lamps and went for a midnight hike in the rain. Stepping out of the car, I nearly squished a gigantic snail....talking HUGE by American standards of snails! Adam went behind the locked bathrooms to pee, and immediately yelled at us to come there....questionly we went behind the bathrooms to see our first and only Coqui of the trip right in the corner where Adam was about to pee! Trust me, you will hear them the ENTIRE time you are in Puerto Rico, but rarely will you get the chance to see one!

The three of us slowly walked down the winding rainforest path with headlamps on, trying to avoid the many snails and we managed to spot a large rainforest crab in the process! After about an hour of wandering, and not wanting to use up our luck just yet by continuing to wander off into the darkness...we headed back to the car. A little Don Q and juice was a great nightcap before a very humid attempted night of sleep in the our tin tent! :)

All of the beautiful pictures from this part of the trip have vanished due to my camera malfunctioning in the bioluminescent bay (Day 2).