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!

Costa Rica - Day 7 - Quetzels in the Clouds

The next morning we head to the official Monteverde National Cloud Forest and arranged to join a guided tour so we could learn as much as possible along our hike. It was the 3 of us, plus another couple with our guide and before we could even set off unto the path she spotted the famous quetzel and she set up her small telescope for us to take a closer look. The guide did her secret whistle and before we knew it we were surrounded by other guides and tourists trying to spot the infamous bird. I mean, the bird is pretty and all - but I didn't really get how big of a deal it was. I think we ended up seeing 5 during the hike that morning.


There were no big animal sightings (other than another coatimundi high up in the canopy), but even all of the little things that our guide pointed out were incredibly interesting. The cloud forest itself is just an amazing place to be and your neck starts to hurt after a while from looking upward and trying to take it all in.

We saw various small birds, more Strangler Fig Trees, and a particularly group of caterpillars that line up in a row so that all of them together gives the appearance of a snake to keep the pesky birds away.

The end of the tour brought us to the hummingbird garden and we saw countless fast flittering wings as the birds fed. The 2nd biggest hummingbird in the world is found in Costa Rica and is a brilliant blue color.

After grabbing a quick bite, the 3 of us set out to hike a bit and headed out on the Continental Divide Trail. We crossed over a pretty neat suspension bridge, but there were no big animal sightings along the way. The hike led us out to a viewpoint at the edge of one of the mountains and we got to look out over the cloud forest and see the alleged divide.

I easily could have hiked through the jungle all day, but we had to head back towards San Jose since our flight was early the next morning. We made plans with Pauline and her 2 friends to meet up at the same hostel that night in Heredia, a burb of San Jose.

We flew out early the next morning and gazed over the mountainous and volcanic terrain below. Adios for now Costa Rica! :(

Costa Rica - Day 6 - Swinging through the Canopy, Tarzan Style

Waking up early, we continued down the Intercoastal on the way toward Monteverde. We turned off the nice paved highway, onto the dirt road leading up into the cloud forests of Monteverde. The road to the famed cloud forest is said to be just as famous - a bumpy, dirt road that winds up and into the clouds through farmland. Judging by the amount of construction workers on the road, I'm going to guess it takes a lot of upkeep to keep the road drivable when it is likely washed out due to the frequent showers.

We arrived in the small sister towns of Monteverde and Santa Elena (I never could distinguish which one I was in at which times) and immediately set out to find The Original Canopy Tour. We followed signs up a steep road and arrived at a luxury hotel which had been the first to run the famed canopy tours many years ago. We walked in and they asked for our reservations which we definitely had not set up. Luckily, another group canceled and the three of us set off with 2 guides hiking into the rainforest.

This canopy tour was definitely the most "touristy" activity that we did on our CR trip, but it was a ton of fun and completely worth it! Our first stop was at the tarzan swing, and it did look kinda lame, but when you jumped off the platform you went swinging high up through the trees and it was actually pretty awesome.


After the tarzan swing and a bit more hiking we went from zipline to zipline to zipline, higher and higher into the canopy.

The cloud forest canopies are an amazing thing with an entire ecosystem living up in the treetops. It was amazing to see the diversity of plant and animal life that occupies the canopies.

One of my favorite plant species is called a Strangler Fig Tree. The seeds of a Strangler Fig is dropped on top of an existing tree by birds and it begins its life as an epiphyte, growing on top of the existing tree. Eventually the Fig's roots grow hundreds of feet down to the forest floor and complete envelope the host tree, eventually killing it. The interior tree, slowly decomposes and leaves a hollow interior to the Strangler Fig which we actually got to climb up inside of!


After the fun, albeit touristy canopy tour we grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading to one of the many ecological sanctuaries in the area for an afternoon hike. We had the sanctuary mostly to ourselves and hiked out to various viewpoints, overlooking the gorgeous rain forest.


Besides the gorgeous flowers around every corner of the trail, I managed to spot two Agoutis - a large guinea pig like animal that is orangish in color and WAY too fast for any picture snapping opportunities.



After leaving the park, we found a small museum called The Bat Jungle, and since I'm all about some caves and bats the three of us decided to go since it was still open. Again, we had luck on our side and a group had canceled and left us with the brilliant bat doctor, and owner of the museum as our guide. He was impressed with my little bit of knowledge of bats and of the white nose syndrome pandemic that is spreading to bats throughout the Northeast corner of the US, and by now has even spread as far south as Tennessee. The most interesting part of the museum for me was the room where he kept several different varieties of fruit bats. He had a device that converted the bats talking decibel range to one that we humans can hear, so we could hear the bats communicating with each other. There was one particularly pissed off momma bat that would NOT shut up, but it was fascinating to hear how much they communicated with one another.



That night when the three of us were walking to grab a beer, we had an amazing "The World is a small, small place" moment when we ran into a former Couchsurfer of mine, Pauline. She was checking out part of Central America before she head back to Paris and we just happened to run into her in the small cloud forest town of Monteverde!!!! Amazing!

Costa Rica - Day 5 - Heat Exhaustion & Angry Monkeys

So, even though the three of us had been going to bed pretty dang early, (when the sunsets at 6 pm and towns start to shut down, there isn't much left to do) I am rather talented at sleeping in no matter how much sleep I've gotten. Both of the boys were out of the tent before me and soon after I heard Adam say, "Alissa, there's an animal out here!" so of course I assumed he was trying to trick me to get up (I mean, he has done it before) so I make him describe it to me. "Its got a pointy nose and a a really long tail" says Adam. I jump out of bed almost immediately since I know that he sees a Coatimundi!

Coatis are animals in the raccoon family and they are omnivores. He was picking up some food from the ground and eventually after I took some rather blurry pictures he ran away chasing a rabbit.

We stuffed some food in our camel packs that were full with water and set forth on our 13K hike to Playa Naranjo. We had asked the park ranger about driving to the beach the day before, but he said that the road was so bad that we would have to sign a waiver to drive our car on out there - I know lots of people are daring with rental cars, but we decided to hike on out instead.

On the hike out we quickly saw that there was no way our car could have made it...the road was rocky, had huge holes in it, and was even hard to hike on sometimes. The hike on out to the beach was mostly down hill and since it was still early morning, it wasn't too hot out yet. We would stop and search the tree tops when we heard noise, trying to spot whatever jungle critters we could. The jungle in Santa Rosa National Park is a relatively dry jungle and part of the Gunacaste World Heritage area due to the great diversity of life in the area.

While hiking down a rather steep hill we heard a ton of noise in the trees to the left and there was our first and only monkey spotting of the trip! A white face capuchin monkey was in the tree right by the road and man was he not happy to see us! Behind him was a tree full of his family swinging from branch to branch and eating. The angry monky near the road hissed and looked like he was going to jump and attack, but of course I had to get at least a couple pictures first!

Eventually we made it down to the ranger station down at Playa Naranjo and were welcomed by tons of various species of iguanas - they were HUGE!

Now, since we hadn't seen anyone else on our long hike down to the beach we were kinda expecting a deserted beach. But, Playa Naranjo is a very well known surfing beach and surfers come from all over to ride its waves. The surfers don't get out to the beach the hard way either, they pay boats about $200 a day to transport them over to catch some waves. So, needless to say we weren't alone.

Out in the middle of the water is a gigantic rock, known as Witches Rock and it was out around there that we spotted the surfers hanging out and about 3 boats. Besides being known for its waves, I had wanted to hike out here to hopefully observe some deadly wildlife. There is a lagoon off the beach that is suppose to be teaming with huge crocodiles and angry bull sharks (responsible for the most shark related deaths and attacks).

We walked along the shores of the lagoon, keeping our distance since we didn't want to experience any large crocodiles by first hand attacks. Sadly, no deadly creatures were sighted. :(

Despite being terrified of the bull sharks, we took a quick swim in the water...warily staying inland from other swimmers.

On the hike out there, I had managed to finish off most of my camel pack of water. Thankfully, the nice park ranger allowed us to refill up our packs out of the filtered water they had out at the station. We ate a quick snack of our trail mix and started the long, long hike uphill.

Man, oh man was hiking significantly slower than the hike in. Not only was the hike uphill this time, but the temperature had gone up at least 20 degrees and the sun was bright overhead. The hike was a killer for me and I had to take a ton of water breaks and much more frequent sit down breaks (not sure if I took any on the way in). I started to get dizzy and it didn't seem to matter how much water I drank or food I ate, I was definitely getting weaker and weaker. It was pretty crazy, but I'm pretty sure I had at least minor heat exhaustion.

When we FINALLY made it back to the tent, Adam ran off and grabbed us some nice cold Gatorade at the cafeteria and I jumped into one of the showers with all of my clothes on to cool on down. I don't think I've ever been that close to fainting before, but after a bit of rest, electrolytes, and a cold shower I started to feel MUCH better. Why do I always do stupid things on my "vacations"?

The three of us hopped in the car with plans to drive to Monteverde, but it started downpouring like crazy. We had been really lucky so far since we were traveling to Costa Rica during its rainy season and hadn't seen a drop so far. We grabbed a bite to eat in Liberia and hoped that the weather would clear, but it continued to pour so we decided to stay in town for the night at our swankiest hotel of the trip.

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.

Costa Rica - Day 3 - Day of Fortuna

We woke up early and grabbed a typical Costa Rican breakfast of eggs, beans, toast, and of course delicious Costa Rican coffee. We found a local store that rented mountain bikes for ridiculously cheap and grabbed 3 of them and a sweet Costa Rica National Geographic Map (another one to add to my rather large map collection).


We asked for directions on how to bike to a local waterfall - La Fortuna Catarata and the three of us were off on the bikes, biking out of town. Of course we biked several miles past the turn off for the waterfall (there are conveniently zero road signs pointing us towards the big ass waterfall) and as conveniently these several extra miles were mostly uphill. Gravity was much appreciated on the ride back downhill and we managed to find the correct turnoff. Who would have guessed that this road was nearly vertical...yeah, my legs were not so prepared for the monstrous hills and I ended up walking up most of it. Lame.


By the time the three of us made it up the gargantuan hill (some of us much faster than others) we had all soaked through our shirts with sweat. We paid the entrance fee and hiked on down through the towering trees to the 75 meter tall waterfall. As hot as I had been from the bike ride, the water was freezing cold so rather than jump in I just stood close enough that I got pretty soaked by the mist spraying off of the waterfall.


Unlike me, the boys immediately stripped down and jumped on in. They managed to find the perfect diving rock and I caught some great shots of them jumping into the cold water. AK was also determined to swim as close to the waterfall as possible and I was positive he was going to get pushed under and drown in the crazy swirling undercurrents....yeah, swimming isn't really my thing. After the boys were done cooling off and playing around, we walked downstream and saw some really cool Costa Rican fish (yes, the fact that they are from CR makes them cooler).


The three of us jumped back on our bikes and joyfully rolled down the hill and back into downtown Fortuna. We returned the bikes, hopped in the car and began circumnavigating the Volcano. As we drove around it was interesting to see the volcano change from being covered in green vegetation to a dark black color with very apparent lava trails. The most recent significant eruption was in 1998, but the most destructive eruption was back in 1968 when the volcano completely destroyed the small town of Tabacon.


Although Arenal is probably the most famous of Costa Rica's volcanoes, it is very rare that one gets to actually see the top of the cone as it is normally shrouded in clouds. As we were circling the volcano, the clouds cleared away and we were given the full view of the volcano for probably 10 minutes, just enough time for us to all jump out of the car and get some photographic evidence of it.


On the opposite side of the volcano is Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal and we paid the entry fee and drove on up the dirt road into the park. Once in the park, we hiked along the trails toward prime volcano viewing. The path led us through areas of high risk (at least this is what the signs warned) and the amount of sharp Igneous rocks significantly increased as we neared the volcano. Standing amongst the black rocks which formed from the most recent eruption in '98 we heard the deep rumbling of Arenal and saw what we could only assume were at least car sized boulders rolling down the volcanic slope (we were at least a mile away from the top of the volcano, which is relatively close to one that active).


When we turned our back on the volcano, Lake Arenal was visible from our perch on the igneous rocks. The Lake is damned and used for hydroelectric power in the area. The whole scenery in the area is one of the most surreal that I have encountered in my travels so far.


We hiked back on a different trail, surrounded by gigantic trees, tarzan vines to play on, and countless species of plants that I have never seen before. The trees seem to reach up forever into the canopies high above, and the rhythmic noises of the jungle kept our heads turning with hopes to spot an interesting animal around every corner.


After an early dinner at what we are pretty sure was the best restaurant in town we all grabbed some ice cream and chilled in the local town square. The clouds decided to clear from the volcano again and the scenery was amazing as local families took advantage of the parks green space - allowing their children to run around, playing tag and wearing off their energy - likely in hopes of an earlier bedtime.


Later that night, we attempted to drive closer to the Volcano in hopes of observing glowing orange lava flows, but we didn't have as much "fortuna" as we had earlier in the day with the sighting of the entire Volcanic cone. The clouds wrapped the volcano like a blanket and only the occasional snoring of the sleeping volcano could be heard.

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).