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.

Costa Rica - Day 2 - Dos Volcanoes!!!

So, we woke up early and after a crazy drive through rush hour in downtown San Jose where we dropped off Ivannia's roommate at his job and somehow managed to find the highway leading north out of the city...we were on our way to Volcan Poas! The road wound up the mountain and through coffee plantations with clear blue skies above and sunny, emerald mountains surrounding us. Volcan Poas is relatively close to San Jose, so it didn't take long before we had arrived at the Visitors Center.

We got out of the car, changed into some hiking clothes and set off on the extreme hike up the well paved road. The vegetation was deep green in color, the color that I have learned to associate with jungle and I absolutely love me some jungle! At the top of the small hill we came upon a viewing platform with about 10 others there max. Ivannia had warned us that it is rare to even see the volcano because cloud covering likes to hover right around the top of mountains, and so I had pictured Volcan Poas as a typical cone volcano that we would look on from a distance.

The site of Volcan Poas took my breath away. Rather than staring up at huge a volcanic cone, you looked directly down into the mouth of the volcano since at some point in the past the angry tectonics below had caused the entire cap to blow off! You could see the white, smoky steam emanating from the angry depths of the crater. Even though it would have been pretty easy to scramble down closer to the mouth, I was content with staying high above and not breathing in any deadly fumes.


After staring in awe at the volcanic mouth and taking obligatory pictures, the three of us set off on a "hike" through the jungle on a very well paved path. Along the hike we got to see the Volcanic Lagoon, a rather brave tiny bird, and a tasty looking mushroom that I debated sampling for lunch.
Leaving Volcan Poas, we set off down the road towards Fortuna. We stopped along the way at a small soda (what Costa Rican restaurants are called) where I had a couple bites of the chicken (I'm usually a vegetarian for those of you that don't know) that came along with the delicious beans, rice, and salad. Using my little Costa Rica map and directions from our 2 travel books we wound up and down the crazy mountainous roads through the jungle and over some rather fun, 1 way bridges.


We learned the ways of the road and before we knew it their appeared to be a large volcanic cone in the distance in front of us and we had arrived at Fortuna, a small town that sits at the base of Volcan Arenal - Costa Rica's most active volcano.


Arriving in town, we wandered around and found a hostel to stay at for a couple of nights. We spent the rest of the night wandering around town, drinking many Imperials, relaxing, and listening to the frequent rumbling eruptions of Arenal in the distance.

Costa Rica - Day 1 - Sketchy San Jose

Daily, I get an absurd amount of airfare deals sent right to my inbox...so, when I saw $360 airfares to Costa Rica AK & I were sold and quickly booked our flights. We invited several of our friends along, but Adam was the only one that jumped onto the trip, so we booked a rental car and before we knew it - vacation time was here!

Adam flew out earlier in the day from Orlando and we would be meeting up with him later that night at the San Jose airport. He apparently had an adventurous day hanging out with some ex-pats and being offered various illegal substances. Well, Adam was already having interesting adventures south of the border, AK & I made sure to enjoy an especially large margarita to get the trip kicked off right! Our flight got in around 8 in Costa Rica and after making our way through customs, where all employees were adorned with face masks since the poor piggy flu scare and where I had to do my darndest to not cough since I was recovering from a cold which might have resulted in me being denied access to the country - we finally met up with Adam.

At the rental car agency, we gave the employee Ivannia's telephone number (a local couchsurfer) and he proceded to argue with her on the phone that we would never find her place. Ivania was amazing and told the employee that she would meet us at Office Depot downtown San Jose and that we could follow her out to her apartment from there. The employee than explained to us several times how to get to this alledged Office Depot and feeling more than a little hesitant we set out from the rental agency to find Ivania. After numerous wrong turns, turn arounds, a KFC for directions, more wrong turns in the closed down streets of downtown where only people who looked like they were up to no good were standing around (San Jose one of the leading cities in prostitution) we magically drove upon what we assumed was the "fountain" that the employee had told us about and I screamed "Office Depot" with excitement when we found the out of business store.

We were pretty worried that this wasn't the right Office Depot and sat there worried what we would do if we couldn't meet up with Ivannia when a car pulled in up in front of us! Hallelujah! I got out of our rental and hopped in with Ivannia and the boys were going to follow us girls to her apartment which is located in the one of the suburbs of San Jose. We would up hill and out of the the main downtown and Ivannia made a couple of random turns to give me the optimum tour on the way to her house. Her apartment complex is barbed wired in so you can tell that the crime rate is even high in the burbs, but it was a nice cozy place.

Ivannia excitedly showed us many of her souvenirs from her travels that she has primarily done through her work at SOS Kinderdorf International. She also served us some delicious Tres Leches Cake which I believe she still owes us a recipe for! We talked about our plans for our trip and got her advice. She was such a kind host and I hope to meet up with her again one of these days!

Wrecking our way through Nashville

AK, Jon (my amazing couchsurfer who now lives in Germany) and I took off early on Saturday morning for Nashville, TN. I had planned the trip about a month before because the NCAA Gymnastics Nationals was being held up there and to top it off one of my best friends Dana was working at her first grown up job up there as well. Jon was trying to make it up to his brother's place in West Virginia so we offered him a ride up there with us.

We met up with Dana and the new boy she was dating and grabbed a bite to eat along with the restaurant's make your own bloody mary bar. Well 3 of us went and watched the Georgia Bulldogs grab their 5th consecutive NCAA title...even though I'm a yellow jacket at heart, I feel compelled to root for the Georgia Gym Dogs since they're the only Division 1 team in Georgia and one of their Olympic athletes had helped choreograph a couple of my girl's floor routines.

After the meet we met up with Jon and Ben, the new boy and all went to grab a bite at a local Indian restaurant and then the 5 of us headed out to the bars in East Nashville. Jon decided that he would be the DD for the night and we spent the next couple hours hopping from bar to bar, to taco stand, to bar.

Deciding we had had enough for the night, we all piled into Ben's car with Jon in the drivers seat. At night in downtown Nashville, the main road's lights all turn to flashing yellow and all of the streets that cross have flashing red lights. We were driving along the main road with flashing yellows when another car decided that they weren't going to even slow down for their flashing red and came flying into the intersection...there wasn't even enough time for somebody to get out an, "Oh, shit" before we T-boned the other vehicle. Because I was sitting in the middle seat in the back, which thankfully actually had a shoulder strap I didn't see the accident coming - only had felt the screech of our breaks and Jon tried to avoid the hit, felt the painful crunching crash and then saw the smoke coming up out of our engine. The 4 of us quickly bolted from the car, nervous that smoke might mean fire or explosion that you see in the movies.

The other car had spun out after we had T-boned it and had landed half on a curb. The driver of the other car emerged, screaming accusingly at us for hitting her car. We informed her that it had in fact been her that had a run a red light and her mad screaming turned into a repitition of, "I did NOT run a red light, I did NOT run a red light". There were 4 people total in her car, one who had not been buckled as was displayed by her head sized dent in the front windshield...I think she ended up being ok.

Between the 5 of us we did a quick survey of eachother to make sure all of us were alright. My neck and everyone else's was starting to ache a little from whiplash and a couple minutes later Jon showed us his hand and his knuckle had swollen up like crazy - it ws definitely broken. I'm sure he was so grateful to be our designated driver. The cops showed up shortly after and questioned all of us separately and for some unknown reason they decided not to breathalize the driver of the other car even though everyone in that car was dressed in clubbing clothes and it was pretty apparent to us that she had been drinking....seriously? I feel like any accident that happens around 2 am should require that both drivers be breathalized!

All 4 of the girls from the other car were taken to the hospital on stretchers even though 1 refused to put her cell phone down even when they were rolling her onto the ambulence with a neck brace on. I do honestly hope the girls were physically ok, they obviously were not so mentally competent as they later tried to sue. All 5 of us had refused medical service and we spent at least another hour waiting on the tow truck to come pick up the car and the police to finally stop questioning us and leave. Funny how the accident wasn't our fault at all and we were left stranded on the side of the road until Dana got a hold of her friend to come pick us up at what was now like 4 in the morning.

The previous night had obviously been pretty eventful, but we didn't get much chance to sleep in the next morning as we were meeting up with a caving friend of mine - David at a cave called Indian Grave Point in the middle of nowhere Tennessee. The owner of the cave is extremely friendly to cavers and has some nice parking spots for us on the side of the road and has built a small fence so that you can cross over the barbed wire that surrounds him farmland to access the cave. Once crossing the fence, you hike around a cow dung infested pond and straight up the hill - avoiding more cow patties along the way. The cave entrance itself is a pretty large sinkhole that you can scramble down and then enter the chilly air of the cave - that had a smell of rot about it this particular day.

I absolutely love caving and am built small and agile which greatly helps me get around in caves and I went happily tromping ahead, leading us into the cave and doing my best to ignore the awful smell. From behind me I hear a loud, "Gross!" Jon had discovered the source of the smell - a rotting, bloated goat corpse - yuck!!!! Jon and Ben were all entertained by the dead, rotting corpse and preceded to take pictures in front of it, while the other 3 of us hiked as quickly as possible on past the goat and deeper into the cave to get away from the stench.

I had been in this cave once before and its got so big passages and chambers as well as some fun muddy crawl spaces that I of course wormed my way through whenever possible. There is a particularly "special" chamber with a particularly "welcoming" women is spraypainted on the wall. The 6 of us wandered up, down and around through the cave and eventually came upon the cave guest book which is surrounded by many interesting toys and a dorito was some funky mold on it. We signed our names and crawled up and down several more dark and muddy passages before making our way back to the entrance which was grossly apparent due to the odor of dead goat.

After a fun day and interesting weekend in whole we all headed our respective ways - Atlanta, Nashville, and West Virginia.

A Lazy Savannah Weekend

Thank goodness for long weekends! AK & I decided to spend a weekend in Savannah since we both had work off (thank you MLK) on Monday.

Early on Saturday morning we first headed down to Macon since my girls (my prep-ops that I coach) had their first gymnastics meet of the season. I was super excited because this was my first gymnastics meet as a coach rather than a gymnast! I will never know how AK survived sitting through that meet (he might have had a book to help him out a little), but my girls did well! We grabbed a bite to eat before heading down I-16 to Savannah.

Back in the day (lol, a couple of years ago) I use to co-op for Gulfstream in Savannah, so I know the city well and thankfully have a bunch of good friends in the city still. We stayed at my friend Travis' apartment downtown Savannah - such a good location since it was walking distance to everything! After a couple drinks at his house (Natty Light and plastic bottled vodka - Travis keeps it real), we walked downtown and hit up a couple of Bars - including Savannah Smiles, a dueling piano bar and one of my favorites!

The next day, AK and I visited the Bonaventure Cemetery - a truely creepy looking place with the huge oak trees covered in droopy Spanish moss and located right on the Savannah river. We got out our mountain bikes and biked up and down every dirt road in the cemetery. Thankfully we got a bit of biking in, because the rain thwarted our plans to bike out to Tybee Island. We decided to drive out to the beach anyway - and then it started to pour. We decided that it was a good day for a movie and ended up going to see Benjamin Buttons.

We drove back into downtown and ate outside under the heat lamps at Tubby's on river street. The live music went along with our delicious seafood perfectly. The rest of the night was much more low key than the first since Travis did have to work the following day.

We got to sleep in on Monday (man, I love getting paid to be lazy) and then we had plans to hit up Mrs. Wilkes' Dining room - the most amazing southern food I have ever eaten and they usually have a line that goes down the block of people waiting to get seated. Unfortunately, Mrs. Wilkes' Dining room was closed, not just for the day....but for January. But our desire for a really good lunch need not fear, because Soho South Cafe was there to save us with their amazing tomato bisque, grilled cheese sandwiches, and mediterranean wraps. mmmmm

Sadly, good & lazy weekends need to end and it was back to Atlanta we went.

My weekend in LA!

So, you would think after my exhausting week in Puerto Rico I might want to take some time to relax, sleep, and just in general not be lost in the jungle - but Adam invited me to come out to LA with him...3 days after we got back from the island. Adam works for SpaceX and they were having their Christmas party out in LA and I was lucky enough to be Adam's date!

Adam picked me up at LAX with a coffee in hand and we immediately headed down to meet up with some of his coworkers at Manhattan Beach. Drinking on a companies dime is always fun, and a big group of us hopped from bar to bar. We got pretty hungry around 2 in the morning and head to a local restaurant for some grub before crashing back at the hotel.

Early the next morning...around 6 something...after only a couple hours of sleep I got woken up by Adam. I know that I personally have a ton of energy for a person, but Adam has an infinite store of it. We grabbed some coffee and head to Griffith Park for an early morning hike. Griffith Park has plenty of dusty trails going up and down the hills and is apparently a really popular place to fitness walk - you know what I'm talking about - people in their fancy workout clothes with their arms pumping, fast walking, and essential dog. It seems that from most every hill there is another breathtaking view of the LA skyline with the ocean in the distance and you can even get relatively close to the famous Hollywood sign.

After our brisk morning stroll through the park (haha!) we drove down to Venice Beach! On my previous trip to LA, I managed to get hit by a bus on my drive down to Venice beach and as a result never made it there. I was excited to finally get to fulfill my silly dream of rollerblading along the beach - Adam, who grew up out in LA didn't share my same awesome dream and he rented a skateboard to look like less of a tool than me and we had a great time rolling down the beach. I was definitely a little shaky at first and I'm not quite sure how I didn't run into anybody on the crowded strip. We went all the way down to Santa Monica pier and I removed my blades so we could walk around for a while.

After my rollerblading fix, we met up with some of his coworkers at Club Sushi out at Hermosa Beach. We walked along the boardwalk near where Adam use to lifeguard back in High School before heading to yet another beach in Palos Verdes. The beach in PV was super rocky and apparently a popular place to go spear fishing...the water is so cold that I don't get how anybody goes in - even if they have a wetsuit on. PV is where Adam grew up and where his mom still lives so we head to his house to get ready for the work party.

The party was fun with its open bar, dinnertime comedic ballet, and the coolest photo booth ever with a treasure chest of costumes and a Mars backdrop. You can bet we took full advantage of that! After our extremely full day...we went to bed relatively early.

We woke up not too ridiculously early and went and grabbed brunch down at one of the beaches (I can't keep them straight...) before I head to catch my flight back home and back to reality. :P

Puerto Rico - Day 8 - Out of the Jungle and Stuffing our Faces

Well, I would like to say that we woke up...but to be honest we hardly slept at all - between flashing our headlamps at low flying aircraft, freaking out because yet another huge bug was crawling on us, and discussing how on earth we were going to make it out of the jungle...very little sleep was had. I do remember having a couple of dreams about rescue being just over the top of the hill though and Dana had dreams of death and skulls all night...yep, that was comforting to hear. For breakfast we pigged out by splitting the other 1/2 of our cliff bar. My left arm was starting to itch like crazy and already had a fun rash on it...not to mention the dozens of bug bites. (pretty sure the rash came from a plant called Ortiga - supposidly worse than poison oak and ivy combined)

We made a plan of attack on how to get out of the jungle and began making our way slowly through the dense jungle - heading upstream. We made sure to stay within listening distance of the river at the bottom of the canyon and we tripped our way through the jungle. We were all definitely fatigued from the little sleep and even less food so we were creeping along. We kept our eyes peeled for any sign of a path and I continually peered up through the trees to try to spot another observatory watch tower across the canyon to keep our bearings and make sure we weren't heading too far upstream and missing the cave that we had to hike over to get to the other side.

I'm pretty sure when Dana spotted the orange flagging it was one of the happiest moments of all of our lives and we made sure to thoroughly celebrate the moment by splitting our other granola bar! :) We managed to follow the very sparse orange tagging until we reached the dirt road that led to the house in the middle of nowhere (this was actually on our map!) We were a little confused where to pick up the other path that head back across the river even though we had been on it the previous day so I asked the farmer in my broken Spanish pointing at his casa on the map. He pointed us on our way and we happily followed the path across the river and after another hour or so of hiking we made it back to the Observatory. We decided that it was time for a "We found our way out of the jungle" celebration picture and we posed in front of the warning sign that we had laughed at the day before.


We continued back to the car and made sure to pick up all of the fallen grapefruit that we found on the walk back. Our car was just where we had left it - parked randomly on the side of the road. We opened it up and raided the car for all of our food supplies and promptly ate everything in site.

We got in the car and started on our way to San Juan where we would stay the night before flying out the next morning. I called my mom and asked if she would find us a cheap hotel room for the night...we had all decided that we had had enough of camping for the trip. :) When you take the northern highway, it only takes about an hour to drive across all of Puerto Rico. We arrived in San Juan and promptly looked for a place to eat because we were all still starving...I guess getting lost in the jungle takes a lot out of a person. We managed to find an all you can eat buffet and we gorged ourselves with heaping plates and flowing beers.

My mom called back and gave us directions to the double tree that she had booked us at. I think us walking into the fancy hotel, covered in mud, smelly and destroyed made most of the employees days and we were more than happpy with the complimentery cookies they handed to us. It took several trips for us to unload the car and we laid everything out to repack it for our flights home the next day. The three of us headed down the street to pick up some snacks, cerveza, and a couple handles each of Don Q to bring home with us. Dana passed out after a beer, so Adam and I headed down to the hot tub alone...and even though it wasn't working - it was the perfect end to a great vacation. :)

Puerto Rico - Day 7 - Lost in the Jungle!

We woke up early and got a move on the day because we knew that we had to make it to the river rather early in order to fit in our full day of cave tubing. Following Tom's directions, we easily found the parking lot near the Arecibo Observatory that is located on the gorge above the Rio Tanama.

Using Tom's hand drawn map we hiked along a winding jungly path for a good 30 minutes before realizing that we weren't circling around the satellite like in the picture....after back tracking we found the right path and were soon hiking along a huge fence and looking down on the satellite dish. Before continuing on the path we passed a sign that said "Warning: The Tanama River is Dangerous. Inexperienced Persons should not go Alone". We kind of laughed at the sign before heading along the path, I mean Dana & I are experienced cavers and we had Tom's great advice to help us out....everything would be fine.

The hike through the jungle took us over the top of Cave #1 without us even realizing it as the cave is pretty massive. Following the path is the only easy way to get down to the river bed as the river is at the bottom of a good 200-300 foot gorge. The trail was relatively well marked with orange flagging on trees and all in all it took about another 2 hours to make it down to the river bed.


Once down at the river, we had to forge across 3 times in order to avoid a couple of waterfalls before making it to the entrance of Cave #1, the one that we had previously hiked over the top of. Tom had advised us that we should have to walk through half of the first cave before actually sitting down in our tubes and floating down river, but the water level was so elevated that we could easily put in ahead of the cave. According to Tom, if the water level was at this height we should not attempt to go through the 3rd and final cave because the water level would be too high.


We excitedly hopped on our rafts, turned on our caving lights and headed downstream. The current was fast flowing and entering the cave; it was hard to decide whether to look up at the tall ceiling of the cave with countless bats flying and making a commotion or to fearfully face upstream as our tubes flew through the Class III-IV rapids. I have been whitewater rafting several times before and knew that the first rule of rafting is to keep your feet up and float if you fall in such that you avoid trapping a foot in between rocks. Unfortunately, in the situation of tubing through a fast flowing stream in a dark cave with only an inflatable tube...the opposite instinct took hold whenever I fell off the raft. Luckily, my feet never got caught on the rocky river bed and I was able to hop back onto my tube each time. The experience was one of the most exhilarating of my life so far and stupid in many ways, but I'm sure that was half the fun.
So, after successfully making it through cave #1, we took a few minutes to be silly and do some handstands. Cave #2 was almost right downstream of #1 and according to our "map" there was a trail going over the top of #2 that we would be using to hike back out to the cars after crossing through it. We were disappointed that we weren't going to be able to go through the 3rd cave, but since we were caving in another country we were taking all of the precautions that we could.

So, the water in between the caves had surprisingly dropped from the fast flowing currents in Cave #1 to a dead halt. Once we paddled our way over to the caves entrance we discovered why. Cave #2 was completely clogged with dead trees, debris, and what smelled like some decomposing animals...the smell was horrible! We searched the rock wall in front of the cave for a way to climb over the cave and up to the path, but there was no safe way to climb up to the top of the cave - we were going to have to go through.

We spent a good 30 minutes on top of our tubes trying to slowly break through the clogged debris, but the going was so slow that we realized that we were going to have to crawl over the top of the floating mess. Holding onto our tubes for flotation we slowly moved across the debris...I could manage to stand on top of some of the bigger trees for several seconds before they would sink too deep. Occasionally, the floating debris would break apart and I would sink through the fragments and this was more than terrifying...I did have at least one major freak out moment when I sunk through the the logs started to move back around me. After that I just crawled over the debris as fast as humanely possible and the three of us made it out ok. This was actually much, MUCH more terrifying than tubing through Cave #1 and I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I was out. Dana and I ordered Adam to turn around, and we were quick to strip off our clothes and dive back into the water to wash away all of the disgusting wood chips and whatever else had managed to stick to us and make its way into our clothing.


So, this is where things got even more interesting for us. The map that Tom drew for us showed a path that went up and over Cave #2, so we crawled up and attempted to find something that looked remotely like a path....um, if anybody thinks that the most wicked compilation of roots with giant gnarly holes that I fell into (twice) = a path...then we might have found it. The jungle was so thick on top of the cave that there was no way that we could pass through it.

We made what we thought was an educated decision and followed the river downstream until we could easily crawl up and out of the gorge. Most of it was a cliff so we walked a ways downstream before literally crawling up through the jungle on the right side of the river. Going up to the right was the opposite side from the cars, but since this was the most climbable side we decided that it was best. We made it to the top of the climb, literally crawling up the mountainside through thick jungle, and began weaving our way upstream. We always tried to remain within hearing distance of the rushing water below, but far enough away that we wouldn't have the possibility of falling down the gorge.

Well, we hiked and hiked and hiked, found an ancient wall in the middle of the thick jungle and hiked some more. We were getting incredibly thirsty and hungry, but were doing our best to save all of the water and food we had with us since this situation was beginning to look more dire by the minute. All of the earlier adventures had taken longer than expected and now with the brutal hike we were getting really worried about making it back to the car. We were moving pretty dang slowly through the jungle as every couple steps one of us would uninvitedly trip or occasionally slip and have to grab onto trees to keep from sliding down the steep slope (that was me) and we were literally crawling up and down - trying to remain far enough from the cliff, but close enough that we would notice a path. We figured that the worst thing that could possibly happen would be for one of us to get injured, so going slow was how we were going to be ok. It was taking forever to cover even a little bit of ground so we started logically making a plan for what we would do if we had to sleep there...

Well, as we continued rambling through the denseness I began picking fiddleheads (the curly cues that are ferns, before the ferns uncurl) because Bear Grillz taught me that I could eat them and we were starting to get pretty shaky from the amount of activity and little consumption of food.

Unfortunately the sun sets around 6 pm...hahaha, yeah...so, even though we had our headlamps on there was no way with how clutzy we were being in the day that we were going to do any night hiking. So, well rolling out our flat river rat tubes and laid them onto the jungle floor and Dana accidentally dropped hers and it went rolling down the hill and dropped into the river gorge below. Yeah, this little bit of flat ground was a great place to sleep...we decided to sleep with our helmets on. For dinner the 3 of us split 1/2 of a cliff bar and some of the fiddleheads - tasty! Dana was starting to shiver a ton, so without question we put her in the middle and formed a 3 person spoon...even though we were on the nice tropical island, we had not dried out from our swimming and tubing earlier in the day and when the temperature dropped to about 60 - that was definitely cold enough. Dana was actually starting to get pretty shaky so we all cuddled up tight and talked about how we would make our way our in the morning.

In the distance we could see the red flashing light of one of the three control towers surrounding the Arecibo Observatory, so using this light we gained an idea of which way we would need to hike and approximately how far. We also discussed every worst case scenario situation and I tried to impose whatever "wilderness" survival knowledge I had to make the two of them more comfortable even though I was pretty fricken scared myself. As we were talking we would occasionally hear a low flying airplane over the top of us and even though we were under the tree cover we would all turn on our headlamps to flash mode, just in case there was even a possibility of attracting them.

We all decided it would be good to attempt to get a little bit of sleep so we all tried to sleep and I maybe got an hour or two (realize there was darkness from 6 pm to 6 am) between having to rotate spoon positions every 45 minutes or so because I really only worked as the little spoon and Dana had to be in the middle to stay unhypothermic. Occasionally we would hear another airplane and turn on our lights again and we turned them on even more frequently after freaking out about another LARGE insect crawling on top of us. Needless to say, it was a very sleepless night.....

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 3 - The green road, pinas con pina colada, y the lamest New Years Eve ever!

We woke up with the sun, and admired our awesome camp spot as we packed up our stuff. We caught a muy inexpensive cab ride across the island in order to make it on the early morning ferry back to the mainland. It had been a hard debate whether to stay one more night in what was paradise if you could overlook the extreme tourism of the place.

We had made our plan the night before - we would stop at Wal-mart (yes, they are everywhere) to pick up some food & supplies before driving as far as we felt like it on the green road that runs right through the middle of PR, before heading down to Ponce - the 2nd biggest city on the island to spend our New Years Eve.

The green road turned out to be the most beautiful and dangerous road that I had ever been on. The winding roads that went up and down the mountainous land had hairpin turns where you would often be met nearly head on with somebody winding their way down or up the mountain. We slowly accustomed ourselves to the near collisions around every bend, and enjoyed the scenery.


After deciding that we had been traveling on the green road for long enough, we made our way south and came upon a lively small town that were already in full swing of their New Years Eve celebration mid-day. We joined in on the fun for a little bit, enjoying our gigantic pina coladas con pina with sprinkles, umbrellas, and a couple cherries on top!


We explored a couple of beach towns along our way to Ponce - all of which were near deserted. We arrived in Ponce around duck, and started driving around to explore the town only to discover that Ponce was very much so deserted as well! The only place we found in the city that was jumping - was the local Hilton casino that was SOLD OUT for the night. Feeling sad that our NYE plans were falling through we decided to start driving in the direction of Bosque De Guajataca where we were planning on heading the next day.

Extremely hungry, we pulled off at Guayanilla where we had dinner at the fabulous El Dragon - Chinese food complete with french fries.


We discovered a small hotel at the exit and since it was getting pretty late we decided that we might as well hole up for the night and except our defeat of our hoped for NYE extravaganza. We did our best to celebrate with some delicious Modelo, Don Q (of course), and our new set of PR playing cards.

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).