Backpacking Club

Ahhh... Backpacking in the lush mountains of Puerto Rico, and the best part... no bears! Goodbye Yogi, Hello Coqui (the Puerto Rican frog who inhabits every inch of the jungle and city). We had a great time hiking and camping with the Puerto Rican Backpacking Club. We got invited to go by a teacher at Guamani who is a member. We decided to do a trial run with the group and see if we wanted to become members ourselves. The experience was great. The hike with our packs was very short.... a mile... maybe. However, that was okay with me because it was straight up and I was working quite a sweat by the time we got to our shelter. Our destination was "La Miseria Cabana".... yes, that is right, Misery Cabin. I would say it wasn't THAT bad.... but didn't quite hit home like good ol' Red Lodge cabana. Dad, you could do wonders up there! :) Anyway, we dropped our backpacks there... and started up again for a day hike. This was a little bit more extreme - thank goodness I didn't have my pack! We hiked probably 6 miles and the destination was Taino Cave Drawings. And spectacular they were. Actually... they were so spectacular that it looked like an elementary art class had just been up there the day before with their sidewalk chalk.... so, believe what you want to believe, but supposedly, the ancient Tainos of the island drew them. Cool, hu? On the trip up, we saw our first coqui, met some great Puerto Rican friends, and saw areas of Puerto Rico that we wouldn't have ever seen otherwise.

After the day hike, Jon and I... and others... went for a swim in a little waterfall nearby our camp. Again, the water was cool, but very refreshing. By the time evening roled around most of the campers (there were 25 of us) were trying thier broken English out on us and we were trying to do our best with Spanish. It was a great time. At 8:30 they had a "cholocatada" - yep, that's right, there is not a direct translation... but it could mean "a time for chocolate"!! Yeah! Hot chocolate in Puerto Rico - bring it on. Actually, it was a little cool (you'll laugh... it was maybe 70 degrees) and the hot chocolate was good. The unusual thing was that they put cheese in it!! One big clump of cheddar. Does a body good. :)

That night we slept on yoga mats and on top of our sleeping bags. It was a good thing that we were tired because the coqui's were singing up a storm.... speaking of storms... it was on its way. The next morning someone with a radio mentioned that a storm was hitting the eastern side of the island and we had probably pack up earlier than normal.... well, by 10:00 we were out of there and hiking back down.

Before we got back in our cars, we explored one more Miseria Cabin. The cabin had a beautiful view and an excelent zip line. Paul Lindly - we thought of you. Notice the construction of a "chair" to zip down with. The one big difference between the Lindly zip line and the Misery zip line.... the landing. Even though the Misery zip line was made 50 years prior.... it sure doesn't slam you into tree at the bottom like the good 'ol Lindly line! Jon and I didn't actually try it... turns out our health insurance doesn't actually kick in until the first of October.

On our way home... we hit the rain. The infamous "Kyle"... man did he like Puerto Rico. If you haven't heard... we got hammered. Saturday afternoon the rains started and didn't stop until Tuesday afternoon. The official count in Guayama was 25 inches of rain. It was incredible. Patillas, just up the road from us about 10 mintues got 31 inches. Waterfalls coming out of the mountains were there used to not be any, bridges falling in, rivers and roads overflowing, intersections with class four surfable waves and wave runners motoring down the streets... A sight to see. Lucky, our house was okay (up until today... that is another post) except for my garden (lesson learned - don't plant a garden during hurricane season). Since we live on a slight hill, the water just rushed past us. Good thing.

School was canceled on Monday and Tuesday of this week. All the classrooms, computer lab, library - they were all in pretty rough shape... at least 3 inches of standing water. Anything that was left on the floor was ruined. Jon's room was one of the worst in the school - but get a couple pumps in there and whala - school is back in session.

El Yunque Rainforest

El Yunque Rainforest. I know, I am a week late in posting our rainforest adventure... I apologize! :) Last weekend, Mendez, Andrea, Barbara, Jon and I drove up to El Yunque to tour around. Our destination was the waterfall. We stopped at a Tower on our way to the trailhead. You could climb to the top and the views from above were beautiful. You could see the entire rainforest covered in dense and deep vegetation and the cost was not far away with its long sandy beaches. After we got to the trailhead - which was loaded with cars - it was Labor Day weekend, we started our .86 mile trek to the waterfall. The trial was very nice and well maintained. The walk was all paved with steps and railings in some places. Not quite like the backpacking trips through the Montana backcountry that we were used to... but it did the trick. We arrived at a very crowded but oh so refreshing waterfall not too much later. The water was "cool" - again, nothing compared to the glacier-cold lakes of Montana. We hoped in for a dip, took our turn getting pummeled by the waterfall, got some good rays of sun and then headed back. The hike was beautiful with so many different types of trees, vines, bird's chirping and lots of fun insects and plants to admire. There are other hikes through the rainforest, one that will take you to the top of El Yunque Peek... but we saved that for next time.

After the rainforest we headed further north to a coastal town called Carolina. Hit up the beach, grabbed some bacalouitos (fried codfish) and pina coladas from a local kiosco, and searched for sea urchins and shells on the coral reefs along the coast. On our way home that evening we stopped at a local Puerto Rican diner and Jon had carne frito and mofongo again... and I just couldn't handle anything else fried so I resorted back to a plate of grilled chicken and a salad.

Again, I hope that everyone is doing great. My garden... was.... doing GREAT! It was growing like wild, the beans are up to my knees and the cucumbers were crawling onto the sidewalk... and then.... the rains came! And after a couple days of it constantly raining and the vegetables sitting in 3 inches of water.... well... they are looking a little waterlogged today. I hope that the sun comes out and dries 'em up a little and they come back... I'll keep you posted. I did talk to our landlord the other day (also the owner of our school) and told him about my garden and he said he wanted to bring me some cow poop to furtilize it for me... interesting... we'll see if that happens. I am thinking about making my garden bigger... but we'll see if it recovers.

Okay, bye for now! Happy birthday to Erin, Aunt Bev, and Danielle. Congratulations to Andy and Clem and Happy Anniversary to Matt and Lindy. Hope all is well with you all! :)

Guest Rooms

Here is another video of our home. Let us know when you are coming! So far, we have my family - parents, Troy and hopefully Paul coming on the first of January and we have Hans and Taimi coming on the 14th of March and staying for a week. Can't wait to show them around!

Front Room Tour

Sorry that we haven't posted in awhile. Our internet has been having trouble working. We have had storms off and on with the hurricanes in the area and it seems that that causes our internet to be pretty unreliable. Today, again, it is pretty cloudy, I think becuase Ike is supposed to be to the north of us today. We have been getting pretty lucky dodging the storms so far, hopefully that lasts all season. Here is a video that we took back in early August... and our internet is working fast this morning.... so I thought I would post it to give you a better look at our house.