In tune with nature...

Today's adventure boys and girls consisted of Dave and I hiking through the El Yunque National Forest. The El Yunque Rain Forest is a cool, mountainous, sub tropical rainforest. The Eastern side of the Luquillo Mountains, which has the El Yunque rainforest at the top elevations, gets most of the rain. The forest hosts a number of unique plant and animal species such as the endangered Puerto Rican Parrot(very rarely seen) and the tiny coquis (indigenous tree frogs) that serenade the evening hours. Needless to say we saw neither and we think the only animal form of life we might have seen may have been a mongoose! No birds at all but Dave said he saw a butterfly. The temps up above were much cooler than down below! We hiked up through to the Mt. Britton Tower which is approximately 3,088 feet. The tower is a lookout tower and normally on a clear day you can see for miles. Today was rather cloudy and overcast and while the clouds swirled around us; we did have a spectacular view. We took some great shots of the park and water falls.

The drive today was much better than before; this time we stuck to the major highways. After the hike we made our way over to Luquillo Beach. We snacked on some tasty empanadillos (pollo & carne) then found a nice spot on the beach for a little sun. Our intent was to snorkel but we found out that this was not the best place to do so.

After about an hour or so relaxing; the storm clouds moved in and we managed to get to the car and start the drive back to Isla Verde (the area of San Juan where we are staying). It was the most rain we have seen since being here!

Tonight we had a phenomenal dinner at Lemon Grass. It's a restaurant at the Hilton Caribe Hotel. The server brought us the best tasting amuse buche ever; it was a lemongrass ginger chicken miso soup. It was incredible! We each had aps. Dave had the lamb confit & goat cheese spring rolls with tamarind sauce and I had the Maduro chorizo & goat cheese wontons. Hands down Dave's was the best. The sauce was so tasty. Our entrees consisted of a Shrimp Lo Mein and a Churrasco (skirt steak) plate with green onion Parmesan mashed potato. Dave ordered the pancetta & plantain fried rice as well. Our dessert was an orange-ginger cardamon ice cream!

Tomorrow we are off to tour the El Conquistador Hotel & Resort and enjoy some time on Palomino Island. Tomorrow evening at 6:30 pm we have a glass-bottomed kayak tour of the Bio luminescent Bay! Check back for details! Pin It Now!