It rains less in the rainforest ???

  El Yunque, Puerto Rico
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I woke up about 7am to get an early start for the drive back to San Juan. I wanted to try and make it to the El Yunque Rainforest for a visit before my flight. At first the drive was fine, but it started to rain after about an hour. Traffic was at least moving better than on the drive to Rincon. I made it to San Juan in 2 hours then headed east towards El Yunque. My map showed the road as a freeway, but it was actually a highway with LOTS of stoplights. The heavy rains were causing standing water in the roadway as well. I made it to El Yunque about 11:15am and checked out the info center. Drove through the park stopping at some of the sights.

Saw some waterfalls and went for a brief hike through the rainforest. It was actually raining less here than along the highway. ??? I couldn't stay long though and had to be on my way by 12:30pm. Drove back to the airport and dropped the car off with Enterprise.

I had lunch at the airport then went in to wait for my flight. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. I only had a 1 hour layover there so grabbed a to go sandwich and found my flight. The flight to Portland was long but we made it on time.

The brief getaway to Puerto Rico was alright. It felt very much like being in an Americanized Mexico rather than the Caribbean. Old San Juan was cool and the street party was fun. Rincon would have been better with more sunshine. If I had to do it over, I think I would've either just gone to Mexico or picked an island with a more Caribbean vibe.