Saturday, February 11, 2006

Caribbean National Forest

We just got home from hiking in the Caribbean National Forest, El Yunque. El Yunque is a real rainforest. It was so fun to visit and actually see all the stuff that I've heard about the rain forest. In relation to the US, it's most similar to the Smokey Mountains, in that everything is green and mossy, but the similarities end there. The vegetation is so different: palm trees, other trees that look like deciduous trees but never really shed their leaves, lots of vines and plants that grow on the trees, etc. There are four visible layers to the rainforest, which we could clearly see. We hiked two different trails, one to a waterfall (pictured in the "El Yunque" link above), and one to a lookout point (on top of a mountain) from which we could see a good portion of the eastern corner of the island. The view was great. I was surprised at how cool the wind got when we were up that high. The clouds are low here, and at the top of the mountain we were on the same level as the clouds and could see them floating by.

We put the kids in their packs and they did ok. We let Lily walk some (until she was so tired she couldn't walk anymore), and we collected some rainforest "toys" (leaves, bark, etc) for her to play with in the carrier. She never really slept until we got into the car to go home at dinner time and we have never seen her more tired than she was today! Mariah did well in her "pack" and had her own little conversation with nature complete with many hand gestures as we walked up the mountain.

Pictures to come later.

1 Comments:

At 10:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The rainforest link is great (especially for an old home school mom like me--visuals always help!)The descriptions remind me of long walks between villages in Indonesia. Glad you could experience that. About the "forest toys", Elizabeth has a variety from sequoia forest, Senegal trees, etc. Interesting. Some might be keepers! Love, Oma

 

Post a Comment

<< Home