During our family vacation to Puerto Rico this Spring I was inspired by viral videos I saw online showing the famous rock water slide at the top of the El Yunque waterfall. I though it would be fun to hike the small mountain trail and then go swimming afterwards. My family decided to do this tour on Easter Sunday, April 5th. Another thing about El Yunque is that it’s very internet famous. So, a lot of people discover it the same way I did, leading to huge crowds during the busiest season. To avoid this, our tour guide requested us to meet him very early, 6:00 am, to be the first ones there and have the mountain all to ourselves. So, me and my family woke up at 5:30 and got into a van with our guide and another family from Cleveland, Ohio. It was a bumpy ride and me and my sister definitely hit our heads a couple times but the view from the windows was very nice. Finally, after an hour long drive our group reached the bottom of the mountain and were greeted by a tiny dog named boss who guided us up the trail for a couple minutes before giving up to go take a nap.
El Yunque is located in the northeast of Puerto Rico and is actually the only tropical rainforest in the U.S national forest system. Despite its small size compared to many of the other forests within the system it has more biodiversity than any of them. As we walked the trail our guide, Paul, pointed out to us the many species of plants. Mimosa pudica is a plant that the locals know as moriviví. These plants are really interesting as they have evolved to fold into themselves at the slightest touch as a form of protection. Additionally, as we continued to walk Paul pointed out mimics, plants that looked very similar to moriviví but couldn’t actually close up the same way.
El Yunque National Forest
isolde knowles 
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