Our driver Jose.
The famous waterfalls in El Yunque
Thousands of different plants thrive in this rain forest.
A rest stop featured local food but we only had the beer. Is that a dog on the roof?
Don't look up!
My camera fogged up with the humidity.
View from the top
Old San Juan is rich in Spanish tradition, with cobblestone streets and colonial architecture, but since we’ve been here twice before, we decided that it might be nice this time to take a ride up to the El Yunque Rain Forest. We will still have time to wander through Old San Juan on or way back to the ship.
El Yunque’s biodiversity makes it unique among other forests in the United States National Forest System. Frequent rain showers generate close to 100 billion gallons of rainwater a year and conspire with Puerto Rico’s warm tropical climate to accommodate over 240 species of native trees, 50 species of orchids, and 150 species of ferns. Almost a third of the tree species are native to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and 10 percent of them are endemic to El Yunque and cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
It was overcast with showers when we arrived at 10 am.We couldn’t gt a concensus on what to do here, since this will be at least the third time any of us have been here and the options for seeing new things are running out..The El Yunque rainforest is a twenty-five mile drive each way so Pete and Donna and Wendy and I decided to rent a car. I figured if the drive there and back is that long, we may as well have our own car to take advantage of the ride. I always see something I wish I’d stopped to explore and when you have a cabbie with the meter running, well…
It was overcast with showers when we arrived at 10 am.We couldn’t gt a concensus on what to do here, since this will be at least the third time any of us have been here and the options for seeing new things are running out..The El Yunque rainforest is a twenty-five mile drive each way so Pete and Donna and Wendy and I decided to rent a car. I figured if the drive there and back is that long, we may as well have our own car to take advantage of the ride. I always see something I wish I’d stopped to explore and when you have a cabbie with the meter running, well…
The only car rental within Old San Juan near the ship terminal is a Hertz. All the rest are at the airport, a twenty dollar cab ride away. Walking back to the cruise terminal, we found a diminishing line of 22-passenger tour buses. Our driver from a year ago, Hector (Kunta Kinte) was there. We exchanged pleasantries but were unable to move anybody off the $40 ea. price to the El Yunque rain forest. Probably because there was only 4 of us, our bargaining power was minimal. Fortunately a younger man named Jose, another driver, was able to find two other couples who had been waiting over an hour to team up with enough people to even fill out the load enough to go. Apparently 8 did the trick.
Looking back on the day, I think we made the best decision. The rain was persistent all day in old San Juan, but the brief downpours we had at the rainforest were exactly what you would expect there, and although sometimes somewhat torrential, none lasted long enough to get any of us wet since we were either on the bus or inside a building when it rained. Leaving to return to the ship, we hoped we had tipped enough. ($5 ea on $40). I don’t think we did, but I guess some tip more and some tip less, and I’m sure some don’t tip at all. On average I’d say we tip,as a group, tip average at 15 to 20%. He should have given us a break on the price, because I’m sure he’d get it all back in tips. Today the tipping god didn’t smile on Jose but that’s how it goes. Older drivers seem to know more about playing the “dicker” game.
Back to the cruise ship at around 5 pm we still had more than 3 hours since “all aboard” isn’t until 8:30 tonight. More Sfukkle I guess.