El Yunque National Rainforest

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If there’s one place in Puer­to Rico that’s tru­ly a nat­ur­al par­adise El Yunque is it!  Just 20 miles to the east of the San Juan Metro­plex, this is the only sub­trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S. Park Sys­tem.  Here you will find endan­gered bird species, beau­ti­ful water­falls, a vari­ety of flow­ers, lush veg­e­ta­tion, stun­ning vis­tas and wind­ing hik­ing trails; all in a cool, moun­tain­ous set­ting that’s sim­ply breath­tak­ing by any standard.

El Yunque is locat­ed in the Sier­ra de Luquil­lo on the north­east­ern quad­rant of Puer­to Rico.  El Yunque has been a pro­tect­ed for­est since the 19th cen­tu­ry when King Alfon­so 12th of Spain declared it “reser­va de la coro­na”, an area reserved for the Span­ish Crown. Today it is the only for­est in Puer­to Rico man­aged by the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture For­est Service.

The for­est cov­ers an area of approx­i­mate­ly 114 square kilo­me­ters, which makes it the per­fect place to get lost.  So it’s in your best inter­est not to stray away from the des­ig­nat­ed hik­ing paths.

Make your first stop at El Por­tal Tourist Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter.  The map below will take you straight to the main entrance.  There you will find exhibits, infor­ma­tion and friend­ly US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture per­son­nel that will tell you all about the for­est and point you in the right direction.

From there it’s off to the for­est. Remem­ber, you’ll need a good pair of hik­ing shoes, ade­quate cloth­ing and lots of water. Even though the aver­age tem­per­a­ture in the for­est is sev­er­al degrees low­er than at sea lev­el you will soon dis­cov­er that humid­i­ty lev­els are a lot high­er.  This will make most peo­ple sweat pro­fuse­ly.  So once again, don’t for­get the water!

Rather than recre­at­ing the excel­lent infor­ma­tion that’s already avail­able on the US Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture’s web­site I fig­ured that it would be bet­ter to sim­ply sup­ply you with a direct link to their excel­lent hik­ing map.

As you will see, El Yunque is a place where you can spend an entire day and just scratch the sur­face.  How­ev­er, there are cer­tain must-see places that you should make sure to vis­it.  The­ses are: La Coca Falls, the Yokahu Obser­va­tion Tow­er, Juan Diego Falls and La Mina Falls.

La Coca Falls is right on the edge of the road; so you can’t miss it.  This mar­vel of nature is made of sol­id black rock, 85 feet high and sur­round­ed by lush veg­e­ta­tion. You will find it on road 191, km. 8.1.  Next you will find the Yokahu Obser­va­tion Tow­er, a red con­crete struc­ture that over­looks the north­east­ern coast of Puer­to Rico on its north side and sits right below El Yunque peak on the south. You will find it on road 191, km. 8.9.

Juan Diego Falls is next on our list. How­ev­er, you will nev­er find it if you don’t know where to look. That’s because the fall isn’t next to the road. In fact it’s com­plete­ly hid­den. When you get to road 191, km. 9.8 look on your right and you will find two con­sec­u­tive bridges with small falls of run­ning water. The sec­ond one has a small trail on the right side of the riverbed that leads up to Juan Diego Falls. It’s about a five-minute hike.

That leaves us with La Mina Water­fall. To get there you will hike down­hill through a trail that fol­lows the “La Mina Riv­er”. It’s about a half-hour walk down and anoth­er half-hour walk up. But it’s worth every step. The scenery is absolute­ly stunning.

Final­ly, there’s a trek that most locals know about, but most tourists nev­er ven­ture to walk. And that is the trek to the top of El Yunque, where all the anten­nas are.  You have to be healthy and strong to try this one.  It’s a five-mile hike straight up the moun­tain with sev­er­al rest­ing spots along the way.

When I was a uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent I must have walked this trail 15 or 20 times.  But now, at 59 years of age, I prob­a­bly would­n’t even try.

How­ev­er, if you are the adven­tur­ous type, you are young and healthy, and you want to see a breath­tak­ing vista of the north­east­ern coast of Puer­to Rico, this is the hike for you!

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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