By Michael, Hunter, Christian, & Jordan E
Today was our last day in the Big Yellow House. We packed everything up and ate breakfast around 8 a.m. We left the house at around 9:00 to head to El Yunque rainforest.
On the way to the rainforest we stopped in the little town of Palmer, where we shopped at the Caribbean Trading Company. We walked on the Angelito trail, a short 15-minute walk through the rainforest to the Mameyes River. We were able to cool off in the Las Damas pool where there were many rocky pools of water that we climbed through, swam through, and even sometimes fell on. The water was so refreshing.
Afterwards, we drove back down to Los Kioskos at Luquillo Beach and had lunch at Terruño. We enjoyed a nice breeze at a restaurant that was right on the beach. The beach had clear blue water for miles out.
We then traveled to the hostels that we were staying at for the night. The girls stayed at Casa Coral, and the boys stayed right around the corner. There was a pretty beach with a river. There was plenty of music and rocking hammocks. Dinner was rice, beans, tacos, burritos, and quesadillas from a local Mexican restaurant.
After dinner, a bus tricked out with flashing lights and loud reggaeton music picked us up and took us to a park in Fajardo where we boarded kayaks for a night paddle to a bioluminescent lagoon. There are only five in the entire world and three of them in Puerto Rico. Any movement activated the plankton and made them glow. After kayaking through a channel lined on either side by hurricane-ravaged mangroves, we all regrouped in the Las Croabas Lagoon by lining up our kayaks side-by-side. The tour guide talked to us about the bioluminesce and then answered our questions. He gave us a few minutes to play with the glowing water, and then we kayaked back through the canal to board our ostentatious bus.
It was our last full day in Puerto Rico but definitely was one to remember.