January 30, 2015
I recently took a week long "sister's trip" to San Juan, Puerto Rico for all three of our January birthdays. We left the SO's at home, but we all agreed next vacation we'd bring 'em.
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| Laus on the loose |
Of course one of my must-do items included visiting El Yunque Rainforest. We hit it up tourist-style first by stopping by the visitor's center. From there we decided to do the easy in and out La Mina Falls Trail.
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| Hello! |
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| Heading into the Visitor Center |
On the drive to the trailhead we made a quick stop to check out Yokahu Tower. At this point it was pouring rain. No matter - we were in shorts and tanks with swim suits underneath.
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| Yokahu Tower |
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| Raining in the rainforest |
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| View from the top. We got a peek of the city through the clouds. |
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| Lush |
Thoroughly soggy we hopped back into the rental car and drove up to La Mina trailhead. Restrooms are available here and the entrance to the trail is just a little farther down. The entire trail to the falls is essentially all paved/rocked with some concrete stairs so we just hiked in flip flops. Surprisingly it wasn't very slippery. There were several covered picnic shelters for the first part of the hike but none were being used at the time.
La Mina River was on our left side the whole time. It was a lovely hike at just 0.7 miles long descending the whole way. Once we arrived at the waterfall, there were about a dozen people in the water. There's a second pool towards the right. That's were my sisters and I decided to dip our feet in. After taking pictures and watching the kids jump and climb the rocks, we headed back across the bridge.
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| Looking up |
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| Neat rocks |
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| Final set of stairs down to the waterfall |
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| La Mina Falls |
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| My sister, Diana |
To our surprise there were at least 30 teenage kids waiting at the bottom of the stairs to get into the water. So glad we started the hike early. We left just in time.
We had such a nice vacation. Loved it here.
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| Castillo de San Cristobal in Old San Juan |
