June 13th -- San Juan & Utuado, Puerto Rico

We woke up bright and early to get to Utuado by 8:30am. Utuado is about 90 minutes away from San Juan by car. But driving on the early morning highway and encouraged by other speeding drivers, I maintained a speed at about 75mph in a 65mph zone. And, yep, I got pulled over and got a speeding ticket. All in all, it was quick and we were soon on our way again, but I was very unhappy to have gotten a speeding ticket. I was definitely hyper-aware of cops after that, who turned out to be pretty ubiquitous all over the PR.

But on to happier topics.

Like the reason we were going to Utuado: the Rio Camuy Caves, the third-largest cave system in the world!

And cats! There were wild that wandered around the waiting area for the caves and while small, they were very friendly. They didn't look diseased, either. 

This one was a sweetie (well, the kid too). By the way, Ayaka had learned that her English teacher was going to be in Puerto Rico with his family at the same time as us, so we met them there. The girl above is their daughter.

And here's their son on the left in the hardhats we were all required to wear.

We rode a diesel-burning trolley down the forest to the mouth of the cave. The cave has at least 16 entrances (read: areas where the ground collapsed into the cave, opening a hole ), and we entered the caves by winding down the side of one large, forested opening. On the right is a picture looking up from the trolley route.

The mouth of the cave -- it has teeth (stalactites)!

Here's a large haystack formation; it was at least 15 feet tall. The guide told us that stalagmites and stalactites form from the deposition of minerals by water over hundreds of years. As you can see, this cave has a lot of deposition and is considered to be very active. It even has a river flowing through it, though I wasn't sure where it was...

A view from the inside of the cave.

Left, the guide just stepped out of the cave into one of the openings. It's not raining, that's just water dripping down from the surface. He's standing right in front of a recent mudslide area, and looks a little bit like God. 

Here's an other-wordly cave spider called a guabá. Not a guava (guayaba in Spanish), not a guayabera. 

At the bottom of the cave food chain? Crickets. We also saw bats, but I wasn't able to take any pictures of them.

We actually waited quite a while to get in the caves. The electricity went out to some of the lights in the cave so they halted tours for about an hour. We were pooped, so we headed to our hotel: the Casa Grande Mountain Retreat.

 

It also had friendly wild cats.

It was the most expensive hotel we stayed in the whole trip, but also it was the nicest. We had two twin beds, beautiful lush surroundings, a hammock, and a pool!

It was lovely to swim in the pool after so many hot days walking around. The deck of the hotel restaurant overlooks the pool, and a elegant-looking older couple were there drinking wine. Needless to say, the children screaming and splashing around in the pool probably did not add to the atmosphere.

The fauna around the hotel was very healthy-looking and diverse. This plant had such huge leaves I felt like I could use them for umbrellas.

Here's a plant called "Lobster Claw." Fitting, and beautiful!

After washing up after the pool we drove to a local restaurant. There was only one family eating there at the time, and they were blasting Mexican music from the jukebox and playing pool. We had Medallas and ordered a chicken dish, a dish with fish caught in the local lake (delish!), and churrasco with chimichurri sauce. Each came with tostones. The fish was my favorite, and that cemented my resolve that eating local is the best!

There was a cat waiting at our door when we returned to our room. He tried to get inside but we cruelly rejected him, though I petted him for a while to appease him. Five minutes later, we hear a HYRAK HYRAK sound coming from right outside out door and we freeze. We thought for a second that it was some jungle beast come to get us. Ayaka got scared, and I was for a second until I realized what it sounded like: a cat coughing up a hairball. I think he was trying to scare his way into our room. It didn't work.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mnmn3diyg3o

The jungle was so alive with noise at night that I recorded it so I wouldn't forget. You can really imagine the jungle well if you listen. At about 00:10 I start talking to the cat (that tried to scare us) and you can hear it purring very loudly. It was very appreciative.Then we talk about how he wants to come in but we tell him dame (no! in Japanese). Towards the end I start to meow at him. I have never heard my own meow recorded before this, and now I feel sorry for anyone who had to hear that (cats included).


Sorry for linking the file, not embedding it, but I have no idea how to host and embed a .WAV file (for free). If anyone knows, please tell me how!

The next day: June 14th, 2010. Jajuya and Ponce!