Because my Harry Potter beach towel has officially gone lost/apparated elsewhere, I picked up a new one at the local drugstore. It looks like a giant Puerto Rican flag. In retrospect, I'm not sure if it's very respectful to wipe yourself down with something that looks like the flag. But they sold it, so whatever. I went down near the pier to wait for my ride to the rainforest. While waiting, I received about three phone calls from the tour guide company (see, I knew I needed to get another phone) making sure I knew about the pick-up time and location. At approximately 12:00pm, a black van rolled up and an older, stout man appeared, shouting, "Hey, Good Looking!"
Mike, also known as "Good Looking," spent the next 45 minutes picking up the remainder of the tour group at various local hotels, all the while telling me about how he is the driver/bodyguard for Mariah Carey, the former Mrs. Michael Jordan, and Donald Trump when they are on the island. All the way to the rainforest, he talked about various local issues (public/private education, shopping, government, etc.) and pointed out the different types of trees and bushes. Sometimes he stayed in his lane on the highway while he spoke and pointed everywhere.
At El Yunque, the island's rainforest, we watched a short film in the visitor's center (boring, but now I know what happened to Jimmy Smits) and went on a one-hour hike through the forest, culminating in a cool dip at La Mina Falls. Yes, I went in. Yes, all the way in. It was freaking awesome.
We lunched at a roadside café, where I had a couple of surullitos (fried cheese and cornmeal sticks), a shrimp taco (which is different from what you're thinking...tacos are different here), and arroz y habichuelas. Because we had some extra time, Good Looking drove us to El Conquistador, a luxury resort in Fajardo where, you guessed it, he sometimes works as a driver and bodyguard for the rich and famous. His story apparently holds up, as everyone started shouting, "Hey, Good Looking!" when we arrived. As we were walking through the resort I kept thinking, "I will never be able to afford a place like this." I mean, they have their own private island, for goodness sake. Still, it was interesting to see how the other half lives, and now I realize that I need to do some serious background work for that series of young adult fiction novels I'm writing, as the central family is quite wealthy.
As dusk approached, we met up with the 500+ other people who planned to kayak tonight and received a brief lesson on kayaking basics. Everyone else had a partner but me...how telling. After everyone else boarded their kayaks, the staff placed me in a single and I paddled after the group. Unfortunately, there was a father behind, then in front, then behind and so on, of me who had to paddle around himself and his daughter. I say unfortunately because the task seemed very difficult, as evidenced by his repeated crashing into me and into the mangroves lining the canal into the bay.
Now, I must say that I was skeptical about this whole biolumenscence business, but it was totally for real and totally awesome. As we approached the enclosed lagoon, every stroke of the kayak paddle glowed blue as the water moved beneath me. I stuck my hand in, lifted up my arm, and little flashes of light trickled down to my elbow. It was truly, truly magical. It's like billions of microscopic fireflies in the water. Once we'd all arrived, the tour guide asked us to come together for a brief but interesting ecological lesson before we were released to explore on our own. Due to the fragile ecosystem of the area, we weren't allowed to leave our kayaks and go for a swim. Also due to the fragile ecosystem of the area, we were only allowed to stay in the lagoon for about 5 minutes. That was super lame. Fortunately, my kayaking skills are somewhat lacking, so I had about four inches of water in the bottom of my kayak, allowing me to glow, glow, glow all the way back to the shore.
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