Puerto Rico part II

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Salto La Coca, El Yunque

For Bromeliad lovers

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Prestoea montana in the mist

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Hillside covered with tree ferns!

Prestoeas happy to call this place home.

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Baby Prestoeas everywhere!

[Jeff Searle]

Frank,

   Thanks for sharing all your pictures! I have been asked by many people to come visit here over the years, and now I can see why. This has to be a garden and country to visit soon. Keep the pics. coming.

Jeff

[redant]

PR was never on my scope of places to vist. Looks like it should be! Thanks for the great pic's.

[Kris]

Dear Frank  

Hey the new additions are fentastic & what impressed

me the most is the post.no_38(Austrilian fern tree still).

this plant also happens to be my favouriate,and iam searching

for a medium sized fern tree in india.i hope to add this variety

to my collection of exoctic plants.

thanks man for sharing those lovely moments of that

"GREEN HEAVEN".

love,

Kris.

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Thanks for all the comments! I regret not having the time and opportunity to post pictures as often as most of you. Here's MORE!!!

This was taken at the base of a huge Yagrumo tree (Cecropia peltata) at the El Yunque portal.

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Continuing up the mountain we found this place (a house?) which looks like the rainforest conditions turned it into what you see. Look at the Prestoeas about to swallow the poor little house.

Pure rain water gives origin to the arroyos:

Water is about 72ºF and pure for drinking.

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After this picture I spent a good half an hour trying to dry my socks:

The Lady posing next to the Prestoeas:

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We found some nice heliconias growing:

Watch out for spider webs!

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A partial view of the forest at about 500m asl

We saw this superb species which had some nice white flowers on top of super brilliant red stems. Sorry it turned out blurry. ID anyone????

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After close to 800 m asl the canopy is almost exclusively Prestoea acuminata var. montana. Is an incredible place to be!

And foggy as well:

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We saw this snail with brilliant fluorescent green color:

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And finally we reached the top of El Yunque, 1080 mts asl. The stunted "cloud" forest is intermixed with some "Palma de Sierra" (Prestoea):

[Alicehunter2000]

Wow! and to think I lived there for two years! too bad I wasn't a palm nut back then........too much thinking about women and surf to pay attention to all that "other" beauty.

[amazondk]

Nice pictures Frank.  Cloud forests are fascinating places.

dk

[paulgila]

the photos are all amazing!i really enjoyed them!

[Scott]

Very impressive photos - and very educational as well. Thanks for sharing!

[Walter John]

Great stuff. Encourages me to go out and photo Mount Tamborine with it's Archo cunninghamianas in the wild. Perhaps this easter.

[FRITO]

I enjoyed looking through your photos, very nice! thanks again!

[Dave-Vero]

I haven't seen the Tunel Guajataca since I was about 13.  I figured by now it would have been blown up to make room for an expressway.

[NCpalmqueen]

Breathtaking photos!  I am drooling.   Thank you for posting these...I'm a little late in viewing, but better late than never.

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Thanks again everyone for your comments!

David - Ditto here.

Don - Yes I agree one of my favorite places at El Yunque is the cloud forest. Very cool place with lots of humidity, the trees grow in akward shapes with moss all over them.

Wal - Easter is over, I am waiting for your pics!

Dave - The Tunel Guajataca is still intact and is a very touristic attraction.  

Seguimos? Siii!!!

Roots of Prestoea montana are a nice red!

And the crownshafts, well a nice green!

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And the canopy above

The sparse section of the cloud forest. The Prestoeas are more compact

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More views from up high

Note the beautiful red petioles of the Sierra palm grown with no canopy

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Well, it's all downhills from here on

But the most impressive part is here. For Prestoea lovers (like me   )

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Finally, after a few months of el Yunque (for you) and a few hours (for us), we headed to Ponce. On the way we saw the cerro "Las tetas de Cayey". Appropriately named.

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The next day we went to a very special place. Came down from 1080 mts above sea level and kept going down ... and down ... and down...

... and down.

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Parque de las Cavernas del Rio Camuy. With its 268 acres of underground caves formed by the Camuy river upon the limestone rock, is the third largest in the world. This is the entrance to "Cueva Clara" (same as above post).

Inside that limestone cave, there are many earthly formations, deep within the earth. This is one, if not the most massive stalagmite in the world.

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After going across the cave, the opposite entrance, which leads to the bottom of a sinkhole. To the bottom the Camuy river can be seen emerging and disappearing within the earth.

Looking straight up from the sinkhole

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Me and my wife, no we're not sweating. The place was at a constant 70ºF temperature with very high humidity. I just learned there are very rare species of ferns growing a little above the "sunlight line" that are being studied. There is also a microscopic crustacean species in small ponds inside the cave that are unique in the world. During hurricane Georges I was told the water level reached those rails. Even a section of the path was closed due to reparations.

Another view of the interior of the cave. There is enough space, I estimate, for a baseball stadium inside.

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This is "Sumidero Tres Pueblos" or Three towns sinkhole, named as such because the borderlines of the municipalities of Hatillo, Camuy, and Lares coincide with the sinkhole. To the bottom is the Camuy river, which disappears within the earth and reemerges inside the cave we just visited.

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Back to the surface, back to palms. Time to practice our palm poses: My wife with the Dypsis (can you see the Hyophorbes in the back?)

Me with the Ptychospermas

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My wife's favorite: Ravenala madagascariensis

You may recognize the Arecibo Observatory, where ionospheric and deep space radar based studies are being conducted, including SETI. The rain did not let us see the dish at the bottom, but only the feeds. That triangular shaped structure holds the narrow-banded line feed (the pointy one on the left) as well as the newer Gregorian feed (the spherical one to the right) which allows coverage of the entire 1 to 10 GHz range.

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Back on the road to San Juan, we saw our other in-habitat palm, Gaussia attenuata. They can be seen popping out of the small 'mogotes' or limestone hills that line highway PR-22.

The hotel we stayed at, highly recommended for quick stays if you don't want to pay for a full fledged hotel but want a central location, close to the airport and the beaches. Nice atmosphere. Special thanks to The Water Club in El Condado (Isla Verde/San Juan).

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Back to Florida.

The seeds, cleaned, and safely made it past USDA. New palms for a new home and many fond memories encapsulated on my dining table, ready to be planted  

That's all folks. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did sharing with you!  

[JeffreyApolloBeach]

Thanks for the trip...  always nice to see pictures from back home!  El Yunque and the Cavernas de Camuy are always on the top of the list to visit when I go back to visit my parents... the other places are the beaches along Aguadilla and Isabela,  great snorkling and scuba diving without the crowd.

Jeffrey

Apollo Beach, FL

zone 9b/10a

[Zac in NC]

Wow, Frank. thats awesome. I think PR is on my list now of places to go and see palms. Great pics.

Zac