SO GOOD but you need the right shoes (read on)!
Ansley_F, Apr 2022
El Yunque Rainforest Guided Hiking with Waterfall Tour
There were other groups we passed doing the same activities without a helmet (and one group was literally JUST in bathing suits) but these activities are *definitely* potentially dangerous.
This was an amazing experience, but if you, like me, are nervous regarding the somewhat vague description of what you'll be doing and what you need to bring/wear, this is the review for you.
Our original plan to see El Yunque was to drive in and do some hiking on our own but we could not get a reservation (since COVID the main highway into El Yunque requires reservations which you can either buy 30 days out or, theoretically, the day before but the reservations are all sold out in seconds - something corrupt happening here), so we booked this tour instead.
We were not sorry.
I will say right off the bat this was a *much* more difficult hike than we would have guessed, and certainly more difficult than we ever would have attempted on our own. Be ready to sweat and climb and be wet for pretty much all of it. You will be glad it starts so early so you're not exerting yourself in the high heat of the afternoon.
WHAT TO WEAR: First off you'll want the right footwear. They insist on closed toed shoes, which can be hard to reconcile with the fact that you will be doing a LOT of swimming and being wet. My partner wore Keens (closed toed sandals) and that was perfect. I wore lightweight hiking shoes with no socks and that was good too. You need something with a GOOD SOLE tho as you will be doing a lot of climbing up slippery rocks. The tour says watershoes would be good but again, if they don't have a good sole, you will be sorry. Our two friends were wearing regular sneakers which was fine from a climbing and swimming perspective, but the third element you will be encountering is MUD and lots of it. The Keens sandals and hiking shoes cleaned up fine in the water but my friend's previously light grey sneakers are probably permanently brown now ("Armani baby brown" as one of the guides kept saying). Their sneakers were also more prone to getting stuck in the mud and coming off their feet.
Other than that, wear a bathing suit you'll be comfortable hiking in. I wore lightweight denim shorts (this was fine but quick-dry shorts would have been a little better) and a long-sleeve rash guard as well.
On this particular tour (Bespoke), you will be required to wear a life-jacket and a helmet, and everybody in my party was glad for the extra safety. There were other groups we passed doing the same activities without a helmet (and one group was literally JUST in bathing suits) but these activities are *definitely* potentially dangerous. I bonked my head on low rocks and tree branches a couple times, and swimming in shoes is hard. It was nice to be buoyed back to the surface without much effort after jumping into the water.
WHAT TO BRING: as little as possible. I'd wanted to bring my nice camera (I'd even packed it in a dry bag) but was advised not to and *thank god* I didn't because even if it didn't get soaked through the dry bag, it would have been knocked around and surely broken. I did end up bringing my phone in a waterproof phone case (which I fastened to myself with a carabiner; a pocket or just holding it is not a great idea - you could lose it when you jump into water) and because I have bad knees, I brought one collapsible walking stick. It's fairly shady so you don't need sunglasses, but if you do need glasses to see, there are just a few places you'll want to take them off and hold them (tightly) in your hand.
WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING: Getting wet and muddy - but in a good way! From where the bus parks, you'll start hiking through some forest, then cross a river (this is the first time you'll get wet), and that's where things get serious. You'll scramble up a VERY steep hill and then there's a LOT of mud. After a while you'll get to a swimming hole and you'll be like "well that was some difficult hiking, I guess we're stopping here" and you'll be right for about 5-10 minutes. You DO have the option of hanging out there for a while and skipping the second half but DON'T if you can keep going. This is where the real rock-scrambling comes in but just when you feel like you can't go anymore, you'll start heading back downhill on the waterslides. Much of the next part is in the water. You'll go down two natural waterslides and swim downriver a while until you get back to that first swimming hole.
Here everyone takes a big break to do some rock jumping (the guides show off but jumping from the highest spots but there are some lower-but-still-quite-high places for the participants to jump from) and rope-swinging. Then it's back the way you came for the most-part except that super steep hill you climbed near the beginning - they have a different way down, thank god.
The guides were fine. The life jacket and the helmet were really doing the heavy lifting in terms of making us feel safe but everyone lived and no one got lost so they did their jobs.
ONE OTHER THING: If you have a rental car, ask to meet the tour bus in Fajardo. My party was staying in Luquillo which is past the rainforest if you're coming from San Juan and only 10 minutes from Fajardo, so we asked the tour company if we could meet them in our rental car, which they were happy to oblige. I really think this enhanced our enjoyment of the day a LOT. We still had to meet them at 7:45 in Fajardo, then follow the bus on 30-40 minute winding drive up to where the hike starts. The bus had picked up the other 25-30 participants at locations around San Juan so I'm guessing some of them had been on that bus since 6:30 am at least. THEN when we finished the hike around 1:30/2, we just hopping in our car and went on about our day, whereas everyone else was back on the bus to go to the Food Truck Park and then get dropped back off at various locations around San Juan. I'm sure that's why they say this is 8 hours, because the picking up and dropping off probably takes a while. The actual hike/activity is about 5 hours (don't worry - you will NOT feel cheated for the time).
Anyway, we had a great time and I hope this helps you feel more confident than we did going in!
