Canyoning

If Puerto Rico is ever on your vacation calendar, give Rossano a call and book a tour with Aventuras. True, 5:45 is terribly early to start the day. But the parvocellular ganglion-exciting (I just love that word)van and the boom-box blaring the theme song to Indiana Jones will set the appropriate adrenaline-pumping mood for the day. Although they run a comedy routine almost non-stop, these guys take safety very seriously and you will feel well equipped to begin whichever adventure - canyoning, caving, ziplining - you choose with Aventuras. Just a sample of our day: rappelling 150 feet to a cliff ledge, hooking into cables to crab-walk from rebar to rebar to another ledge where we're hooked into our first zipline which drops us into the river; swimming against currents to the base of a thunderous waterfall; hanging from a zipline, swinging feet up to hook heels on the overhead cable so we can disconnect the carabiner then hanging for an instant before dropping 20 feet into the river below; running jumps off 30-foot cliffs to swim behind another thundering waterfall for a group picture; rockclimbing to get back to the trailhead for a 30-minute hike out of El Yunque. Throw in some hot chocolate served along the river's edge, and I've currently got a favorite canyoning spot.