Puerto Rico will take quite a few blogs to cover, so bear with me as I reminisce the next several days. Since we had an extra 4 hours to spend in New York – believe me, you’ll hear that story soon – we scrambled to book as many tours as possible in Puerto Rico to maximize our time. I had been trying to convince Cindy to try canyoning, a hybrid sport of rockclimbing, cliff jumping, river hiking, rock scrambling, waterfall scaling, ziplining, and whatever else it takes to get from point A to point B as you follow a swollen, rushing river. Since she’s afraid of heights, she suggested the closer to terra firma (apparently dark, claustrophobic spaces aren’t a problem for her) tour of caving. So after multiple phone calls, we had the first 3 days of our trip booked with different tour companies. The caving trip was to begin our first full day in Puerto Rico. So we’re up at 4:30 a.m., which is really 1:30 Cali time. We’re on the bus taking us into the El Yunque rain forest, and we reach our first rest stop about 20 minutes down the road. Cindy has gone inside to pick up snacks and I ask our tour guide – the best guide EVER – how cold the cave waters will be (I’m ever the wimp when it comes to cold. Did I mention Nome is cold?). He gives me a strange look, and says, “Well, this is the canyoning trip. The caving trip is tomorrow.” Naturally, I’m excited that I get to go canyoning. 40 foot free-jumps into a river? No problem. Stopping midway on a zipline, swinging my heels up to hook onto the line, disconnect my carabiner, then drop the 30 feet into the river below? Piece of cake. Swim against stream into the pounding force of a maddeningly thrashing waterfall? Like walking. Face the wrath of Cindy when she finds out she’s on a canyoning trip? I’m cowering like a kitten. Did I survive? Of course. Did she have fun? Well, after our introductory stretch of rapelling 150 feet to a miniscule lip of granite, where we have to clip our carabiners into a horizontal steel rope and inch our way over to round two of ziplining into the river, she hoists herself out of the river she has had to swim her way out of with eyes adrenalized. Her grin is wider than the Amazon. (wrong continent, I know.) You'll get more details and vids tomorrow.