Hiking in the Rainforest - our choices for the best hiking shoes and clothes

Hiking in the El Yunque Rainforest can be a muddy experience. It rains a lot here and our Lost Machete trail is often very muddy as is the El Toro Peak trail (our favorite long trail).

“The best shoes for hiking muddy El Yunque rainforest trails. It’s not hiking boots.”

— Rainforest Inn

Thorny vines like these are why I sometimes wear gloves when hiking in the rainforest.

Sometimes our adventurous guests (and nearly all of them are) arrive at our inn without the preferred clothes and shoes to wear on the untamed trails which we recommend. When they call or email first we can offer recommendations but too often they show us their Tevas or trail running shoes after they get here and ask (looking down at their feet) if they would be ok. Packing for traveling is tricky. You need footwear that can do double-time. Most people bring Tevas and sneakers or even flip-flops because they know they will be walking in the city, on the beach, or at the airport.  Of course you can wear anything on the developed "Disney-style" trails in the center of the rainforest where the visitor center is and also where the hordes of tourists flock together. On those manicured paved trails with the nice rest stops around each turn (to duck out of the rain) and the informative signs, you can wear flip-flops (called chancletas here) and shorts and have no problem. But on the Indiana Jones style trails we recommend at the rainforest inn (when asked by our guests for something adventurous) you would be in trouble. You have to wear long pants, consider a long-sleeved shirt and perhaps even leather gloves (if you’re going fast). I also like to wear a good hat too because I don't like how the spider webs feel in my face nor web denizens crawling in my hair. A hat is good for the constant rain too (no little trail huts to duck into on the real jungle trails).

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The private waterfall at the end of Rainforest Inn’s Lost Machete hike

A poncho is really not necessary because they are hot and the hat takes care of most of the bother from our warm tropical showers. You might want to carry a windbreaker for the high cool mountain rains. I recommend Tilly hat's as they wash easily, pack well, and are comfortable. They are versatile hats that you can wear on the beach and sight seeing as well. For eyewear, you don't normally need sunglasses in the jungle but now that 70% of our canopy has been lost from hurricane Maria here in Puerto Rico you will need them as well as sunblock.  Pants that are the kind you zip off the bottom legs are great especially for swimming if you don't want to go natural (the swimming holes we send you to are way off the beaten path and it's very unlikely there will be anyone seeing you). Shirts can be any of the new travel shirts. Long sleeves are best (you can roll them up). You have to protect your arms and legs because of the combination of razor grass and the "Christmas bush" which is in a few areas of some of the deep jungle trails. The Christmas bush has an intense poison ivy effect which in combination with the razor grass cuts could spoil your vacation. Please remember that we are talking about intense jungle treks not the manicured hikes that are also offered in the El Yunque rainforest. We can also recommend some easy hikes with open improved trails which are in the jungle and have some canopy and are also only hiked by our guests (hopefully no former guests will post a blog saying how to get to some of these places).

Anna of “Crazy in the Rain” photography demonstrating the wrong clothes to wear on our Lost Machete Hike. — photo by Anna Vaswar

You can always tell when you’re following someone wearing Inov-8 aggressive tread shoes.

The most important thing is to bring the right shoes.  Renée discovered Inov-8 shoes when we first started hiking together. Inov-8 is a small British company founded by Wayne Edy in 2003 and recently acquired by Descent. The sole has an aggressive tread with little lugs which help keep you from slipping but the big advantage is how thin it is so the flexing action of your foot knocks the mud off and your foot can hug the elevations and textures of the trail. I am raving about these shoes and my disclaimer is that the company not only didn’t give me any free shoes they were actually not very helpful (in the beginning) when I was putting together the information for this very popular blog. I learned that you can only buy their shoes easily on Amazon. Their website only ships to Great Britain.  What I’ve also learned: do not buy Inov-8’s model Mudclaw 275 unless you are a woman or you have incredibly narrow feet (it is the narrowest shoe they make). They come in sizes up to men’s 13 and I ordered a pair (Amazon delivers — that evil company) but I had to return them as they are so narrow I could barely get my feet in them. They did look beautiful though. This is where my contact at Inov-8 did come in handy. Lee Procter answered my email about what model would be better and he suggested an X-Talon 260 ultra which is a number 4 width (5 is their widest). I also learned from talking to trail runners that you should buy a shoe that is a half size bigger or even a whole size bigger than your normal shoe size. So I felt weird about it but I ordered a size 14 (again from Amazon).  I tried them out on our trail and they were perfect! I also recommend that you spring for a pair of waterproof socks or good cotton/polyester hiking socks like trail runners use instead of the thin socks you normally wear for running.

Regular hiking boots or trail running shoes just become caked mud ice skates. Laurie has always worn bright lime green and black inov-8 bare-grip 200 with a it’s lugged soul. I remember when she bought them we felt a little extravagant. These shoes are worth it and much less expensive than a good hiking boot.  The important thing is to find a shoe with a thin flexible sole that has widely spaced lugs. The Inov-8 shoes hose off the mud easily and dry out with no damage. We stand them up on a small table with a fan on them overnight ready for our next early morning jungle escape. There are many models of these shoes out now but just be sure the sole is thin and has some wide spaced lugs. Field hockey shoes (one of our guests wore those on a hike) work well too.

They wash off clean and when you get home just dry them under a fan. Because they are not open mesh they also help keep your feet dry.

Everything is Coming together Now

A group of scientists and students from the nearby experimental station (where they are doing studies of the El Yunque rainforest) came by today and helped us open up our private hike. Sean wielded a chain saw and everyone else had machetes. We are so happy they came to help.

Sean, Eric, Kim, Barbara, Melisa and Dan

Sean is a biologist and he told me that 80% of the canopy has been destroyed by hurricane Maria. This is quite a change as you can see by the photos but it is also interesting. 

Instead of canopy overhead now you can see clear blue sky. It is a big change. It is a terrific advantage for birders though as now you have so much visibility.

Trail marker around the tree and volunteers coming up behind me opening up our private hike

I walked ahead (if you can call the sinuous sometimes crawl through brush walking) of everyone marking the trail. There were so many downed trees I had to climb over around and under.

Of course Simonne went with us. In between cooling off in every stream Simonne helped me find the trail. She would forge ahead finding the original trail and then come back and looking at me as if to say to me "why are you so slow".

It was really wonderful being out on our trail again. The trail clearing volunteers got about half the trail cleared and ready. I went in almost to our amazing pool but stopped just short because there was quit a bit of brush from several felled trees that needed to be cleared out and I was ready to return home for lunch. We are going to come back and finish clearing the trail soon. With our private trail clear guests can experience the rainforest and spend some time in the pool above the big waterfall at the end of the trail. 

A Sundial in the Rainforest

The lawn in front of the rainforest inn villa overlooks the Caribbean sea. Because it's often too muddy to walk on Curtis Humphrey, who volunteered with us a couple of years back, built some amazing brick paths. He designed them to spiral out from the center. This design, like the rays of the sun, called for something interesting for the focus. We found an old stone carved bird bath at an importers and installed it in the center. 

Normally that would be the end of it. Beautiful bird bath and lots of birds in the rainforest.  But the birds never visited our welcoming bath.  And we are lucky to have plenty of birds. Lizard cuckoos in the tree by the driveway, the monkey call of the Puerto Rican screech owl, Guaraguas high overhead, humming birds, vireos, Puerto Rican todies visiting every tree and bush, hovering over the pond, everywhere you look except the bird bath. Our rainforest birds weren't  the least interested in our bird bath. It rains here constantly, there's water everywhere, so a bird bath in the rainforest is completely useless. 

It's pretty sunny on the villa front lawn (when it's not raining) and it seemed ideal for a sundial. They're not available in Puerto Rico (I didn't consider that there might be a reason you don't see sundials here) so I started searching eBay for sundials. They are plentiful on eBay. Lots of choices, different materials, brass, ceramic, cast iron, and different styles: horizontal dials, vertical dials, equatorial dials, polar dials, analemmatic dials. We settled on horizontal dials as thats the one you most commonly see in a garden with the wedge shaped gnomon pointing north. You see I was learning the nomenclature. Sundials aren't that simple. Ebay had lots of horizontal sundials for sale and I measured the birdbath to see what size it should be.

Next I filled in the birdbath with concrete and tiled it with a nice compass dial pattern of Travertine (limestone) tiles. I cut them to size around the edges and glued the vertical ones on with epoxy and later set the surface ones in thin set. Then I grouted it with a nice bronze colored sanded grout. It looked great, ready for the sundial.

Luckily I didn't buy one of the factory made sundials on eBay. They would have looked good but they wouldn't have told time. It turns out that bird baths aren't the only thing that doesn't work in the rainforest. Sundials, the factory made variety, are setup with a gnomon and face markings for the northern latitudes. Down here in Puerto Rico, near the equator, they have to be custom designed. So now the whole sundial project was in question. As you can see in the photo though the bird bath did look good with a tiled face and it certainly wasn't a bird bath anymore.

I kept looking at sundials on eBay and then I saw the perfect one. The eBay listing said: "Working sundial custom made for your location." jamisonwatt@yahoo.com would design the sundial based on my latitude and cut it out of steel using a plasma torch. He had an example of his work shown (held by a goat) and it looked like exactly what we wanted. I sent Jamison the PayPal purchase and a couple of phone calls later (turns out he's from Maine like my wife) he built our new sundial and mailed it down to us in Puerto Rico. He powder coated it with bronze paint baked in an oven so it wouldn't rust in the constant rains and I mounted it slightly raised so it would drain off and stay as dry as possible.  And it tells time. 

Who’s Who at the Rainforest Inn

Hi. My name is Pedro. I’m writing Bill’s Bed and Breakfast blog this week because Bill is busy entertaining visiting relatives in addition to running the inn during peak season and opening up a new five bedroom villa. I’ve been living here at the El Yunque Rainforest Inn for about eight months now.

This is the first time I’ve had the chance to hang out “behind the scenes” at a B&B guest house and it has been very interesting. Small places like this get their personality from the owners and Bill & Laurie certainly have some personalities. Bill is from the west coast and Laurie is from the east coast. Bill grew up in a large family which raised their children absolutely laissez-faire. He basically did whatever he wished with no adult supervision. He has stories about inventions he made as a child (one of which blew up his bed). Laurie, on the other hand, grew up in a strict organized environment working as a very young girl in her parent’s business. So you can imagine that they don’t always agree about how to run the bed and breakfast. Bill is busy running his ship’s agency which leaves Laurie in charge at the inn. But Bill still has time to interject free-style inconsistencies which keep things interesting.

I want to tell you about the girls, my favorite subject. Lizzy is a platinum blonde beauty. She has been with Bill & Laurie the longest. Although she is popular with the guests she proved her unreliability last year in a spectacular fashion. She took a hiatus (without either Bill or Laurie’s approval) for nine months. I worried about her whereabouts all that time but remembered also that the workers are often not on time and have been known to take off from a job sometimes for weeks without notice. In Puerto Rico it is more important to stop and help someone who is in need then to be on time for a job. Lizzy came back very nonchalantly one day after her vacation with some excuse about how she was kidnapped. Laurie was relieved to see her again but by that time she had transfered much of her affection to Bella, one of the younger girls (but not the youngest). Bella is always a real angel around here, a little prissy and whinny and not as popular with everyone like Lizzy (the blond) but admired for her extreme (and completely self aware) cuteness. Sometimes Bella will show up in the kitchen wearing some boutique get-up that only her and Laurie can appreciate.

The newest girl is Maya. She has only been here a short while but acts like she owns the place. She leaves her belongings out in the public areas for the rest of us to pick up. She doesn’t know how to behave around guests. She is usually being disciplined by Laurie and always forgiven by Bill. She thinks she is the one in charge and often pretends to supervise. She is into everyone’s business. She tries to make sure that everyone is where their supposed to be and lets us know if someone shows up unexpectedly. Sometimes she reminds me of an SS officer on patrol of the rainforest perimeter.

I hang out in the kitchen which is the center of the bed and breakfast. I am probably the one who spends the most time with Laurie as she not only prepares the incredible gourmet meals here but also all the rest of the meals for the volunteers. One of the guests took pictures of me because I’m a real Puerto Rican. I felt like the native Americans must feel when tourists photograph them as if they were part of the scenery. I was reluctant but Bill assured me that it would do no harm and that my photo would end up on an interesting web site and anyway it would only take a few minutes. Well, a few minutes turned into hours. I was never quit sure what was expected of me because the photographer and I didn’t speak the same language. After that everyone was “where’s Pedro”? I had disappeared for a couple of days to let them know what I thought of that whole deal. This island is full of Pedros like me and please guys choose someone else next time. After I returned Laurie assured me that I would never have to do that again. So now I’m back with my favorite girls and in my place of honor in the kitchen.

Don’t miss our updates on upcoming events, new stories, useful tips, new availabilities and last-minute cancellations. We invite you to sign-up now so we are in contact :)

You may have guessed by now that Lizzy is an eleven-year-old silky terrier mix, Bella is a four-year-old mini Yorkshire terrier and Maya is a one-year-old Belgian Malanois. But did you figure out that I’m not who I seem to be? I am the resident coqui who lives in a crystal vase in Laurie’s kitchen. You can read about me in an earlier post and see pictures of me in my vase.

Oh! Don’t let me forget to mention Heather my newest favorite volunteer who sports a drawn on Luigi mustache sometimes to liven up the kitchen work place. And she’s a "Real" girl.

Thank you Bill for letting me do the blog -- Pedro, aka Laurie.