Insight Guides Puerto Rico (Travel Guide eBook) by Insight Guides

Author:Insight Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, Puerto Rico
Publisher: Apa Publications
Published: 2023-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

El Yunque – with an intensity characteristic of Puerto Rico’s sub-climates – offers a startling diversity of vegetation and “forest types.” Most widespread is the Tabonuco forest, which ranges around the warmer, drier parts of El Yunque at altitudes of under 2,000ft (600 meters). Higher up is the Palo Colorado forest, which is mossy and more humid. Then there is Sierra Palm forest, which, although taking up less than a fifth of El Yunque’s territory, is the “rainforest” that gives the area its reputation. Perhaps this is because its beauty is so unexpected and almost unnatural; perhaps it’s because Route 191, which most tourists take through El Yunque, never reaches above 2,500ft (760 meters), where the palm forest stops.

Sierra palms, which account for most of the sub-climate’s vegetation, can grow in very slippery and unstable soil. Thus, they can be found in the most dramatic locations: half-submerged in riverbeds or jutting from cliffsides. Areas above the palm forest are even more curious and fascinating. This cloud forest with moss-covered dwarf trees represents less than 1,000 acres (400 hectares) and gets the full brunt of the island’s sometimes intense weather. The view from El Yunque’s Yokahú Tower is spectacular: Luquillo and Fajardo in the foreground, the islands of Vieques and Culebra far off on the horizon, and the lush rainforested peaks of El Yunque all around.

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