Wow, it's been a long two days. Yesterday I was so tired when I got back that I fell asleep on my bed on top of the clean laundry I had put on my bed that morning.

Yesterday began with a trip to the rainforrest. We (about a third of the group) went on a quick hike downhill to a waterfall where the rest of the time was spent swimming and sitting under the waterfall. I also jumped off a short cliff over another, smaller waterfall. The drop was about 25 to 30 feet. Someone got a picture of me as I went over, but I haven't managed to get it from them yet.

After we left the waterfall, we went back up to meet the two-thirds of our group that went to the top of a mountain instead of down to the waterfall. When we got to the rendezvous, the other group was not there. Apparently they saw a sign (a napkin saying 'Saints, go this way') and went down the wrong trail - a three-mile dead end. When they finally made it back to where we were, we left to go to our other outing: kayaking on a bioluminescent bay.

The kayaking trip started poorly for me and my 'shipmate,' since we were both very new to kayaking. I was the more experienced of the two, with one canoe trip under my belt. We zig-zagged through the channel into the bay, hitting the sides numerous times. In my defense, by the time we left on our kayak, the channel we had to travel down was totally pitch black. We finally made it to the bay at the very end of our group of kayaks and formed a small island in the middle of the bay by grouping our kayaks and holding onto our neighbors boat.

Our tour guide gave a long and thorough description of the bioluminescence and what caused it, along with a description of the efforts to reproduce the effects. The lights are from a species of plankton that thrives in that unique environment. The guide said a lot more, but I forgot most of it immediately. During the talk, a fish jumped into my boat. I found it flopping around next to my foot. After playing with it for a few minutes I put it back in the water.

The water itself was completely black, with nothing visible anywhere... at first. When anything caused a current in the water, the plankton lit up with a gentle blue-green sparkle. It was far too faint for any camera to capture, but to our eyes it looked amazing. You would get the best results by sticking your hand in the water and shaking it around under the surface. This caused a bright glow all around your hand as if it were conducting lightning.

On the way back, my boat was able to move much faster. We still had a few problems, but we weren't the last to make it through the dark channel. The coolest part was when the channel got really dark, the wake of the boat glowed with thin lines of kryptonite-colored plankton.

Today we went to a cave. It was absolutely incredible. All the cave formations that had taken millions of years to build were right within my grasp. Of course, I didn't touch them for fear of destroying them, which is possible, even if it is a really huge formation. They are all really delicate. Really all I can say about the cave is that it is just amazing. I hope to get a really good camera and go back soon.

Also, the picture here is the last one I took before my phone's screen died. It is of El Morro, one of the Spanish forts on the Puerto Rico Bay.