The weather was supposed to be unpredictable on Sunday, so we rescheduled our planned snorkeling trip via email to Monday and headed down to the Humacao Nature Preserve instead. Supposedly, this place doesn’t get a lot of visitors and I can testify that it was almost completely empty on a Sunday afternoon. In fact, about an hour went by when we didn’t see see anyone else and with views like the ones below, we couldn’t have asked for a more lovely afternoon hike.

We even witnessed an iguana digging out his nest and one sunning himself on a pier.

Since we were so far south already, Eric suggested we drive into the lower part of El Yunque to see if there were any good waterfalls we could get to.

the view from a very twisty road

Rio Cubuy waterfall

Eric had to cross below the waterfall to get the above shot, but there were locals swimming below the falls and jumping into the water, so clearly it wasn’t too dangerous.

We ended the day with a trip to the Loquillo Kiosks where I got to try some lovely fish ceviche at the Ceviche Hut (#38). The owner is originally from Peru and he came over to us at the end of the meal to see if we’d ever tried ceviche before. We told him about our great experience at La Mar in Miraflores and shared some other highlights from our trip to Peru last fall. Tasty food and friendly owners, highly recommended by us!

fish ceviche!

One of the main reasons we decided to stay on the northeast side of the island was to be close to the El Yunque and all the waterfalls. So, on our first full day, we packed up the camera and headed south into the rainforest. It was lush, green, absolutely beautiful…

waterfall on Juan Diego River

…and pouring!

Eric and I both agreed that we had never been more wet on a hike, ever. Eric was also lamenting his decision not to bring a tripod. Amazingly, many of the shots came out anyway, but he’s had lots of practice!

La Mina Falls – some folks just weren’t wet enough on the trail

Coco Falls - a brief moment when no one is standing in front of it!

Thankfully, this meant that we didn’t have a lot of company as many tour buses didn’t bother coming out.

One thing to note: entrance into the actual park is free BUT they charge you $4 per person to enter the visitor’s center which is the only place you can get a printed map of the park. Inside, there are some large panels with park history and information and also tables set up to sell you stuff. I am guessing one of those items is a poncho since every other person on the trail was wearing a branded clear plastic bag. Most of the trails are clearly marked, so my advice would be to do a little research before you leave about what you want to see and skip the “Interpretive Center”.

After the long drive on forest service roads to several waterfalls on Sunday morning, we headed a little further down the Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoying the views. The sun came out nicely at the Craggy Gardens visitor’s area, so the term “Blue Ridge Mountains” was in full effect.

those red things on the trees are berries, not flowers!

We had enough daylight to hit a few more falls before the three hour drive home. Despite the cruddy weather on Saturday, we had a great time overall but I’m sure Eric was happy to have a chance to get some waterfall shots while staying dry!

Setrock Creek Falls

Whiteoak Creek Falls

Some forest service roads in Georgia and North Carolina have made us wonder how we could change a flat tire on a one lane mountain road five miles from civilization. Others, like the two we were on for sixteen miles on Sunday, simply surprise me at how well-maintained and drivable they are for cars even lower to the ground than our small SUV.

The drive to Walker and Douglas Falls was both beautiful and moody.  Plus, it took all morning because around almost every switchback, there was another unnamed (but scenic) waterfall waiting to be photographed.

This drive was about six miles on a gravel road, then two miles on a well-paved road through a small valley community named Dillingham, then back on gravel for another eight miles. At the very end, we were only about a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway, but with no connector, we had to backtrack the way we came in.

The two named falls did not disappoint and pup was much happier about walking around on the wet ground when we wasn’t getting soaked from above.

Walker and Douglas Falls

Despite all of the rain on Saturday, we still managed to photograph a few waterfalls (although after the Linville Falls incident, pup remained in the car). Plus, there were some lovely cascades along the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I guess rain does have it’s good points sometimes.

After our second mile-long trek in the damp, we decided to scrap hiking for the rest of the day and hit Jack of the Wood, a brew pub in downtown Asheville. We warmed up with a Green Man porter and ESB which went ever so nicely with the basket of chips with scallion blue cheese dip and ploughman’s lunch. Mmmm. We figured we would retrace our steps on Sunday and hit the waterfalls we missed in some better weather!

Our first day of waterfall hiking was a bit of a wash… literally. We knew it was going to be wet/muddy because it had rained for a full week before our visit to the NC mountains, but we were very much hoping it wasn’t going to rain all day on Saturday.

As you can see from this very sad schnauzer face, it did, in fact, rain and this photo was taken before the torrential downpour that was our mile hike back to the car at Linville Falls.

you wouldn’t mind carrying me all the way back to the car, right?

The weather cooperated on Sunday and we were able to do more hiking and stay relatively dry. Riesling spent much of her time in the car like this…

She did do about 4 miles of hiking with us, including this short hike to an unnamed falls off FR 63 near Craggy Gardens.

I’ll be posting more photos of the 10 waterfalls we photographed this week. Visit the Flickr photoset of our trip for updates and check out some of the other waterfalls we’ve photographed here.

We had a very difficult time finding a good resource for waterfalls in Ireland before we left on this trip. Even when we asked locals, the most common answer was “Oh, how about the Torc waterfall?” The best we could do was a few snapshots of cascades using the images view on Google Earth. So, we weren’t expecting a whole lot.

Well!

There were waterfalls all over the place, which is probably why folks think nothing of it. Ireland received a tremendous amount of rain recently and all the rivers and creeks were flowing to capacity. I don’t think any of these falls are named, so we used our Garmin to note the GPS coordinates of each of them.

Enjoy!

These will be added to our waterfall database shortly!

Eric called this one of the top three most scenic drives we’ve done. Considering Chapman’s Peak in South Africa and Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park are both on that list, that’s saying quite a lot.

The trek consists of a (mostly) paved road barely wide enough for one car for about 22 kilometers. Each passing of a car going the other direction was an adventure (vast understatement) and in total, it took us about 2 hours. :)

I’ll let Eric’s photos speak for themselves!

More photos in our Ireland Flickr photo set.

After our stops at Muckross House and the Torc waterfall, the weather improved slightly as we meandered through Killarney National Park. The N71 took us past many small lakes and beautiful viewpoints.

We parked at this old church and took a short walk to some cascades. The fall color was lovely and the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds.

We had an amazing view of Killarney and the many lakes of County Kerry from Ladies View.

Plus, we got to see some punk rock sheep. One of the things that amused me during my last trip here was how all the sheep were spray painted in different colors. This guy has three color markings and was probably wondering why we stopped to snap his photo.

To get the first part of the story, check out Oregon waterfalls, part 1: Latourell to Wahkeena.

Multnomah Falls. The most photographed waterfall in Oregon and the second tallest falls in the United States at an amazing 620 feet. I always find waterfalls that have their own snack bar to be slightly less impressive (see Snoqualmie Falls), but as you can see, this waterfall is still beautiful even with the crowds (which Eric skillfully cropped out of this photo). :)

Horsetail Falls. Apparently most folks turn around at Multnomah Falls because there were (pleasantly) far less people along the highway by the time we reached Horsetail Falls, a mere 2.5 miles away. This waterfall is viewable from the road and unique as it’s carved itself a little slide in the rock.

Ponytail Falls. Further up the trail beyond Horsetail Falls is this pretty waterfall that shoots out of a crevice in the rock. You can walk behind the falls and get a shot from the other side as well. The top part of the falls is not viewable from this position, but you can see the entire waterfall through the trees as you approach. This hike is a moderate mile or so round trip.

Elowah Falls. This was our last hike of the day and we were a bit surprised to find the hike longer than it was listed in our Northwest waterfalls book. Even though my legs felt like lead at the end of this hike, it was completely worth it. This is a beautifully lush spot and the water falling is whisper quiet even when you are right in front of the falls.

One thing to note is that for every waterfall that wasn’t a roadside view, we had to hike some steep terrain to reach them. We’re in pretty good shape but our legs were done after seven miles of constant up and down walking. Still, we’ll be back because there is so much more that we didn’t see!