Kayla Mahon

My scariest experience on the road...

We all like to share the most amazing parts of our lives, especially on social media. Sometimes I see social media feeds (especially on instagram) and I wonder how people lead such amazing lives, traveling the world and taking amazing pictures while experiencing so many different places. I have talked with many wanderers and we all say the same thing, the not so fun parts are rarely shared. Well, I am here to share one of my most terrifying experiences during my travels that I find funny now, but at the time was not glamorous, picture perfect, or fun! 

El Yunque National Rainforest, Puerto Rico 

Recently I visited Puerto Rico for the second time and was devastated to learn that the hurricane last year destroyed so many areas of the island, as well as the gorgeous El Yunque Rainforest. Years before, my friend Pamela and I sat in the brown dog cafe with our laptop, planning our first trip together to Puerto Rico. We found an amazing opportunity, camping in the rainforest. How cool and peaceful would it be to wake up amongst the trees and sounds of the rainforest! We found the permit needed to camp and headed over to Sail to get a tent and supplies. 

We headed to Buffalo airport the morning of our flight and told the border agent our plans. Agent: “I’m sorry, you are camping in the rainforest?” Us: Yes sir! Agent: “Do you have a knife?” - This did not deter us, we went on our way and boarded our plane. As our flight went on we began a conversation with our seat mate who was from San Juan. We told him of our plans and he became genuinely concerned. He told us he had lived in Puerto Rico his whole life but had never heard of anyone camping overnight in the rainforest. Thinking we were brave travellers, still not deterred, we grabbed a cab at the airport and headed to the rainforest. The cab driver asked us when he should come back to pick us up and we told him that we would be spending the night camping in the rainforest. After many words in Spanish we did not understand he finally said, “you girls are loco!!”. He gave us his card and said if we were still alive in the morning to call him when we were ready to come back to the city! At this point we were a little bit worried but we were already there, it was beautiful and it was too late to go back! 

Long story short, it was pitch back at 7pm, we had nothing to do and no light other than a little lantern that hung at the top of our tent. It was so hot, sweat was dipping from our faces, there were no other people in the rainforest, no camp grounds - we had to just “pick a spot thats flat wherever”. With nothing to do our minds started wandering that maybe this was not a good idea, that if something happened, no one would find us, no one actually knew where we were! Pam was more relaxed but since I was an avid watcher of the TV shows criminal minds and law and order, I started to panic, big time. We then heard footsteps in the darkness beside our tent. That was it we thought! I stayed up the whole night, phone in hand, looking around the tent. 

Rising with the sun over the rainforest and listening to all of the sounds made it all worth it though. We were alone in the world and it was the most peaceful I’ve ever felt. We lay under waterfalls and were still as the water poured over us. Even though at some points in the night I was terrified, it was one of the most magical experiences of my life and I am so grateful that I did it! 

I have many more experiences that were definitely not instagram worthy but I will save those for another time! 

Seek adventure and explore - Kayla