The Tersinian Jungle
Rio Abajo--The beautiful state forest found in Puerto Rico was a huge influence in my writing of the 'Tersinian jungle'. There are several other places, too, but this will be the one to start with.
We stumbled upon Rio Abajo by accident (that actually happened a lot to us as we traveled around Puerto Rico, because if you ever travel there, and it's not somewhere local to you, Google Maps is all sorts of wrong. I have lots of stories I'm going to share later, but right now, let's chat about this.)
When I knew my time in Puerto Rico was coming to a close, I set a goal to visit every municipio in Puerto Rico before we had to leave. So we took a lot of back roads, mountain roads, and wrong turns. Hence, our stumbling upon Rio Abajo. But when I saw the sign, I couldn't resist stopping and going for a hike. It was beautiful. It was exactly how I felt the fading of the borderlands between Tersine and Xahamen would start. While El Yunque is absolutely the biggest inspiration behind the Tersinian Jungle, stumbling upon Bosque Rio Abajo helped me figure out how to tie the two places together, since if you have read the book, Xahamen is in the tops of the mountains, and Tersine in at sea-level.
Funnily enough, if you haven't been around long, the inspiration behind Tersine was absolutely Puerto Rico, and the one behind Xahamen is Utah. Both of these places hold my heart, as I am a mixed Boricua. I am half Puerto Rican and half Utahn. It was fun writing both places, and what warmed my heart even more, is that the two places I love most in the world ended up being right next to each other, literally only a few days journey apart--in the modern world, it would be like traveling from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, or from Utah to one of the surrounding states by car or plane--it would likely take less than a day, and in some cases, even less than an hour. Since Utah and Puerto Rico are about a six-hour flight distance apart, I had to satisfy my desire to be bilocated in both places at the same time. So if you ever plan a trip to Puerto Rico, make sure to take a pit stop at Bosque Estatal Rio Abajo, so you can know what it would be like to exist towards the borderlands of Tersine and Xahamen.