A Drive Through Southeastern Puerto Rico

Las Tetas De Cayey

Las Tetas De Cayey

Many read­ers have com­ment­ed that Puer­to Rico By GPS hard­ly has any cov­er­age of the south­east­ern region of the Island.  Well, there’s a rea­son for that.  The are three major attrac­tions that all tourists ask about when they arrive in Puer­to Rico: the old city, the rain­for­est and the beaches.

The old city —of course— is Old San Juan, a Span­ish colo­nial city estab­lished in 1521 that is the sec­ond old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly inhab­it­ed town in the West­ern Hemi­sphere and a UNESCO World Her­itage Site as well.  This is the one place in Puer­to Rico that almost 100% of our vis­i­tors get to see because the Island’s main air­port is only a few miles away and all the cruise ships dock at San Juan Bay.

El Yunque Nation­al Rain­for­est is only about 25 miles to the east of the San Juan Metro­plex and most tourists buy a day excur­sion to vis­it this one-of-a-kind area.

Then there’s the beach­es.  What can I say about the beach­es?  Well let’s just say that I wrote a book about Puer­to Rico’s beach­es that cov­ers 20 of the most gor­geous places in the world.  And I only scratched the surface!!!

So why is it that Puer­to Rico By GPS does­n’t have much infor­ma­tion about the south­east­ern coast of the Island?  Sim­ple!  The south­east has stun­ning vis­tas and great restau­rants, but great beach­es is the one thing that it does­n’t have.  Most shore­lines are rocky and full of rip­tides, all of which makes them down­right dangerous.

This does­n’t mean that you should­n’t explore the south­east.  It just means that if beach­es are your thing then you’ll find bet­ter options else­where on the Island.

But what hap­pens if you are a pho­tog­ra­ph­er like me, or if you absolute­ly, pos­i­tive­ly love seafood?  Then you’re in for a treat because the south­east is pep­pered with some of the great­est seafood restau­rants on the Island and the pho­to oppor­tu­ni­ties are stunning.

Last Tues­day I decid­ed to put an end to the lack of cov­er­age about the south­east in Puer­to Rico By GPS.  So I hopped on my SUV and hit the road with my wife Zoraida.

The best way to explore the south­east is to take road PR-52 in San Juan, dri­ve all the way to Ponce on the south coast and then dri­ve east on PR‑3 along the coast­line until you reach the town of Humacao.  From there you can con­nect with PR-30, dri­ve to the town of Caguas and take PR-52 back to San Juan.

This trip was going to be a long one, so we left at around 8:00am and we were back home at around 8:00pm.

Monumento al Jíbaro.

Mon­u­men­to al Jíbaro. Click on image to see it larger.

Our first stop was at kilo­me­ter mark­er “49.0” at the “Mon­u­men­to Al Jíbaro Puer­tor­riqueño” (Mon­u­ment to the Puer­to Rican Coun­try Work­er) (18.07106,-66.218312).  This mon­u­ment was sculpt­ed by Tomás Batista and unveiled in 1976. It’s also an excel­lent van­tage point to see “Las Tetas de Cayey”, a cou­ple of gran­ite moun­tain peaks that are actu­al­ly in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Sali­nas.  These peaks have an ele­va­tion of 2,762 feet above sea lev­el and there name comes from the Span­ish col­lo­qui­al term for “breasts”.  I guess you could say that they are the most pho­tographed breasts in Puer­to Rico.

From there it would have been road, road and more road until we reached the town of Ponce, but since that was the very first place that I vis­it­ed when we kicked off Puer­to Rico By GPS, and the expe­ri­ence was rather bit­ter­sweet (read the arti­cle here), we decid­ed to take exit 65 towards Cam­pa­men­to San­ti­a­go and take road PR‑1 south towards the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Sali­nas.  From there we took road PR‑3 east­bound along the entire south­east­ern coast until we reached the town of Humacao.

Cococnut on the shore. Click on image to see it larger.

Click on image to see it larger.

The town of Sali­nas is famous among the locals for its seafood cui­sine.  If you are into urban pho­tog­ra­phy (which I am not) you can make excel­lent images around the town’s main square.  In my case I was on a mis­sion to cap­ture seascape images for a project that I am present­ly involved in for the fed­er­al government.

Oh, and if drag rac­ing is your thing, the Sali­nas Speed­way is an excel­lent place to spend a cou­ple of hours watch­ing the local “gear­heads” burn some rub­ber under the hot Caribbean sun.

From Sali­nas we con­tin­ued along PR‑3 to the neigh­bor­ing town of Guaya­ma.  It was almost lunchtime so we stopped at a place called “La Casa de Los Pastelil­los” (the house of the turnovers) (17.936356,-66.183156) where —as the name would sug­gest— you can get huge turnovers filled with almost any­thing you can imag­ine, includ­ing —of course— all kinds of seafood.

A stretch of coastline in Guayama right behind “La Casa De Los Pastelillos”

A stretch of coast­line in Guaya­ma right behind “La Casa De Los Pastelil­los”. Click on image to see it larger.

Right behind the din­ing area there’s a stretch of coast that I would­n’t be caught dead in.  But it makes for stun­ning pho­tographs.  The shore is rocky, which almost always means lots and lots of sea urchins, and the tide is furi­ous to say the least.

We returned to PR‑3 and went a lit­tle fur­ther to the east until we reached road PR-7710.  This led us to the old Aguirre Sug­ar Mill. The sug­ar indus­try in Puer­to Rico all but dis­ap­peared dur­ing the 60’s and 70’s but you can still see the many build­ings that com­prised an entire town known as the Aguirre Com­pa­ny Town dur­ing the 30’s and 40’s.

Aguirre had its own hos­pi­tal, com­mis­sary, swim­ming pool, the­ater, hotel, golf club and post office.  But today most of its build­ings are closed and have become liv­ing exam­ples of urban decay.  In my hum­ble opin­ion this is very short­sight­ed on behalf of the local gov­ern­ment, as the entire area could be con­vert­ed into a very inter­est­ing tourist attraction.

From there we returned to PR‑3 and head­ed east towards the town of Patil­las.  We stopped sev­er­al times along the way to make images of the shore­line, but —once again— none of these areas were suit­able for swimming.

Punta Tuna Lighthouse.

Pun­ta Tuna Light­house. Click on image to see it larger.

Even­tu­al­ly we reached the town of Maun­abo where we vis­it­ed, or rather pho­tographed, the “Pun­ta Tuna” Light­house (17.988256 ‑65.885203).  I had been mean­ing to add this image to my col­lec­tion of the Island’s light­hous­es.  How­ev­er, when we got there the place was closed.  There was a sign on the gate that said that the light­house is open to the pub­lic Wednes­days thru Sun­days.  And, of course, I went there on a Tuesday.

I was almost about to leave when I saw a cou­ple men talk­ing by the edge of the road.  I asked them if there was a van­tage point near­by where I could make some images of the light­house.  They told me about a small trail to the left of the main gate that leads down to the shore.  So we returned to the light­house, parked our vehi­cle and walked down to the shore.

The view was OK but I had the sun in front and to my right; not the ide­al posi­tion to make a good image.  How­ev­er, I man­aged to hide behind the veg­e­ta­tion, used it as a frame, and came up with a pret­ty good image.

 

On my way out I had an idea: why not find anoth­er van­tage point west of the light­house from which I could shoot the light­house from the oth­er side?  After try­ing sev­er­al of the adja­cent streets we end­ed up at the local fish­ing vil­lage (17.991227,-65.888781).  From there I could see a coast­line in the dis­tance that seemed to be the per­fect place from which to take my shot. There was a group of locals talk­ing by the pier and I asked them how to get there.  To my sur­prise, one of them was a retired gen­tle­man from New Jer­sey who hap­pened to make the small town of Maun­abo his retire­ment par­adise.  And, of course, every­one called him “el gringo”.

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Pun­ta Tuna Light­house. Click on image to see it larger.

This man not only told me where to take my shot from, but he actu­al­ly got in his car, told me to fol­low him, and took me straight to the spot (17.99099,-65.894553).  And, of course, the gor­geous shot that you see below was the one that I took from there.

From Maun­abo we took PR-901, con­nect­ed to PR-53 and even­tu­al­ly PR-191 to get to the south side of El Yunque Nation­al Rain­for­est.  I had heard that the oth­er side of “El Yunque” was beau­ti­ful, but the fact is that the whole thing was dis­ap­point­ing.  The road is closed off at the very entrance (18.265204,-65.801089) and the only thing to see is a small aque­duct that no longer seems to be work­ing.  Besides, I met a local man who told me that the area is rid­den with thieves who watch as you walk away from your vehi­cle and steal your valu­ables, your radio or maybe even your whole car.

So my advise is to save your­self the trou­ble and pass on the south side of “El Yunque”.

South side of El Yunque Rainforest.

South side of El Yunque Rain­for­est. Click on image to see it larger.

When we left the for­est it was almost 4:30pm so we head­ed back to the San Juan Metro­plex.  If you are going to be stay­ing in San Juan, and you decide to vis­it the south side of “El Yunque” your best bet will be to make a right at PR-31 on your way out (there’s an old met­al bridge there), fol­low it until you reach PR-30 and head west until you con­nect with PR-52.  From there go north until you reach the San Juan Metroplex.

All in all the trip was enter­tain­ing, there was plen­ty of stun­ning scenery to shoot, and if I had been look­ing for places to eat I would have had more than enough vari­ety.  But now I under­stand why this area is not as pop­u­lar as the rest of the Island: it has no beach­es.  Of course, it has plen­ty of poten­tial in oth­er areas but local munic­i­pal­i­ties don’t seem to have the mon­ey, or the imag­i­na­tion, to devel­op that poten­tial.  And it’s a sad thing because the area is just as beau­ti­ful as the rest of the Island.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2015,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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Learn More About Puerto Rico

OLD SAN JUAN Enjoy an adven­ture through cen­turies of history
EL YUNQUE NATIONAL FOREST Explore the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S.
LET’S HIT THE BEACH Have fun at one of Puer­to Rico’s world renown beaches.

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