Las Cabezas De San Juan… Nature At It’s Best

Cabezas de San Juan

Receiv­ing area with “cei­ba” tree.

This week I went back to nature. I got on my SUV, drove to the town of Fajar­do and vis­it­ed “Las Cabezas de San Juan”, a nature reserve unlike any oth­er in Puer­to Rico. Fajar­do is a small town on the north­east­ern tip of Puer­to Rico, about a 30 to 40-minute dri­ve from the San Juan Metro­plex. And believe me, I enjoyed every minute of this trip.

How­ev­er, there was one thing that I did­n’t like. So I might as well get it out of the way and get on with my arti­cle. Their web­site is seri­ous­ly in need of a makeover. At first sight it seems pret­ty but it’s so cum­ber­some and unfriend­ly that I sim­ply hat­ed it.

That said, here’s how to con­tact “Las Cabezas de San Juan”. Their phone num­bers are: 787–722-5882 and 787–860-2562. Their email is: reservaciones@paralanaturaleza.org. And, for good mea­sure, their web­site is www.paralanaturaleza.org, in case you insist on tor­tur­ing yourself.

There are tours in Span­ish and in Eng­lish. My wife and I took the Eng­lish tour. It last­ed around two and a half hours. We both speak per­fect Span­ish but I want­ed to see how good the Eng­lish ver­sion actu­al­ly was. It was great!

There are dif­fer­ent prices for reg­u­lar vis­i­tors, stu­dents and senior cit­i­zens. We paid reg­u­lar admit­tance at $10 each plus a sales tax of 7%. Stu­dents and seniors pay less.

One impor­tant warn­ing: they do not allow “walk-ins”. The only way to vis­it the reserve is with a reser­va­tion. And to make reser­va­tions you need to call in or do it on their web­site. That’s why —in my opin­ion— they should improve that web­site quick.

Enough with my rant.

Cabezas de San Juan

Sandy beach with “tala­cia” beds

Our tour start­ed at 2:00pm sharp and we were advised to arrive around 1:30pm. When you enter the grounds the first thing that you find is a well-kept park­ing lot and a receiv­ing area. There is a beau­ti­ful “cei­ba” tree in front that looks like it’s sev­er­al hun­dred years old.

When you arrive they look you up in a reser­va­tions list and hand you a waver to sign. There are no fero­cious ani­mals or poi­so­nous rep­tiles in the area but there are plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to get hurt if you don’t fol­low your guide’s instruc­tions or wan­der off into the wilder­ness on your own. So I guess that’s why they do it.

Cabezas de San Juan

Our guide “Anto­nio” was knowl­edge­able and friendly.

The tour start­ed right on time. Our guide Anto­nio led us to a well main­tained tram that was our mode of trans­porta­tion for the fol­low­ing two and a half hours. Vis­i­tors are not allowed to ven­ture into the reserve grounds on their own. ¡And even if they were, the place is huge! There are 438 acres of beau­ti­ful unspoiled ter­rain in the reserve. So walk­ing is hard­ly an option anyway.

You can take as many pic­tures or video as you like. In fact, feel free to click on any of the pic­tures in this post to see it larger.

Anto­nio men­tioned that there are sev­en main kinds of ecosys­tems in the reserve, but as the after­noon pro­gressed he only men­tioned four. The first is the coral reef, which acts as a bar­ri­er between the reserve and the see. It’s also the breed­ing ground for many species of mol­lusks and crustaceans.

Cabezas de San Juan

Tala­cia beds at the extreme left

Sec­ond you have the “tala­cia” beds. Those are the dark green patch­es that you see sev­er­al yards beyond the coast­line. They are the nat­ur­al habi­tat for star fish and sea cucum­bers. They are also a very impor­tant source of food for man­a­tees, an endan­gered sea mam­mal that lives in this area.

Then you have the sand shore. At first glance many peo­ple would think that a beach is only made up of sand and water. But they’d be wrong. Beneath the sand there are actu­al­ly thou­sands of tiny organ­isms. And if you take a clos­er look you’ll actu­al­ly see hun­dreds of lit­tle holes. Those are made by ghost crabs; tiny tan-col­ored crab that blend in per­fect­ly with the col­or of the sand.

Cabezas de San Juan

Ter­mite nest.

Along the way you’ll see huge ter­mite nests every­where. They too have a spe­cif­ic func­tion in the for­est. They decom­pose dead trees and return the nutri­ents back to nature. The huge brown struc­tures that they call “home” are actu­al­ly made up of sali­va and excrement.

After pass­ing “fish­er­man’s trail” (a place where fish­er­men would car­ry their boats from the beach to the lagoon) we made our first stop at a board­walk that tra­vers­es a sec­tion of the man­grove and “Lagu­na Grande”.

Lagu­na Grande” is not just any lagoon. It’s a bio­lu­mi­nes­cent lagoon (one of three in Puer­to Rico) that’s filled with mil­lions and mil­lions of micro­scop­ic organ­isms called dynofla­gel­lates. But that’s not the only rea­son why this lagoon is dif­fer­ent. This lagoon is also of an intense re-brown col­or, and I’ll explain why in a minute.

"Laguna Grande" at "Cabezas De San Juan"

Lagu­na Grande” at “Cabezas De San Juan”

There are four main types of man­groves in this area. They are: white, black, but­ton and red. To the untrained eye they’ll prob­a­bly all look the same. But Anto­nio actu­al­ly took the time to show us the dif­fer­ences between them.

White mangrove

White man­grove

One way to tell man­groves apart is by their roots. White man­groves have white roots stick­ing out of the ground. They act as tiny snorkels that allow the plant to breath. Man­groves live in salt water. But since the plant does­n’t actu­al­ly need salt to live, it excretes if from the under­side of its leaves.

The roots on the black man­grove are big­ger and grow deep­er into the wet­land. The leaves are also dif­fer­ent. They are elon­gat­ed and they are always point­ing upward. This pro­tects them from the sun. They too excrete the salt from the bot­tom of the leaves.

The but­ton man­grove has a round seed that gives it its name. You find it in the dri­est areas of the wet­land. It has orna­men­tal use. You can grow it in a pot or next to side­walks. How­ev­er, it does­n’t tol­er­ate too much salt.

Cabezas de San Juan

Board­walk over the wetlands

And final­ly, red man­grove is found in the inner­most part of the wet­land area. It has big­ger leaves that have a waxy feel to them. Its roots look like hun­dreds of branch­es grow­ing out of the water. They’re called aer­i­al roots because they stick out from branch­es. They add anchor­age and lever­age to improve the sta­bil­i­ty of the tree. They also excrete the salt close to the root through lenticels.

Cabezas de San Juan

Anto­nio shows decom­pos­ing organ­ic material

The wood of a red man­grove is red because of the great amount of tan­nins that it con­tains. This is the same stuff that you find in red grapes. And it is also what gives the sur­round­ing water that intense red-brown color.

Wet­lands derive their par­tic­u­lar smell from sul­fur. Leaves from the red man­grove fall into the water and decom­pose at the bot­tom. This pro­vides an excel­lent feed­ing area for small fish but it also accounts for that pun­gent smell that we all love to hate.

Cabezas de San Juan

Nat­ur­al Pool

Nat­ur­al pools are often cre­at­ed with­in the red man­grove area that pro­tect small­er fish from being eat­en by big­ger ones. They grow there until a cer­tain point and then they get out.

After leav­ing the man­grove area we passed by “Jayuya Beach” on our way to a rock beach called “Lirios Beach”. “Jayuya Beach” is one of the most impor­tant beach­es in the reserve because there are rem­nants of the Taíno and Pre-Taíno cul­tures such as ceram­ics and skeletons.

Lirios Beach, Cabezas de San Juan

The wind is so strong that trees grow sideways.

Lirios Beach” is what is called a rocky shore. The wind in the area is so strong that many trees actu­al­ly grow side­ways. There is a coral reef, not that far from the shore, that pro­tects the beach from the rav­aging surf. There is also vol­canic rock on the right side of the coast and the rock on the beach is more typ­i­cal of the Island’s rivers than of its beaches. 

Lirios Beach, Cabezas de San Juan

Lirios Beach

Towards the end of the trip we arrived at “Cape San Juan” Light­house, Puer­to Rico’s sec­ond old­est oper­at­ing light­house. It was built in 1880 and first used in 1882. Most peo­ple think that light­hous­es only serve to guide ves­sels at sea. But actu­al­ly they can also tell them where they are. Each light­house has a cer­tain peri­od­ic­i­ty which tells cap­tains which one they are actu­al­ly look­ing at. The one in Fajar­do rotates at exact­ly 15 rev­o­lu­tions per minute.

Cabezas de San Juan

Cape San Juan Lighthouse

Light­hous­es in Puer­to Rico are oper­at­ed by the US Coast Guard but the base struc­ture of the one in Fajar­do hous­es a small muse­um where vis­i­tors can see live spec­i­mens of juve­nile igua­nas, her­mit crabs, sea cucum­bers, star fish and even actu­al dynofla­gel­lates that you can see glow­ing in the dark.

And of course, Anto­nio explained each and every one of them to our group in per­fect detail.

Cabezas de San Juan

The view from the light­house is spectacular!

Final­ly, we climbed to the roof of the light­house to enjoy a spec­tac­u­lar view of the actu­al “Cabezas de San Juan”, the east­ern islands of Ica­co, Vieques and Cule­bra, and the north­ern shore of Puer­to Rico with the Caribbean Nation­al Rain­for­est (bet­ter know among the locals as “El Yunque”) as a backdrop.

We returned to the receiv­ing area close to 4:30pm after an out­stand­ing day of explo­ration, learn­ing and enter­tain­ment. “Las Cabezas De San Juan” is a true gem that every vis­i­tor to Puer­to Rico should enjoy. And if you are a land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er like me you’ll feel like a kid at a can­dy store. Mmmmmm!

Oh, and before I for­get, there are oth­er activ­i­ties that take place dur­ing the night time, like excur­sions to the bio­lu­mi­nes­cent lagoon. Ask at the vis­i­tor cen­ter for details.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2014,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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