Aibonito, Puerto Rico’s Garden in the Mountains

This week my wife and I vis­it­ed the beau­ti­ful town of Aiboni­to, Puer­to Rico. We got to leave the noisy, stress­ful real­i­ty of urban liv­ing in the San Juan Metro­plex to enjoy the peace­ful beau­ty of Puer­to Rico’s coun­try­side; if only for a few hours.

We arrived in Aiboni­to, a lit­tle over 8:30, on the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 26. It was a cool morn­ing as far as Puer­to Rico goes, with a tem­per­a­ture below 75°F. How­ev­er, there was no fog. Nor­mal­ly, in this area of Puer­to Rico, you get a thick fog in the morn­ing that can ham­per vis­i­bil­i­ty, espe­cial­ly in Aiboni­to. But not last Mon­day. It was crys­tal clear.

Click on image to watch the video

When we arrived in Aiboni­to we parked on the north side of the town square. That’s when it hit me. The church is in the wrong place. Nor­mal­ly Catholic church­es on the Island are on the east side of the town squares with their altars also point­ing east. But, not the one in Aiboni­to. It points south. Why it was built that way, is way above my pay grade.

Aiboni­to has a beau­ti­ful Catholic tem­ple call San José Parish, or Par­ro­quia San José as the locals pre­fer to call it. It’s a beau­ti­ful Goth­ic style tem­ple, with twin bell tow­ers, that was built in 1825 and rebuilt between 1887 and 1897. That means that it’ll be cel­e­brat­ing its 200th birth­day next year.

San José Parish
(click on image to see it larger)

When we arrived in Aiboni­to our first stop was at the Catholic church. Expe­ri­ence has taught us that most Catholic church­es on the Island open ear­ly in the morn­ing to cel­e­brate mass and then remain closed dur­ing most of the day. Why? Because they lack the per­son­nel and the resources to have some­one watch­ing over the tem­ples dur­ing the day. And since van­dal­ism and theft have become an unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty, their only option is closing.

For­tu­nate­ly, when we got to San Jose Parish it was open (well, most of it). As we entered we met sev­er­al parish­ioners that were doing vol­un­teer work. They wel­comed us to the tem­ple and gave us a brief tour. It’s a rather small tem­ple that has that Euro­pean feel. To the eye is looks well kept, but at the same time it gives you that “old” feel­ing. I loved it.

San José Parish Inte­ri­or
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We also learned about the mishaps that the tem­ple has endured dur­ing the series of storms and earth­quakes that have affect­ed Puer­to Rico dur­ing the last six years. And, as if that weren’t enough, it was struck by light­ning, which left it east­ern­most bell tow­er and the rear por­tion of the tem­ple crippled.

That’s why I say that “most” of the tem­ple was open, because the rear por­tion was cor­doned off. In fact, the dam­age caused by the light­ning strike was so severe, that they aren’t able to ring the church bells. Why? Because they fear that the bell’s vibra­tions could bring part of the tem­ple down.

How­ev­er, these are all tech­ni­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. You can’t tell by look­ing at the build­ing. Sure, there are a few cracks here and there on the bell tow­er facade and the light­ning rod was destroyed, but to the untrained eye it looks fine.

As we left San José Parish we went for a stroll through Aibonito’s main square, or plaza de recreo like they say in Span­ish. Through­out the years this square has had four dif­fer­ent names, but in its present incar­na­tion it’s named after Segun­do Ruiz Belvis. Segun­do Ruiz Belvis was a Puer­to Rican abo­li­tion­ist, born on May 13, 1829, who also fought for Puer­to Rico’s right to independence.

The square was recent­ly remod­eled and fea­tures a beau­ti­ful tile sur­face in tones of gray, tan and brown, ade­quate tree cov­er (giv­en the dam­aged caused by recent hur­ri­canes), pub­lic art and bench­es galore for peo­ple watching.

City Hall
(click on image to see it larger)

As we approached the north­east cor­ner of the square we found Aibonito’s City Hall. It’s a mod­ern style build­ing cov­ered in glass and paint­ed in white with dif­fer­ent gray accents. As we entered the build­ing we met Mrs. Lin­nette Rivera, who man­ning the switch­board (or should I say “wom­an­ning“?) and in the mid­dle of solv­ing someone’s issue.

Her first reac­tion was to leave what she was doing and take care of us, but we told that we weren’t in any hur­ry. After end­ing her phone call she spent well over 30 min­utes telling us about all the inter­est­ing places that we “need­ed” to see in Aiboni­to. She even gave us her per­son­al cell phone num­ber in case we got lost or need­ed fur­ther information.

Old Tobac­co Fac­to­ry
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Walk­ing east along Gerón­i­mo Martínez Street (that’s the street where we parked on the north side of the square) we made a slight left turn at Igna­cio Colón Street and arrived at the Old Tobac­co Fac­to­ry. It’s a huge, recent­ly restored build­ing, paint­ed in yel­low, with white and green trims, that’s home to the Aiboni­to Sports Museum.

The Aiboni­to Sports Muse­um only opens on Sat­ur­days, and —of course— we were there on a Mon­day. How­ev­er, that’s not the only thing that this build­ing has to offer. The restora­tion work that they did on this build­ing is stun­ning, with wide open areas, small shops and a small farmer’s mar­ket in the middle.

In fact, my wife and I bought an avo­ca­do, about the size of a large grape­fruit, some “cilantril­lo” (corian­der) and lemons and whipped up the most scrump­tious “pico de gal­lo” you can imag­ine for sup­per. But I digress.

Galería Vista Ale­gre
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As we left the Old Tobac­co Fac­to­ry we walked a cou­ple of blocks west along road 14. There was a recent­ly restored build­ing, on the cor­ner of road 14 and Padi­al Street that caught our atten­tion. It has two giant roost­ers on the side and the win­dows are in frost­ed white glass. Since we couldn’t see inside we imme­di­ate­ly con­clud­ed that it had to do with cock­fight­ing. Cock­fight­ing has been part of the Puer­to Rican cul­ture for cen­turies. Even with the recent pro­hi­bi­tion by fed­er­al law, the prac­tice continues.

In any case, we were wrong. In a few more para­graphs you’ll find out why.

Fed­eri­co Dege­tau House Muse­um
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After pass­ing the build­ing with the two roost­ers we walked anoth­er block west and turned left at the cor­ner of road 14 and Fed­eri­co Dege­tau Street. From there we walked about four blocks south to the Casa Museo Fed­eri­co Dege­tau; Dege­tau Muse­um in the King’s English.

This is one place you must vis­it when you come to Aiboni­to. After all, Fed­eri­co Dege­tau was Puer­to Rico’s first res­i­dent com­mis­sion­er between 1900 and 1905. And in case you’re unfa­mil­iar with the term, a res­i­dent com­mis­sion­er is a non-vot­ing mem­ber of the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed by the peo­ple of Puer­to Rico. Res­i­dent com­mis­sion­ers are the only mem­bers of con­gress that serve for a four year term.

But Dege­tau was much more than a sim­ple politi­cian. He was a phil­an­thropist, lawyer, writer, author and painter who trained in Barcelona and at the Com­plutense Uni­ver­si­ty in Madrid.

The muse­um is filled to the brim with doc­u­ments and mem­o­ra­bil­ia from the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, as well as oth­er arti­facts that have been donat­ed by the local pub­lic. In fact, every­thing in the build­ing is either obtained from oth­er insti­tu­tions, a repli­ca or a dona­tion. At one point this was a con­demned struc­ture that was almost demol­ished and turned into a ham­burg­er joint.

Thank God that a group of con­cerned cit­i­zens that call them­selves the “Patrona­to del Archi­vo Históri­co de Aiboni­to”, in Eng­lish the “Board of Trustees of the Aiboni­to His­tor­i­cal Archive”, took it upon them­selves to save and restore the house and turn it into a muse­um. “Casa Museo Fed­eri­co Dege­tau” is open Fri­days and Sat­ur­days only. Admit­tance is free but dona­tions are encouraged.

Nor­ma Maldonado

And if the “Casa Museo Fed­eri­co Dege­tau” is great, even greater are the “two Nor­mas”. And who were they? Well, they were the two ladies that spent well over an hour with us and explained every cor­ner of this won­der­ful place. Their names: Nor­ma Mal­don­a­do and Nor­ma Reyes.

Nor­ma Reyes

And, as it turns out (because the world is cer­tain­ly a small­er place that we think) Nor­ma Reyes turned out to be the wid­ow of my friend Joe Esterás, who I met dur­ing my radio years at a local AM sta­tion in Old San Juan.

Their’s a third vol­un­teer called Miguel Bis­bal who’s just as knowl­edge­able, but we was tak­ing care of anoth­er group that had just arrived from a dif­fer­ent town.

After spend­ing over an hour show­ing us the muse­um, the two Nor­mas struck a con­ver­sa­tion with us and end­ed up telling us about all the places that we “couldn’t miss” dur­ing our visit.

One of those places that we “couldn’t miss” was “Galería Vista Ale­gre”. Remem­ber the place with the two roost­ers on the cor­ner of road 14 and Padi­al Street? Well, that was it! It was an art gallery and we had no idea

We walked north to the cor­ner of Fed­eri­co Dege­tau and road 14, turned right, and returned to the gallery on the next corner.

Gallería Vista Ale­gre is a recent­ly opened art gallery that holds a beau­ti­ful paint­ing col­lec­tion donat­ed by Dr. Jorge Luis Sanchez Colón, a local der­ma­tol­o­gist who was also a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Gov­ern­ment Board of Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico.

So why the roost­ers? Well, as it turns out, Sánchez grew up next to a cock fight­ing ring and “Vista Ale­gre” was the name of that ring.

When we got to the gallery we met with Mr. Anto­nio Sánchez, a very nice man who turned out to be doc­tor Sánchez’s broth­er. Admit­tance to the gallery is free.

The gallery is divid­ed into two sec­tions. One side has doc­tor Sanchez’s pri­vate col­lec­tion and the oth­er has paint­ings by local artists.

Once again, after going through the gallery, we struck a con­ver­sa­tion with the muse­um atten­dant about Aiboni­to and its attrac­tions. Come to think of it, every­where we went in Aiboni­to we met with hap­py out­go­ing peo­ple that were eager to help.

Aiboni­to Mon­u­men­tal Flower Clock (el reloj de flo­res)
(click on image to see it larger)

It was way past noon and we still had sev­er­al places on our to do list, so we after leav­ing “Galería Vista Ale­gre” we went straight to “El Jardín De Jean­ny”, a local plant nurs­ery where they recent­ly installed a mon­u­men­tal flo­ral clock. Of course, peo­ple don’t call it that. They sim­ply call it “el reloj de flores”.

It’s all the rage and peo­ple from all over the Island go there to enjoy it.

When we got there we met with Mrs. Jean­ny Ibar­ra, who was kind enough to give us all the details about the new clock as well as a pri­vate tour.

It all start­ed with a trip to Nia­gara Falls, where Mrs. Ibar­ra and her hus­band saw a sim­i­lar time­piece. This is cer­tain­ly not the only mon­u­men­tal clock in Puer­to Rico, but it’s prob­a­bly the only one that works.

Mrs. Jean­ny Ibar­ra told us every­thing about the clock.
(click on image to see it larger)

It’s a joint ven­ture between Puer­to Rico and Mex­i­co and there are no fed­er­al, state or munic­i­pal fund involved. It’s a 100% pri­vate concern.

Mrs. Ibar­ra was quick to point out that the clock was tai­lor made to blend in with the area’s moun­tains. That’s why it’s slant­ed low­er than oth­er clocks built by the same company.

It’s also alive! Well, at least the flow­ers are. It has over 5,000 plants that are actu­al­ly “plant­ed in the ground” and fed with a drip sys­tem con­trolled by hygrom­e­ters. That means that the sys­tem know when the soil is moist or dry and applies water accordingly.

The “bel­ly of the beast”. We even got to see the mech­a­nisms and com­put­ers that “make it tick”. |
(click on image to see it larger)

At the heart of the sys­tem is a com­put­er-con­trolled mech­a­nism that actu­ates the clock, keeps it in per­fect time via the Inter­net and rings the bells every fif­teen min­utes and on the hour. It also plays sev­er­al tunes that vary by the time of day and day of the week.

There are sev­er­al oth­er ameni­ties at the “reloj de flo­res”, like an arte­sanal fair on week­ends, food, cof­fee, soft drinks and arti­sanal bev­er­age called “maví” that goes all the way back to the Island’s Taíno roots. It’s an acquired taste, but I per­son­al­ly love it.

Alco­holic bev­er­ages are not served in keep­ing with the fam­i­ly ori­ent­ed vibe.

Admit­tance to the “reloj de flo­res” is not free. After all, it’s a pri­vate ven­ture, so some­one has to pay the piper. How­ev­er, the price is only five dol­lars for adults, chil­dren under 12 are free and there are spe­cial rates for groups and seniors. This cov­ers a detailed tour of the clock as well as a sneak peak of the mech­a­nism that makes it all work. All in all, you’ll spend about an hour at the “reloj de flores”.

Of course, if you’re a local, you’ll be able to buy plants at the nurs­ery. But, if you’re a tourist, they’ll be tak­en away by the Fed­er­al Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture at the airport.

There are two places that I’m going to men­tion in the remain­der of this arti­cle. One of them requieres a guid­ed tour that you can arrange through city hall and the oth­er requires that you vis­it Puer­to Rico in July.

First we’ll talk about San Cristóbal Canyon, or “El Cañón de San Cristóbal”, as it’s com­mon­ly known in Puer­to Rico.

San Cristóbal Canyon (Cañón de San Cristóbal)
(click on image to see it larger)

The San Cristóbal Canyon is the deep­est land canyon in the Caribbean, and it’s home to some of the tallest water­falls in Puer­to Rico.

Accord­ing to Wikipedia, at its tallest point, the San Cristóbal Canyon has a ver­ti­cal drop of over 800 feet and a length of 6½ miles. It was carved by the Usabón Riv­er and it has more than 696 species of flo­ra and 144 species of fauna.

I walked all the way to the bot­tom of San Cristóbal Canyon about 25 years ago. What I didn’t real­ize at the time was that the same 800 feet down were the 800 feet that I’d have to climb on my way back. Need­less to say, I was con­vinced that I’d die then and there. The heat was unbear­able, I was pant­i­ng beyond con­trol and sweat­ing profusely.

That was when I was a lot younger. Today I wouldn’t even try. Keep this in mind before sign­ing up for this adventure.

We’re talk­ing about rugged ter­rain, slip­pery sur­faces and lots of humid­i­ty. Once you get to the bot­tom you get mixed feel­ings. On one hand it’s a beau­ti­ful place with lush veg­e­ta­tion and the tallest water­falls in Puer­to Rico. But on the oth­er hand there used to be garbage and rust­ed cars. That’s right!!! For many years the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Aiboni­to and oth­er sur­round­ing towns used the San Cristóbal Canyon as a landfill.

San Cristóbal Canyon Panorama

Thank­ful­ly, the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­tion Trust took over the place and has since done every­thing with­in its reach to restore it to its orig­i­nal glory.

This time we planned to walk to an obser­va­tion deck where you can see the canyon length­wise and a huge water­fall at the end. But we reached a point where we could already see what were sup­posed to be the falls and the riv­er bed was a lit­tle bit dry. Appar­ent­ly, it hasn’t rained much in recent days and the falls show it.

So at a lit­tle more than halfway to the obser­va­tion deck we decid­ed to return to our car.

Maga Flower (flor de maga)
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Oh, and one last thing. What’s with that red flower that’s on the video thumb­nail? You did­n’t think I’d for­get?  Did you? Is that an “hibis­cus”? Nope!!! And it isn’t an “amap­o­la” either. It’s called a “flor de maga” or (maga flower) and it’s Puer­to Rico’s state flower! And just so you know, it does­n’t come from a plant or bush. It actu­al­ly comes from the “maga tree” and we ran into one on our way to San Cristóbal Canyon.

And what about that oth­er attrac­tion that you can only see in July? Well, it’s called the “Aiboni­to Flower Fes­ti­val” or “El Fes­ti­val De Las Flo­res De Aiboni­to” that draws thou­sands of tourists from all over the Island every month of July.

Aiboni­to Flower Fes­ti­val (Fes­ti­val de las Flo­res de Aiboni­to)
(click on image to see it larger)

There’s a rea­son why Aiboni­to is called “El Jardín de Puer­to Rico”, or “Puer­to Rico’s Gar­den. Plant nurs­eries are sim­ply every­where. The cool­er cli­mate and fer­tile ter­rain cer­tain­ly favor grow­ing activ­i­ties and the “Aiboni­to Flower Fes­ti­val” show­cas­es them.

My wife and I vis­it­ed the flower fes­ti­val last July and saved the pic­tures for this arti­cle. It’s a mul­ti-date event with plant exhibits, sem­i­nars, music and Puer­to Rican food galore.

So where can you find more infor­ma­tion about this and oth­er points of inter­est in Aiboni­to? Your best bet is at City Hall. Just call (787) 735‑8181.

When we left San Cristóbal Canyon it was almost 4:30 and the dri­ve back to San Juan was a lit­tle over an hour. So we drove down to the neigh­bor­ing town of Cayey, took PR-52 and fol­lowed it to San Juan. In any case, if you’re not a local, your best bet is to get the coor­di­nates to your hotel and punch them into your GPS to find your way back.

And talk­ing about San Juan, if you’re plan­ning to vis­it the Old City, save your­self the has­sle of tra­di­tion­al city tours. They’re expen­sive and you’ll be herd­ed along with peo­ple that won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly share your interests.

Instead, order The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour. It’s packed with use­ful infor­ma­tion about all the main attrac­tions, as well as every GPS coor­di­nate and two hours of exclu­sive online video. That way you’ll be able to —vis­it before you vis­it— and hit the ground run­ning when you arrive in the Old City.

See you next time!

©2024,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

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