Coamo: The Town with Healing Waters and a Legendary Race! 

It was 7:58am on the morn­ing of March 20, 2025 when my wife Zorai­da and I left for the town of Coamo. We had planned to vis­it the town of Ponce next on our jour­ney to vis­it all 78 munic­i­pal­i­ties in Puer­to Rico, but I still remem­ber our neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence there, when I chose them to be our first post back on Sep­tem­ber 15, 2013, so I decid­ed to leave them for our next cycle and go north.

Coamo is a beau­ti­ful town of a lit­tle over 34,000 inhab­i­tants, found­ed on July 15, 1579 in the south cen­tral region of Puer­to Rico. It’s the third old­est munic­i­pal­i­ty in Puer­to Rico, after San Juan on the north and San Ger­mán on the west coast.. In its hey­day it was so large that it encom­passed the neigh­bor­ing towns of: Oro­co­vis, Bar­ran­quitas, Com­erío, Cidra, Vil­lal­ba, Aiboni­to, Cayey, Jua­na Díaz, San­ta Isabel, Sali­nas, Guaya­ma, Arroyo and Patillas.

Get­ting to Coamo is easy. If you’re com­ing from Isla Verde, Con­da­do or San Juan just take State Road 22 until you get to the inter­sec­tion with Sate Road 18, con­tin­ue on 18 ‘till you find the inter­sec­tion with Toll Road 52 and con­tin­ue on 52 until you reach exit 76. The entire trip should take about an hour.

From exit 76 on it will be a mat­ter of fol­low­ing the road signs. But, if you would like to make things even eas­i­er, just punch in the fol­low­ing coor­di­nates for San Blas Church (18.080699, ‑66.356243) into your GPS, and you’ll arrive in the mid­dle of town.

While pre pro­duc­ing the video for Coamo I real­ized that my wife and I have vis­it­ed all the sur­round­ing towns and I had nev­er tak­en the time to speak a lit­tle about Puer­to Rico Toll Road 52 and its sur­round­ings. So this time we made sev­er­al stops along the way to make some pho­tographs and record some footage.

FAA reg­u­la­tions stip­u­late that drone oper­a­tors are not sup­posed to fly over peo­ple or mov­ing vehi­cles. So the trick was to fly up and away from the road and record from over the green countryside.

Click on image to watch the video

On your way to Coamo you’ll be trav­el­ing through Puer­to Rico’s cen­tral moun­tain­ous region, known among the locals as “La Cordillera Cen­tral”. The road you’ll be trav­el­ing on was orig­i­nal­ly known as “Expre­so Las Améri­c­as” and built dur­ing the gov­er­nor­ship of Luis Fer­ré in the late 60’s and ear­ly 70’s.

Rumor has it that the road was actu­al­ly designed by his pre­de­ces­sor Rober­to Sánchez Vilel­la, who designed it to be paved in black top. But giv­en that Luis Fer­ré was pres­i­dent of Puer­to Rico Cement (one of the largest cement man­u­fac­tur­ers on the Island at the time) the road was final­ly laid in con­crete. Since then it has been in a state of con­stant repair.

Gos­sip aside, the ride is spec­tac­u­lar, with lush green coun­try­side and moun­tains galore. About halfway through your ride, at km 49.0, there’s a beau­ti­ful mon­u­ment on your right hand side ded­i­cat­ed to the “The Puer­to Rican Peas­ant”, known local­ly as “jíbaros”.

Sad­ly, “jíbaros” don’t seem to mat­ter much in mod­ern Puer­to Rico, because the stat­ue is dirty, the sur­round­ings are over­grown and there’s nowhere to park. Of course, some will argue that there’s a may­or road repair going on right across the street. But, the oper­a­tive word is “across” the street. There’s no con­nec­tion between the elbow and the bel­ly button.

Right behind the “Mon­u­men­to Al Jíbaro” there’s a cou­ple of beau­ti­ful moun­tains called “Las Piedras del Col­la­do”, but the locals sim­ply call them “Las Tetas de Cayey”. In case you’re won­der­ing why, it’s for the same rea­son that the “Grand Tetons”, in the great state of Wyoming are called “Grand Tetons”. Still don’t know why? Look it up!

They’re also the tallest peaks along the entire road, stand­ing at 2,762 feet.

How­ev­er, be advised that “this entire area is dan­ger­ous”. You’ll have to park on the shoul­der of the road, where 18-wheel­ers whiz by at break­neck speeds, and your left two wheels will be almost on the pave­ment. Oh, and this cer­tain­ly not a place to hang out after sunset.

By the time I shot all my pho­tographs and filmed all my drone footage it was almost 10:30am.

It was 11:00am when my wife and I final­ly arrived in the town of Coamo. We always try to vis­it the church first thing in the morn­ing, but this time we were late. Luck­i­ly it was open.

There was also a health fair going on in the main square so we con­cen­trat­ed on the church inte­ri­or while we wait­ed for the fair to dissipate.

The Church of Saint Blaise of Illescas, known local­ly as “la Igle­sia de San Blas de Illescas,” is a stun­ning exam­ple of baroque archi­tec­ture and is often regard­ed as one of Puer­to Rico’s most sig­nif­i­cant reli­gious landmarks.

Con­struc­tion of this remark­able tem­ple began in 1661, with a major recon­struc­tion tak­ing place in 1784.

Perched at the east­ern edge of Luis Muñoz Rivera Square—the heart of the town’s social life—the church is set apart from the open plaza below by an ele­gant series of cer­e­mo­ni­al steps and an intri­cate cast-iron balustrade.

Inside, the church is just as breath­tak­ing, fea­tur­ing a strik­ing altar, vault­ed ceil­ings, and an impres­sive col­lec­tion of reli­gious art­work. Among its artis­tic trea­sures is El Bautismo, an 1813 paint­ing by Miguel Campeche, the elder broth­er of Puer­to Rico’s most renowned painter, José Campeche.

And if you’re curi­ous, the altar fol­lows the tra­di­tion­al Catholic ori­en­ta­tion, fac­ing east. Con­ve­nient­ly, City Hall stands direct­ly across the square on the west­ern side.

Sur­round­ing the tem­ple is a pic­turesque plaza named after Luis Muñoz Rivera, a native of Bar­ran­quitas and Puer­to Rico’s sec­ond res­i­dent com­mis­sion­er. When it comes to main squares, this one ranks among the most charm­ing any­where on the Island.

One of its stand­out qual­i­ties is its cleanliness—completely free of graf­fi­ti, which, to me, is essen­tial. It’s also quite expan­sive, offer­ing plen­ty of shade from its trees and an abun­dance of bench­es, per­fect for sit­ting back and people-watching.

On the north­east side of the plaza, an obelisk stands in hon­or of the town’s heroes who made the ulti­mate sac­ri­fice for democracy.

Mean­while, the south­west cor­ner fea­tures a dif­fer­ent kind of monument—one ded­i­cat­ed to the “piragüero.” In Puer­to Rico, a “piragua” is a tra­di­tion­al snow cone made of shaved ice topped with fruit syrup. When I was a child, they were served in paper cones, but nowa­days, they come in plas­tic cups.

The “piragüero” was the ven­dor who sold these refresh­ing treats, though, sad­ly, they seem to be dis­ap­pear­ing. I don’t see as many of them around as I used to.

After leav­ing “la Igle­sia de San Blas,” we took a stroll through the near­by streets. Coamo has that unmis­tak­able Span­ish charm, the same one you find in places like Old San Juan, Ponce, and San Ger­mán. And there’s a good rea­son for that—these are some of the old­est cities in Puer­to Rico, so their archi­tec­ture is deeply root­ed in Span­ish tradition.

From the church, we head­ed over to City Hall to ask about things to see and do in Coamo. A kind lady direct­ed us to the munic­i­pal tourism office for more details. On the way there, I couldn’t help but notice how much recon­struc­tion was hap­pen­ing all around town.

The tourism office sits at the cor­ner of Dr. Veve Street and State Road 14. We stopped by hop­ing to find some local muse­ums to explore, but most were either closed or under ren­o­va­tion. So, we decid­ed to check out some old bridges I had found while dig­ging through Google a few days before.

Well… that didn’t go quite as planned.

Our first stop was the Padre Íñi­go Bridge, a lat­tice gird­er bridge built over the Coamo Riv­er some­time between 1853 and 1879. A mod­ern bridge runs right along­side it, han­dling all the traf­fic. The town keeps the old bridge clean and in good shape, though it’s only for pedes­tri­ans. At one end, there’s a stair­case paint­ed with the Puer­to Rican flag and a small park with a con­tem­po­rary sculp­ture. But one thing left me scratch­ing my head—how did such a sim­ple bridge take 26 years to build?

Next up: “El Puente de las Cal­abazas” (or “The Pump­kins Bridge,” if you pre­fer). It was sup­posed to be a sin­gle-span lat­tice gird­er bridge from 1882, cross­ing the Cuyón Riv­er. Instead, we found a mod­ern bridge that bor­rowed a few dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments from the orig­i­nal to give it an “antique” look. I guess Hur­ri­cane María left its mark on Coamo too.

Our third attempt was the Gen­er­al Mén­dez Vigo Bridge, a bar­rel vault struc­ture built over the Las Minas Riv­er in 1862. Well, when we got there, all we found was over­grown veg­e­ta­tion, no clear way to film, and a bro­ken water main that had left a good part of Coamo dry.

With three strikes against us, we had one more bridge to vis­it. This had to be the one, right? Wrong.

The last stop was “Puente de las Flo­res,” which, despite the name, has noth­ing to do with flow­ers. It’s sim­ply locat­ed in a neigh­bor­hood called “Las Flo­res.” What we found was an aban­doned struc­ture, cov­ered in weeds, with zero appeal.

 

So, after four bridge blun­ders in a row, what did we learn? Once again, just because something’s on the inter­net doesn’t make it true. Duh!

Trav­el­ing is a con­tact sport. You have to go to places and see them with your own two eyes. I’ve run into this both in Puer­to Rico and in the States.

After strik­ing out four times, I need­ed to see some­thing that had been on my radar for decades. Coamo takes sports seri­ous­ly. Most peo­ple think of Coamo and imme­di­ate­ly pic­ture the San Blas Half Marathon. But before check­ing that out, there was some­thing else I want­ed to see first.

Back in the ‘60s, when I was a teenag­er, I was real­ly into cycling. There was a velo­drome near my house, and I prac­ti­cal­ly lived there in the evenings. At 16, I was all skin and muscle—no fat in sight. These days, the San Juan Velo­drome is a total wreck, but the one in Coamo? It’s in pris­tine condition.

One fea­ture I found par­tic­u­lar­ly clever is how they built a soc­cer field inside the track, mak­ing the most of the space and max­i­miz­ing the facility’s use­ful­ness. Great job, Coamo. I love it.

And then, of course, there’s the San Blas Half Marathon. It’s been run­ning (pun intend­ed) since 1965, draw­ing over 1,500 ath­letes from around the world and more than a quar­ter of a mil­lion spectators.

And, as is tra­di­tion in Puer­to Rico, the race is just the begin­ning. It all ends with a mas­sive town party—food, arti­san exhibits, music, and, nat­u­ral­ly, adult beverages.

So why did I save this for last? Not because it’s less impor­tant, but because it’s a once-a-year event.

Year­ly events are fan­tas­tic, and they build up excite­ment, but there’s a downside—they only hap­pen once a year. Duh!

Think about it. What’s Buñol like when it’s not La Tomati­na sea­son? What hap­pens in Pam­plona when peo­ple aren’t run­ning from bulls?

I didn’t want this video to focus on some­thing that only hap­pens in the last week of Feb­ru­ary. I want peo­ple to vis­it Coamo all year round.

 

Final­ly, there was one more spot we didn’t vis­it on our way out of town—the Coamo Hot Springs, or “Los Baños de Coamo.” These are the only nat­ur­al ther­mal springs in Puer­to Rico, a reminder of the island’s vol­canic past. But here’s the thing—they’re pri­vate­ly owned, and as you might already know, I pro­duce *Puer­to Rico By GPS* entire­ly out of my own pocket.

So, if a pri­vate busi­ness wants to be fea­tured in our videos, they need to share the pro­duc­tion costs. Seems fair to me.

As we passed the Baños de Coamo, we quick­ly reached PR-52 and head­ed back to San Juan.

 

Speak­ing of San Juan, if you’re plan­ning a vis­it to Old San Juan, do your­self a favor—skip the tra­di­tion­al city tours. They’re pricey, and you’ll be herd­ed along with peo­ple who may not share your interests.

Instead, check out *The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour.* It’s packed with use­ful infor­ma­tion on all the main attrac­tions, com­plete with GPS coor­di­nates and two hours of exclu­sive online video. That way, you can *vis­it before you vis­it* and hit the ground run­ning when you arrive in the Old City.

See you next time!

©2025,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
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