Guayama, it could be so much more! 

Saint Antho­ny of Pad­ua Parish and Christo­pher Colum­bus Square Fountain
(click on image to see it larger)

Puer­to Rico is a great place to write a trav­el blog. And if you’re cov­er­ing the town of Guaya­ma, it’s even bet­ter. Or is it?

Last year was a great year at Puer­to Rico By GPS. After being sort of dor­mant for a very long time, we decid­ed to “take the bull by the horns” and embark in a 3‑year project (more like three and a half). We decid­ed to cov­er 26 of the 78 munic­i­pal­i­ties on the Island every year. At that rate it would take us exact­ly 3 years to cov­er all 78 towns (wish­ful thinking).

What actu­al­ly hap­pened was that we end­ed cov­er­ing 23. But just think of it. Twen­ty three towns, with 23 videos and 23 elab­o­rate blog posts in a sin­gle year “ain’t bad”. And if you throw in the two trav­el books that I also updat­ed: “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” and “Puer­to Rico Beach By Beach”, that “ain’t bad at all”.

After cov­er­ing the town of Arroyo in Novem­ber we decid­ed to give it a rest ’til late Jan­u­ary. Now why would I do a thing like that? Well, Puer­to Rico has one of the longest Christ­mas sea­sons on the Plan­et. It extends from Thanks­giv­ing Day to the San Sebas­t­ian Street Fies­tas. Some peo­ple par­ty even longer and cel­e­brate some­thing called “las octavitas”.

In any case, cov­er­ing Christ­mas fes­tiv­i­ties falls into the realm of news; and I don’t do news in Puer­to Rico By GPS. Why? Because news is total­ly the oppo­site of “ever­green”, which is what I strive for. What’s news today is his­to­ry tomor­row, and nobody search­es for “old news”. That’s called “his­to­ry”.

Now that Christ­mas was over, we decid­ed to vis­it the town of Guaya­ma, on the south­east­ern coast of Puer­to Rico.

Guaya­ma is a beau­ti­ful town, with an even nicer Catholic Church and mag­nif­i­cent archi­tec­ture. I couldn’t ver­i­fy this piece of infor­ma­tion, but there must be some sort of munic­i­pal ordi­nance pro­tect­ing antique build­ings in Guaya­ma, because they are sim­ply every­where. Oth­er towns on the Island have beau­ti­ful build­ings from the Island’s Span­ish colo­nial peri­od, but many have demol­ished some of them and replaced them with boxy mod­ern struc­tures that break with the “old ambiance”.

I’ve always believed that you can tell a lot about a town’s his­to­ry by just look­ing at its archi­tec­ture. And in the case of Guaya­ma you can tell that it was once an eco­nom­ic pow­er­house. When exact­ly? Well, dur­ing the 18th and 19th cen­turies. Even dur­ing the first half of the 20th cen­tu­ry if you would like to stretch things.

First it was an agri­cul­tur­al pow­er­house under the Span­ish colo­nial regime and then it became a sug­ar cane pow­er­house under Amer­i­can rule. Dur­ing the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry they bet­ted it all on indus­tri­al­iza­tion. That went well for a while, but it even­tu­al­ly col­lapsed when the U.S. Con­gressed repealed the tax code incen­tives that made it all possible.

Today there is still some indus­try in Guaya­ma, but nev­er as far reach­ing as what it was dur­ing the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s. As for agri­cul­ture? It’s most­ly gone as well.

Saint Antho­ny of Pad­ua Parish
(click on image to see it larger)

My wife and I got to Guaya­ma close to 9:00am. We always try to arrive ear­ly to catch the Catholic church open. It used to be that Catholic church­es would remain open all day. But that was before van­dal­ism and crime became a thing on the Island. Now it’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. We have to remem­ber that church­es oper­ate as NPOs (non prof­it orga­ni­za­tions) so they don’t have the peo­ple —or the resources— to pro­tect their hous­es of wor­ship all day long. So, their only oth­er option is to close while the tem­ple is not in use.

When my wife and I arrived the tem­ple was —in fact— closed. And it was a pity because the Catholic tem­ple in Guaya­ma is sim­ply stun­ning. It’s called the Saint Antho­ny of Pad­ua Parish (Par­ro­quia San Anto­nio de Pad­ua) and it was open in 1874.

The church is a twin tow­er Roman Catholic Parish built in the eclec­tic romanesque style, the only one of its kind in Puer­to Rico. The bells were cast in Ger­many in 1835 of a bronze and gold alloy. They were donat­ed by Catali­na Algar­ín, a well-to-do local who request­ed that they be engraved with the names of her daugh­ters Teo­dosia, Lau­re­ana and Estefanía.

See clock below the bell area.
(click on image to see it larger)

The clock on the tem­ple’s front fac­ing wall was built in Switzer­land by one of the most pres­ti­gious clock­mak­ers of the day. The small­er clock, paint­ed to its right, marks 11:30am, which was exact­ly the time when the tem­ple was christened.

The light­ning rod atop the tow­er was installed in 1881 and the church was in­scribed in the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places in 1976. Giv­en the spec­tac­u­lar exte­ri­or of this mag­nif­i­cent tem­ple, we couldn’t wait to see the inte­ri­or. So we crossed the street, imme­di­ate­ly behind the church, and went to the Parish office to see if there was some­one avail­able that could show us the church interior.

Of course, we told them who we were and why we were there, but still we were unable to see the church inte­ri­or. At first glance it would seem like drop­ping in unan­nounced, and expect­ing to be accom­mo­dat­ed, was kind of pre­ten­tious. But expe­ri­ence has taught us oth­er­wise.

When we start­ed this series of vis­its, back in Jan­u­ary of 2023, I tried con­tact­ing City Hall at each town and talk­ing with some­one in charge of tourism. The idea was to sched­ule our vis­its and have some­one show us around and lay the ground­work. Sounds log­i­cal, right? Well, Puer­to Rico doesn’t respond well to log­ic!!! The result was one or two answers out of dozens of emails and phone calls.

That’s why I do it like I do it. One, because I waste a lot less time and two, because that’s the way real tourists do it. They don’t call ahead. They just drop by. And if the expe­ri­ence is bad, they just write you up on social media. It’s the new world order.

After a dis­ap­point­ing first vis­it to the parish office, we decid­ed to explore oth­er attrac­tions around town and return lat­er to see if some­one had “become available”.

Christo­pher Colum­bus Square and Fountain
(click on image to see it larger)

Our next stop was at Christo­pher Colum­bus Square, bet­ter known among the locals as “Plaza de Recreo Cristóbal Colón”. In a word, it’s “beau­ti­ful”. The Guaya­ma Christo­pher Colum­bus Square is known around Puer­to Rico for its mag­nif­i­cent trees. But it’s way more than that. It’s a liv­ing, breath­ing, place of reunion and exchange. Peo­ple actu­al­ly enjoy each other’s com­pa­ny and talk to each oth­er! Remark­able, right?

The plaza has a beau­ti­ful foun­tain in the cen­ter that was import­ed from France in 1918 by then may­or Genaro Cau­tiño Insúa. It also has gaze­bos, dozens of bench­es for peo­ple watch­ing and lush well-pruned gar­dens. Come to think of it, I didn’t see a sin­gle piece of garbage on the floor or graf­fi­ti either. There seems to be a cer­tain sense of pride here that’s some­how absent in oth­er towns.

Luis Palés Matos Bust
(click on image to see it larger)

Towards the north end of the square there’s a bust hon­or­ing Luis Palés Matos, a local fig­ure who was a writer, poet, news­pa­per reporter and one of Puer­to Rico’s most impor­tant lit­er­ary figures.

Across the street from the Luis Palés Matos bust is Guayama’s City Hall build­ing. After strik­ing out at the Saint Antho­ny of Pad­ua Parish our idea was to vis­it City Hall and ask about oth­er tourist attrac­tions in town. Sad­ly, they were in the mid­dle of a pow­er out­age. So the lady was more eager to get rid of us than to take care of us in the mid­dle of that “sweaty” environment.

So far we had two strikes against us and things were look­ing kind’a bleak. So we decid­ed to go to Casa Cau­tiño, on the north­east end of Christop­er Colum­bus Square. And boy did we hit the motherload!

Casa Cau­tiño House Museum
(click on image to see it larger)

Casa Cau­tiño is a house-muse­um locat­ed on the cor­ner of Vicente Palés and San­ti­a­go Palmer streets. The house was built for Genaro Cau­tiño Vázquez, a wealthy local landown­er and busi­ness­man of Por­tuguese descent, who was also a colonel of the vol­un­teer bat­tal­ion for the Span­ish Army.

Three gen­er­a­tions of Cau­tiños called this place home through­out the years, includ­ing its orig­i­nal own­er Genaro Cau­tiño Váquez and his wife Gen­ove­va Insúa Bil­lar, his son Genaro Cau­tiño Insúa and his wife Mon­ser­rate, and his grand­son Genaro Cau­tiño Bruno and his wife.

In the back room there is a plac­ard made of human hair that belonged to Jua­na Mon­ser­rate Vázquez. Doña Jua­na was actu­al­ly Genaro Cau­tiño’s moth­er, who died of cholera at the young age of 32. Her hus­band, Manuel Cau­tiño (Genaro’s father) had her hair cut and the plac­ard made to hon­or her memory.

Casa Cau­tiño is one of the rare muse­ums in Puer­to Rico in which every piece is an orig­i­nal. Not a sin­gle item has been brought from some­where else or replaced with a repli­ca. It has 16-foot ceil­ings and a host of details that make it spe­cial. So much so that it’s includ­ed in the Nation­al Archive of His­toric Buildings.

The house is shaped like a U with a court­yard in the rear cen­ter. Admit­tance is free and the lady that took care of us was quite knowl­edge­able and friend­ly. She did, how­ev­er, ask not to appear on cam­era, so we hon­ored her wishes.

As we exit­ed Casa Cau­tiño we decid­ed to give the Church a sec­ond try. How­ev­er, the young lady at the Parish office said that she still didn’t have any­one avail­able to show us the tem­ple interior.

We had sev­er­al oth­er places that we want­ed to see on the out­skirts of town, so we decid­ed to go there and maybe return to the Parish Office for a third and final try some­time around noon.

Machete Sug­ar Cane Mill
(click on image to see it larger)

Our first vis­it was to the old Machete Sug­ar Cane Mill. Like most sug­ar cane oper­a­tions on the Island the Machete Mill is in a sad state of affairs. There’s noth­ing there except for a rust­ed build­ing and the orig­i­nal smoke stack.

While explor­ing the map, in prepa­ra­tion for our vis­it to Guaya­ma, I had seen a place called “Playi­ta Machete” (Machete Beach). How­ev­er, let me tell you right now: while Guaya­ma is a coastal town, it’s cer­tain­ly not a beach town by any stretch of imag­i­na­tion. Keep read­ing and you’ll see why.

Machete Beach is not a beach at all. It’s actu­al­ly a stretch of hous­es that are built along the coast in a sim­i­lar fash­ion as what we’ve seen in Patil­las and at Las Picúas, in the town of Río Grande. They build the hous­es very close to the water and then string them togeth­er in such a way that it clos­es off access to the coast and obscures the beach alto­geth­er. You can hard­ly see the water.

My wife and I were ask­ing our­selves “is this is even legal”, since the struc­tures actu­al­ly sit well with­in the ter­res­tri­al mar­itime zone. In any case, it keeps hap­pen­ing every­where and the gov­ern­ment doesn’t move a fin­ger to stop it.

Next we tried a place called “Los Limones Beach”, which is actu­al­ly at the end of a dead-end street. In this case, we’re talk­ing about a wild beach behind a com­mu­ni­ty, where there’s almost no place to park and no facil­i­ties at all. How­ev­er, I was telling my wife that a land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er could shoot some killer sun­sets there because of the rugged terrain.

Final­ly, we vis­it­ed Pozue­lo Beach, which I guess you could call a beach, if you were into surf­ing and risk­ing your life. The place has show­ers, gaze­bos, bath­rooms and ample park­ing, but the surf was very men­ac­ing, to say the least. There was a man in charge who told us that the beach is extreme­ly dan­ger­ous with high waves, rip­tides and water swirls. He also told us that surfers seem to love it!

Land­scape shot at Pozue­lo Beach
(click on image to see it larger)

In fact, as I approached the shore to shoot my video there was a surfer com­ing out of the water. If you ask me, I wouldn’t go any­where close to that water. I did, how­ev­er, man­age to shoot some nice land­scape shots.

Pozue­lo Beach also proved to be a great place to have lunch, so my wife pulled out our cool­er and we enjoyed some well deserved sand­wich­es and soft drinks.

Oh, and before I for­get, I recent­ly released the sec­ond edi­tion of my book “Puer­to Rico Beach By Beach”, where I explore 53 of the island’s most spec­tac­u­lar beach­es. And believe me, there’s noth­ing else like it on the market.

My wife and I actu­al­ly vis­it­ed all 53 beach­es, inspect­ed them care­ful­ly, talked with the locals, shot pic­tures and video, and record­ed the GPS coor­di­nates. So the book includes detailed infor­ma­tion, GPS coor­di­nates, an online GPS map plot­ting all 53 beach­es and access to an online video of each beach. That way you’ll be able to “vis­it before you vis­it” and go straight to the one you pre­fer when you get here.

For more infor­ma­tion vis­it: puertoricobeachbybeach.com for the Eng­lish ver­sion and puertoricoplayaporplaya.com for Spanish.

It was almost 1:00 o’clock when we returned to the parish office for the third time. This time there was a dif­fer­ent lady, who obvi­ous­ly didn’t know any­thing about our first two attempts, and wasn’t able to find any­one to show us the tem­ple inte­ri­or either. So we decid­ed to head back to San Juan.

At first glance you could say that we had it com­ing for not plan­ning ahead, for not call­ing before­hand and sched­ul­ing a vis­it. But the fact is that no tourist in the world does that. They sim­ply drop by unannounced.

So here are my two cents about Guaya­ma. It’s a great town, with nice peo­ple and beau­ti­ful archi­tec­ture. But it could be so much more. At least in the tourism sense.

I’ve said this before. So at the risk of sound­ing like a bro­ken record, here I go again. There are actu­al­ly tourists that go around the world vis­it­ing old church­es. Don’t believe me? What do you think Rome is all about? Half of what you see in Rome are old church­es. The same thing hap­pens in Spain, Eng­land, France and all around Europe.

The not-so-obvi­ous thing is that Puer­to Rico has spec­tac­u­lar church­es too. Why? Because Puer­to Rico is over 500 years old and our cul­ture is deeply root­ed in Europe.

Now, I can under­stand why church offi­cials don’t see their tem­ples as tourists attrac­tions. But the fact is that in many cas­es they are, whether they like it or not. And they can help infuse eco­nom­ic life to their respec­tive towns. Why? Because peo­ple vis­it these tem­ples and then they go on to vis­it the dif­fer­ent muse­ums and plazas, eat at the local restau­rants and spend at the local stores.

What’s more, they shoot video with their smart­phones, make pret­ty pic­tures and then put it all on social media, which in turn pro­motes the town and brings even more visitors.

But who am I to voice an opin­ion about these things. I’m just an old guy with his cam­eras that’s been trav­el­ing with his wife for over 40 years. So this isn’t some­thing that I think. It’s actu­al­ly some­thing that I’ve seen. Repeatedly.

Guaya­ma was just the first of a long string of towns that we hope to vis­it in 2024. And we’re going to keep doing what we do: drop­ping by unan­nounced —like real tourists do— pro­duc­ing videos and writ­ing about our expe­ri­ences. That’s the Puer­to Rico By GPS promise and my audi­ence wouldn’t have it any oth­er way.

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