Gurabo Is Much More Than “El Cerro” 

Gurabo is one of those lit­tle towns in Puer­to Rico that many peo­ple just ignore. It’s east of Caguas, a larg­er city, and south of San Juan, the Island’s cap­i­tal. So it’s on the way to some­thing, next to some­where, but not some­thing in itself. Right? Wrong!!!

Gurabo is great. I actu­al­ly spent an entire day there with my wife Zorai­da and we had a great time. And for a town that’s sup­pos­ed­ly “on the way to some­where else” it has a great sports muse­um, a mag­nif­i­cent church that’s 200 years old, a bak­ery with a brick oven that’s over a cen­tu­ry old, a gallery show­ing the his­to­ry of the town in paint­ings and “el cer­ro” a 149-step stair­way that peo­ple from all over the world just love to climb. Oh, and did I men­tion that all of that is in a small town that peo­ple just pass by? Really?

My wife and I are on a mis­sion to explore every town in Puer­to Rico. We’re also on a mis­sion to vis­it every U.S. Nation­al Park. But that takes a lit­tle more time and a lot more cash. So far we’ve vis­it­ed 22 (parks, that is).

So, while we fat­ten our pig­gy bank, we thought we’d do a lit­tle local tourism and pro­duce con­tent for Puer­to Rico By GPS.

Our first two adven­tures were in the towns of Car­oli­na and Tru­jil­lo Alto (you can watch the videos here). We thought we’d go around San Juan in a clock­wise fash­ion, then do it again in a larg­er cir­cle and do it again and again until we cov­er the entire Island. Why cir­cle San Juan? Well, because that’s where we start­ed and we have lots of infor­ma­tion already. I even wrote a book titled “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” that’s avail­able in Eng­lish and Span­ish. It’s like hav­ing your own per­son­al guide to show you every lit­tle detail of the Old City at your own pace.

Back to Gurabo. This arti­cle con­tains both pho­tos and short videos. You can eas­i­ly miss the videos because they are acti­vat­ed by thumb­nails that look like pho­tos. The main dif­fer­ence is the blue round icon in the cen­ter of the thumb­nail. Click on those and the video pop­up win­dow will open. Click­ing on the oth­ers will reveal a large copy of the pho­to.  There is also an exten­sive video of Gurabo that you can watch here.

There are two ways to do what we do. You can go at it like a reg­u­lar tourist and write about your expe­ri­ence, or you can receive the coop­er­a­tion of each munic­i­pal­i­ty. Most peo­ple don’t both­er and just go at it alone. Those are the videos and arti­cles that you find on most blogs and on social media. And the truth of the mat­ter is that, even if you do try to con­tact the munic­i­pal­i­ties, most most of them just ignore you. So why both­er? It’s their loss.

We actu­al­ly take the time to write to each munic­i­pal­i­ty in advance, let them know that we’re com­ing and give them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate. If they do, well… they get to influ­ence our final prod­uct. And if they don’t, well… it’s like Yelp, they get to live with what­ev­er tourists write.

This vis­it was of the sec­ond vari­ety. I wrote a short email to May­oress Rosachely Rivera San­tana and received an answer the very next day. I couldn’t believe my eyes! On the morn­ing of Decem­ber 8 we met with Mrs. Glen­da Vil­lafañe, from the Gurabo Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Depart­ment, who in turn intro­duced us to Mrs. Rima­ry Gar­cía, a chub­by fel­low called Don Ismael (I did­n’t catch his last name) and Mr. Rubén San­tos of the Gurabo Tourist Depart­ment.  They were all won­der­ful peo­ple, but what real­ly sur­prised us was that such a small town would actu­al­ly have a tourism depart­ment at all, when oth­er larg­er ones don’t.  San­tos then pro­ced­ed to spend most his day with us and showed us every impor­tant cor­ner of this beau­ti­ful town.

Ruben turned out to be an amaz­ing guy, who’s an accom­plished and pro­lif­ic painter, the town’s his­to­ri­an and an all around expert in all things Gurabo and Puer­to Rico. He was also an amaz­ing host who went out of his way to make us feel welcome.

The his­to­ry of Gurabo goes back to the 17th Cen­tu­ry when a group of Span­ish set­tlers estab­lished a set­tle­ment between the Gurabo and Loíza rivers (Río Grande de Loíza, that is). Lat­er on the group splin­tered and a part of them migrat­ed east across the Gurabo riv­er to a hill called “el piñal”. There they built the “Dulce Nom­bre de Jesús” parish.

 

Part of the set­tlers moved back across the Gurabo riv­er to a place called “Bar­rero” where they estab­lished the town of Caguas. We’ll cov­er Caguas in a lat­er post. The rest remained at “El Piñal” which became the town of Gurabo in 1814. In 1822 they erect­ed the San José parish. We were unable to see the inte­ri­or of the parish because it’s under ren­o­va­tion after 200 years of con­tin­u­ous operation.

Many Puer­to Ricans false­ly believe that Gurabo was orig­i­nal­ly a part of Caguas. But, as his­to­ry shows us, both towns have a com­mon ori­gin. How­ev­er, Gurabo was bad­ly affect­ed by Puer­to Rico’s 1865 cholera epi­dem­ic as well as by var­i­ous hur­ri­canes through­out its history.

This led the Island’s Leg­is­la­ture to elim­i­nate the munic­i­pal­i­ty and annex the town to Caguas in 1902. Three years lat­er the mea­sure was revoked and in 1905 Gurabo regained it “sov­er­eign­ty”.  That’s prob­a­bly where the false belief came from.

Like many of the towns sur­round­ing San Juan, Gurabo is con­sid­ered a “dor­mi­to­ry” town. “Dor­mi­to­ries” are towns where the peo­ple that work in San Juan go to after work. How­ev­er, Rubén was quick to point out that those peo­ple have chil­dren that go to school in Gurabo. They also buy homes in Gurabo and par­tic­i­pate in every aspect of the local econ­o­my. So being a “dor­mi­to­ry” isn’t a bad deal after all.

Our first stop was in front of the orig­i­nal City Hall built in 1854. Back then it was known as “la casa del rey” (the king’s house) as it rep­re­sent­ed Span­ish rule on the Island. Atop the build­ing there’s a bell tow­er with an antique french clock built in 1900. The clock is one of a pair that were installed at the city halls of Gurabo and Vieques. Vieques is an island munic­i­pal­i­ty to the east of the main island that we’ll cov­er in a lat­er post.

The clock is a tow­er mod­el cre­at­ed by french clock­mak­er J. Bour­rett which was final­ly installed in 1910. It actu­al­ly works, albeit it was a lit­tle ahead when we got there. Accord­ing to Rubén, the town has a clock keep­er that cal­i­brates it every 8 days. Peo­ple from dif­fer­ent parts of the world have come to see the clock as it is one of only two ever built.

Like most towns in Puer­to Rico the church is built on one side of the square (with the altar fac­ing east). How­ev­er, City Hall, instead of being at the oppo­site side of the square, is actu­al­ly across San­ti­a­go street.

Right next to the old City Hall build­ing is the Gurabo Sports Muse­um, one of two that we have in Puer­to Rico. Ruben was quick to point out that the qual­i­ty of the polyurethane fig­ures at the Gurabo muse­um is way supe­ri­or to the ones at its Guayn­abo coun­ter­part. Guayn­abo is a town west of San Juan that we’ll cov­er in a lat­er post.

Our guide inside the muse­um was Mr. David Calderón Álvarez, who could eas­i­ly be a radio announc­er ‘cause he has “the voice” as they say in the biz. The fact that he knew every detail about each ath­lete didn’t hurt either.

The build­ing where the Gurabo Sports muse­um is today was orig­i­nal­ly a lodge. Lat­er on it became a bank. Hence, the orig­i­nal vault is still in use today to keep the museum’s most pre­cious pieces and olympic medals.

Walk­ing through the muse­um is like step­ping through his­to­ry. Dozens and dozens of Gurabo’s most accom­plished ath­letes are pre­sent­ed in such a way that they seem to be alive. The degree of detail is sim­ply mind boggling.

The cov­er­age starts with the Island’s orig­i­nal Taíno pop­u­la­tion and ends with mod­ern day heroes.

Even the stair­cas­es at “el cer­ro”, that I men­tioned dur­ing the intro­duc­tion, serve a prac­ti­cal pur­pose, as ath­letes from the Ana G, Mén­dez uni­ver­si­ty cam­pus west of town use them as a train­ing ground for their track and field runners.

Upon leav­ing the Gurabo Sports Muse­um we crossed over to “La Plaza De Los Próceres” (Hero Square, if you will), which is one the nicest in Puer­to Rico. It has four stat­ues, one on each cor­ner includ­ing Luis Muñoz Marín, .

In case you’re won­der­ing why that name keeps com­ing up, it’s because many Puer­to Ricans still con­sid­er him the best gov­er­nor the Island has ever had. The oth­er three heroes are Jaime Ser­ra­no (for­mer may­or of Gurabo for 30 years), Luis A. Fer­ré (for­mer gov­er­nor for the State­hood Par­ty and Ángel Viera Martínez (for­mer Speak­er of the House Of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Puer­to Rico).

After leav­ing the square we walked over to “Pan Car­rasquil­lo” a fam­i­ly-owned bak­ery, estab­lished in 1903, where every­thing is made fol­low­ing arti­sanal meth­ods in a brick oven built over a cen­tu­ry ago. The bread is the tra­di­tion­al “pan de agua” (known to most Amer­i­cans as french bread) but it has a par­tic­u­lar tex­ture that’s unique to “Pan Car­rasquil­lo”. The out­side is firm and crisp, but it doesn’t break into thou­sands of crumbs when you bite it. The inside is soft and deli­cious, with a taste that can only be achieved in a brick oven.

From there our next stop was at the Gurabo Cul­ture and Fine Arts Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. Orig­i­nal­ly it was a pub­lic school, built in 1948, and named after (you guessed it) then gov­er­nor Luis Muñoz Marín. Muñoz Marín found the move boast­ful and asked for the name to be removed. The name had been embed­ded into the con­crete (so it was nev­er phys­i­cal­ly removed). How­ev­er, the name of the build­ing was changed to Luis Muñoz Rivera (Muñoz’s father). After the death of Luis Muñoz Marín, in 1980, the school was once again named Luis Muñoz Marín.

In 1986 the build­ing ceased to be a reg­u­lar school and it was con­vert­ed into the Gurabo Cul­ture and Fine Arts Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. The cen­ter offers clases in art, paint­ing, car­toon­ing, pas­try, all kinds of danc­ing, mod­el­ling and much, much more.

Upon enter­ing the cen­ter you are met by a large atri­um with two stair­cas­es on the sides. On the sec­ond floor there are four enor­mous paint­ings, and sev­er­al small­er ones, that make up the Gurabo Bicen­ten­ni­al Hall, in Span­ish “la sala del Bicen­te­nario del Munici­pio de Gurabo”, a shin­ing exam­ple of how sto­ry­telling and paint­ing can be com­bined into a pow­er­ful teach­ing tool. Gurabo is the only munic­i­pal­i­ty in Puer­to Rico that has such a hall, and I sus­pect that it’s because Gurabo is the only town with some­one like Rubén San­tos. That’s right. The guy that paint­ed those mar­velous pieces was stand­ing right next to us.

San­tos stud­ied paint­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico and worked in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land paint­ing bill­boards for an ad agency, of all things. He also per­fect­ed his tech­nique at the Mary­land Col­lege of Art.

Accord­ing to San­tos his years paint­ing very large pieces pre­pared him for some­thing like what you’ll see at the Gurabo Bicen­ten­ni­al Hall. The paint­ings are humon­gous and they describe the town’s his­to­ry in great detail, from the orig­i­nal native set­tlers to present.

Accord­ing to San­tos, most painters, who paint reg­u­lar size paint­ings, cant’t paint some­thing of that size.

But there’s some­thing more. Upon return­ing to Puer­to Rico in 1992, San­tos enrolled in the his­to­ry pro­gram at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico and became an expert on the sub­ject. There­fore, each piece is doc­u­ment­ed through pri­ma­ry his­toric sources. So his paint­ings aren’t only spec­tac­u­lar, but they are also his­tor­i­cal­ly accu­rate. The entire process to cre­ate the paint­ings took over 10 years.

San­tos took the time to explain each piece, and in doing so he took us through the his­to­ry of Gurabo, from the orig­i­nal native set­tlers to the foun­da­tion of the town.

After leav­ing the Gurabo Bicen­ten­ni­al Hall we final­ly went to the famous “El Cer­ro”. “El Cer­ro” is Span­ish for “the steep moun­tain”, which is exact­ly what it is. As Gurabo kept grow­ing, more and more set­tlers arrived to work the land. Many of them weren’t even set­tlers. They were actu­al­ly slaves.

“El Cer­ro” is a poor com­mu­ni­ty and it has always been. The land was grant­ed by the town’s rich peo­ple so that the poor peo­ple (most­ly freed black slaves) could estab­lish their homes. There was no san­i­tary plumb­ing and most hous­es were rus­tic shacks. The famous steps, that are so pop­u­lar today, were actu­al­ly built in 1948. Before that there were unpaved streets that became mud­slides dur­ing the rainy season.

Many tourists make the trip to Gurabo just to climb the famous steps. But now you know bet­ter. There are many addi­tion­al places worth explor­ing in this won­der­ful town. Then, if you still wish to climb the steps be fore­warned of the fol­low­ing: there are 149 steps to the very top so bring con­fort­able shoes, a wide brimmed hat, sun block and plen­ty of water. And if you have heart trou­ble don’t even think of it.

Sec­ond, don’t go it alone. Like many oth­er cities around the world, Gurabo has its share of crime. So con­sult the Gurabo Tourism Depart­ment before ven­tur­ing into the “El Cer­ro” area.

You can reach them at 787–712-1100, ext. 268. Or write rgarcia@gurabopr.com or mrodriguez@gurabopr.com.

Reach­ing Gurabo is easy. If you’re com­ing from Isla Verde, take the Teodoro Moscoso Bridge. If you’re com­ing from Con­da­do or Old San Juan your best bet is through the Minil­las Tun­nel. Either way, you’ll end up on State Road 18 going south. Stay on the left two lanes. After a few miles you’ll take the exit left towards Toll Road 52, also going south.

Stay on this road until you find exit 14 on your right. That will put you on State Road #1 going south. Take the mid­dle lane, go under the bridge and take the exit towards the town of Humacao. Now you’ll be going east on Road #30. Take the mid­dle lane.

Con­tin­ue on Road #30 until you see Exit 7. Stay on the left hand side until you reach the first inter­sec­tion marked “Gurabo Cen­tro”. Turn left and con­tin­ue straight until you reach the first traf­fic light. Turn right and you’ll be on Road #189 going east. Con­tin­ue until you reach the cor­ner with Calle San­ti­a­go (that’s San­ti­a­go street in Eng­lish). Turn left and you’ll see San José Parish on your right hand side.

Make sure to copy the coor­di­nates for your hotel before leav­ing in the morn­ing. That way you be able to return safe­ly in the evening.

 

Final­ly, If you enjoyed this post, and you plan to vis­it Puer­to Rico —and the town of Gurabo— in the near future, you’ll find ample infor­ma­tion on this web­site. You can also book flights, hotels & car rentals at great prices through the ban­ners on the right hand column.

And yes, they are affil­i­ate links. That means that I make a small com­mis­sion, while you pay exact­ly the same that you’d pay any­where else. That way you get to return the favor with­out spend­ing an extra dime.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2023,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