If I Were A Snowbird… Winter In Puerto Rico

It’s that time of year.  Sum­mer is almost over and many Amer­i­cans (espe­cial­ly those liv­ing in the north­ern states) are decid­ing where they’re going to spend the crud­est win­ter months.  They’re called “snow­birds”, because they migrate south dur­ing the win­ter months.  Some have sec­ond homes in Flori­da.  But after a while the amuse­ment parks and golf cours­es all start to look the same and you’re left with gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties and swim­ming pools.  Boring!

So how about the Caribbean?  Many peo­ple think of the islands south­east of the Flori­da coast and their imag­i­na­tion runs wild with images of trop­i­cal land­scapes, warm breezy days and cool exot­ic bev­er­ages by the beach.  Wow, what a way to spend the winter!

Fort San cristo­bal, the largest Span­ish fort in the New World. Click on the image to see it larger.

But which Island is best?  Well, if you’re look­ing for every­thing in one place, then  there’s only one answer: Puer­to Rico!  Puer­to Rico has some of the most beau­ti­ful beach­es in the world.  The aver­age year­ly tem­per­a­ture is 86 degrees.  And, to top it all off, it has some of the most var­ied cui­sine in the world, Span­ish forts (the largest and old­est in Amer­i­ca), a 114 square kilo­me­ter rain­for­est, huge cav­erns, the longest zip line in the world, bio­lu­mi­nes­cent bays (3 of them), beau­ti­ful golf cours­es, water sports galore and a nightlife that rivals the largest cap­i­tals in the world.  Oh, and did I men­tion that the Island is a U.S. territory?

Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro, guard­ing the entrance to San Juan Bay since 1539. Click on image to see it larger.

That’s right!  Puer­to Rico has all that and more!  And since the Island is a U.S. ter­ri­to­ry you can hop on a plane and be here in a mat­ter of hours; no pass­port… no visa… easy!  But that’s not all.  Since you’ll actu­al­ly be on U.S. soil you’ll enjoy all the lib­er­ties and pro­tec­tions of the U.S. Constitution.

But there’s more!  Many Puer­to Rican’s speak flu­ent Eng­lish.  Oth­ers do OK.  That means no lan­guage barrier.

Then there’s the food.  Most Amer­i­can restau­rant chains have a pres­ence in Puer­to Rico.  But that’s not why you’re going to trav­el thou­sands of miles.  Right?  You’ll want to sam­ple the local cui­sine.  And when it comes to food Puer­to Rico is heav­en on earth.  You’ll want to try local dish­es like “arroz con habichue­las con empana­da y amar­il­los”, or “mofon­go con camarones”, or “ver­duras con bacalao”, or “carne fri­ta con tostones de pana”, or “pescao con arepas”.  I won’t tell you what any of those dish­es are.  You’re just going to have to trust me.  So go ahead, be adven­tur­ous and ask for them, and you’ll remem­ber for the rest of your life.  And if you real­ly want to expe­ri­ence the ulti­mate Puer­to Rican cui­sine try the more dar­ing “nuvo caribbean cui­sine” dish­es at the Island’s posh­est restau­rants.  Mmmm!

And what about the drinks?  OMG!  You’ll love the world famous “Piña Cola­da”, but there are dozens of oth­er local con­coc­tions made with rum, exot­ic liquors and trop­i­cal fruit that will blow your mind.

San Juan Cathe­dral. Click on image to see it larger.

Old San Juan alone will take you sev­er­al days to explore.  That is, if you would real­ly like to see its many art gal­leries, his­toric church­es, muse­ums and Span­ish for­ti­fi­ca­tions.  The entire city is like a giant his­to­ry les­son going back more than 500 years.

Then it’s out to “la Isla”.  That’s what the locals call any place out­side of the San Juan Metro­plex.  In Eng­lish it means “the Island”, which makes no sense because all of Puer­to Rico should be “the Island”.  But hey, it is what it is.  Just fol­low along and have fun!

The Caribbean has dozens of beau­ti­ful beach­es and you’ll find most of them right here in Puer­to Rico.  The main Island alone has beau­ties like Sev­en Seas, “Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate” (Luquil­lo Beach), “Bal­n­eario De Car­oli­na”, “Pun­ta Sali­na”, “Mar Chiq­ui­ta”, “Crash Boat”, “Boquerón” and “Playa Sucia”, to name just a few.  So if you’re a beach lover like me you’re in for a treat.

El Yunque NAtion­al Rain­for­est. Click on image to see it larger.

But, like they say on TV, “there’s more”.  Just 25 miles to the east of the San Juan Metro­plex is El Yunque Nation­al Rain­for­est, the only sub­trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the U.S. Nation­al Park Sys­tem.  This is a place like no oth­er on earth and it’s the per­fect place to spend a day explor­ing nature at its best.

Oh, and now that I men­tion “nature at its best”, don’t miss the “Cabezas de San Juan” Nature Reserve just 10 or 12 more miles to the east of “El Yunque” in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Fajar­do.  You’ll need to make reser­va­tions for this one, but believe me, it’s well worth the trou­ble.  Check out our sep­a­rate post for more information.

And what if you head west of San Juan?  Well, there are sev­er­al of the beach­es that I men­tioned above before you reach the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Areci­bo.  Once you reach Areci­bo you’ll have sev­er­al places to see: like “Cue­va La Ven­tana” almost on the fron­tier with the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Utu­a­do, the Areci­bo Radio-Tele­scope Obser­va­to­ry (the largest in the world), the Camuy Riv­er Cav­erns (absolute­ly stun­ning) and “La Cue­va Del Indio” on the Areci­bo Atlantic coast.  Each one of these places has its nat­ur­al beau­ty and its per­ils so be sure to read more about them on this site before vis­it­ing them.

Clue­va La Ven­tana. Click on image to see it larger.

West of Areci­bo it’s most­ly won­der­ful beach­es, great local cui­sine and his­toric light­hous­es built dur­ing Puer­to Rico’s Span­ish peri­od.  For exam­ple, in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Aguadil­la you’ll find the ruins of the old Span­ish light­house that was destroyed dur­ing the 1918 earth­quake.  A lit­tle to the south­west is the Rincón light­house where hun­dreds of peo­ple (both locals and vis­i­tors) gath­er dur­ing the months of Feb­ru­ary and March for a whale watch­ing extravaganza.

Mayagüez Zoo. Click on image to see it larger.

If zoos are your thing there’s a won­der­ful (albeit small) zoo in the Munic­i­pal­i­ty of Mayagüez.  And, final­ly, we reach the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Cabo Rojo where you’ll find two of the most beau­ti­ful beach­es on the Island: “Boquerón” and “Playa Sucia”.  The for­mer is a blue flag beach and the lat­er is exact­ly the way god made it: won­der­ful and wild!

Now, this post is get­ting rather long and we’ve bare­ly scratched the sur­face.  There are entire towns that you’ll want to explore like San Ger­mán, Lajas, Guáni­ca, Ponce, Sali­nas, Patil­las and Yabu­coa on the south and Lares, Utu­a­do, Aiboni­to and Caguas in the moun­tain­ous region.  Each one has its own charm, its own culi­nary spe­cial­ties and hun­dreds of inter­est­ing places to see and explore. Many of them are cov­ered in Puer­to Rico By GPS and the rest will be cov­ered in the near future.

I have a friend from Ten­nessee who came to Puer­to Rico for the first time about five years ago and now he comes here every Feb­ru­ary for 2 to 3 weeks.  And Ten­nessee isn’t half as cold as Mon­tana or North Dako­ta or even Mass­a­chu­setts or New York.  Once you spend a cou­ple of weeks in Puer­to Rico you’ll think twice before return­ing to your snowy neck of the woods.

So go ahead, explore Puer­to Rico By GPS at your leisure.  See all the fun things you can do in Puer­to Rico and make your reser­va­tions today.  There are even a ban­ners for “Hotels.com” and “Booking.com” at the upper right cor­ner of every page in case you’d like to start there.

Make this win­ter a “warm winter”.

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