Juana Díaz; A Homage, Home To A Drink And Fit For Kings 

Jua­na Díaz is one of those towns in Puer­to Rico that peo­ple pass on their way to Ponce with­out ever vis­it­ing. I know, because I was one of them. I came to Puer­to Rico in 1963 when my par­ents moved back to the Island and I had nev­er been to Jua­na Díaz. And that was my loss.

Jua­na Díaz sits on the south­ern coast of Puer­to Rico, just east of Ponce, south of Jayuya, Oro­co­vis, Ciales and Vil­lal­ba and west of Coamo and San­ta Isabel. On the south side it has the Caribbean Sea.

Jua­na Díaz was estab­lished on April 25th, 1798 as Ciu­dad de Jacagua, in hon­or of the Taíno Cacique Jacaguax. That means that it’s about to cel­e­brate its 227th anniver­sary. It’s also the 35th old­est munic­i­pal­i­ty on the Island.

How Juana Díaz Got Its Name

So how did the name evolve from “Ciu­dad de Jacagua” to Jua­na Díaz? After all, the dif­fer­ence isn’t just a cou­ple of let­ters here and there.

Well, leg­end has it that Jua­na Díaz was lib­er­at­ed slave who was mur­dered while her hus­band (who was also a lib­er­at­ed slave) was con­duct­ing busi­ness in town. Togeth­er they worked a 20-cuer­da plot of land cul­ti­vat­ing tobac­co and oth­er products.

In case you’re won­der­ing, a cuer­da is 0.97112414916596 on an acre. So 20 cuer­das would be 19.4224829833192 acres.

Jua­na Díaz was one of those peo­ple that was beloved by every­one in town (or almost every­one, I guess, since she was mur­dered). After her death she became sort of a leg­end, to the point that the town end­ed up car­ry­ing her name.

And speak­ing of leg­ends, rumor has it that her remains are buried under Ponce Cathe­dral. But don’t go look­ing for any com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque or any­thing. It’s just a rumor.

Why We Do Things Like We Do?

In Jan­u­ary of 2023 my wife and I start­ed a project to vis­it every sin­gle town in Puer­to Rico. The idea was to write a blog post, pro­duce a video and gath­er a wealth of images and footage that would allow us to write books and pro­duce fur­ther doc­u­men­taries in the future. Well, so far we’ve vis­it­ed 37 towns, includ­ing Jua­na Díaz.

We’ve also ded­i­cat­ed time to pro­duce oth­er con­tent like the past Fies­tas de la Calle San Sebas­t­ian, var­i­ous walk & talk videos and a series cov­er­ing Puer­to Rico’s best museums.

So how do I find time to do all that work? Well, I alter­nate. When I don’t feel like vis­it­ing towns I do some­thing else. After all, what you see is what you get. It’s just my wife and I.

This week we vis­it­ed Jua­na Díaz. We also did some­thing unprece­dent­ed. We vis­it­ed twice!

When I start­ed our present series back in 2023 my first thought was to con­tact the pub­lic affairs office at each town and ask for some­one that could show us around town. In my mind that would allow us to pro­duce more thor­ough and in-depth coverage.

Boy, was that a mis­take. In my first attempt I wrote to 15–20 munic­i­pal­i­ties. Two of them answered. In hind­sight, I can’t believe I was so naive. After all, that’s what I did when I start­ed Puer­to Rico By GPS back in 2013 and the result of that effort was cov­ered in my post: “Ponce… A Trip About Noth­ing”.

So now my wife and I do what a reg­u­lar tourist does. We drop by, look around and com­ment in the form of a blog post, a YouTube video or social media posts. Some­times all three.

Of course, some­times that leads to inef­fi­cien­cies, because we find places closed, dirty or even aban­doned. And when we com­ment on such find­ings the hate com­men­tary sure­ly follows.

This week was such a week. For the first time we end­ed up vis­it­ing a town twice. Why? Because most of its fea­tured attrac­tions were closed. In some cas­es twice. Let me tell you the story…

Our first day at “La Capital del Maví”

Mi wife and I arrived in Jua­na Díaz at exact­ly 8:51am on the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 18, 2025. Many of you have asked how I always know the exact time when we arrive at each town. Well, it’s because of the video. The cam­era puts a time stamp on every video clip. SO the time on the first clip is always the arrival time.

When we got to town are first vis­it was to the Catholic tem­ple. Luck­i­ly it was open and we walked right in. The parish is called “Igle­sia San Ramón Nona­to”. I guess that would be the “Church of Saint Ray­mond Non­na­tus”, in the King’s Eng­lish. It’s a twin-bell-tow­er baroque build­ing erect­ed in 1798, the same year when the town was founded.

Click on image to watch the video 

 

It’s a beau­ti­ful build­ing made of plas­tered mason­ry with great brick­work and won­der­full stained glass win­dows. It fol­lows that high­ly dec­o­ra­tive the­atri­cal style made pop­u­lar in 16th cen­tu­ry Italy and intro­duced to the Catholic Church, main­ly by the Jesuits.

The tem­ple has under­gone exten­sive repairs through­out the cen­turies, main­ly due to dam­age caused by hur­ri­canes and earth­quakes. But, to an untrained eye like mine, it looks just fine.

Just so you know, “Igle­sia San Ramón Nona­to” sits on the east end of Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro Square (the city’s main plaza). Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro was a 19th cen­tu­ry Puer­to Rican abo­li­tion­ist who also believed in the island’s right to self-determination.

How­ev­er, Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro was born in the town of Guayn­abo, just south of San Juan. So I’m not sure how the square in Jua­na Díaz got to car­ry his name.

Accord­ing to Span­ish colo­nial tra­di­tion the Catholic Church is where it’s sup­posed to be (on the east end of the square). But what about City Hall? Well, City Hall is a well pre­served struc­ture, built in the Span­ish archi­tec­tur­al style, that sits on the north side of the square, not the west end.

And why is that? Well, the orig­i­nal city hall did sit on the west­ern end. It was called “La Casa Del Rey” and it’s a small­er wood­en struc­ture that sits on the cor­ner of Mar­i­ano Abril and Fed­eri­co Dege­tau streets.

Today’s City Hall was built in the late 19th Cen­tu­ry fol­low­ing the Span­ish archi­tec­tur­al style of the time.

As my wife and I left “Igle­sia San Ramón Nona­to” we went straight to City Hall to ask about oth­er inter­est­ing things that we could see and do in the town of Juan Díaz. But we were instruct­ed to ask at “La Casa Del Rey”, which the town has renamed as “Casa Real de la His­to­ria Jua­nad­i­na”, which in the Kings Eng­lish would be the “Roy­al House of Jua­na­dine His­to­ry, I guess.

When we arrived we met with Zenai­da León, a retired school teacher who told us all about the muse­um and answered all of our ques­tions about Jua­na Díaz. Mrs. León instruct­ed us not to make pho­tographs inside the muse­um, but I just had to sneak out a cou­ple of images for my audi­ence. So if there’s any­one to blame, it’s me.

The muse­um is a beau­ti­ful place where you’ll learn all about the his­to­ry of Jua­na Díaz, how the town got it’s strange name, the many majors that have left their indeli­ble marks on the town, its musi­cal tra­di­tion, Luis Llorens Tor­res (an illus­tri­ous “jua­nadi­no” who the towns­peo­ple would argue is Puer­to Rico’s nation­al poet). And I do say argue because Juan Anto­nio Cor­ret­jer fans, from the neigh­bor­ing town of Ciales (to the north), would have some­thing to say about that “poeta nacional” thing.

But hey, they were both great Puer­to Ricans.

Final­ly, there’s a gallery on the north­east cor­ner of the muse­um that presents itin­er­at­ing art col­lec­tions. When we were there they had a col­lec­tion by Miguel Rivera Mateo, a retired “jua­nadi­no” den­tist who’s also a cua­tro pay­er, trou­ba­dour and painter.

As we left the “Casa Real de la His­to­ria Jua­nad­i­na” our inten­tions were to vis­it the Evan­gel­i­cal Church next door. At one time the build­ing was part of “La Casa del Rey”, but lat­er on it was con­vert­ed into a church, and it looks quite nice.

But, as luck would have it, the church was open when we entered the “Casa Real de la His­to­ria Jua­nad­i­na” and closed when we got out. Oh well…

And what about Mavi? I men­tioned in the sub­ti­tle to this sec­tion and I seemed to for­get it. Well, I didn’t.

The town of Jua­na Díaz is known for a “beer-like” bev­er­age, made from the bark of the “Maví” tree, that dates back to Puer­to Rico’s Taíno natives. So much so, that the town is known as “la cap­i­tal del Maví” (the Capi­tol of MAVÍ). But frankly, I didn’t see it men­tioned any­where in town. It was more or less like when we vis­it­ed the town of Bayamón back in March of 2023, there was no “chichar­rón” any­where. And yet, they call Bayamón “la ciu­dad del chichar­rón. Go figure!

And I like Maví, by the way. My late grand­moth­er used to make it at her house in Brook­lyn, where I spent my ear­ly child­hood years. Lat­er on, when I was a young man in Puer­to Rico, there used to be street ven­dors sell­ing it on the shoul­ders of the road lead­ing to Ponce. But the truth is that I didn’t see a sin­gle men­tion of Mavi dur­ing our two-day vis­it to Jua­na Díaz.

And believe me, we tried. We even asked at the “Casa del Rey” and were told to try our luck at the “Plaza del Mer­ca­do” (farmer’s mar­ket, in the King’s English).

So, as we left the “Casa Real de la His­to­ria Jua­nad­i­na” we walked south to the cor­ner of Mar­i­ano Abril and Calle Com­er­cio and then west for a cou­ple of blocks to the Plaza del Mer­ca­do. Except that it’s not a farmer’s mar­ket like you would imag­ine. It’s more of a restored build­ing, with small shops, in more of an “incu­ba­tor” lay­out and there was no men­tion of Maví anywhere.

From that point on the rest of our day could be described as a series of mishaps. We drove to the “Three Kings Muse­um” and it was closed. Then we drove all the way to the “Salto de Col­lores” (almost in the juris­dic­tion of the neigh­bor­ing town of Vil­lal­ba) and that too was closed. Final­ly, we drove to Schoen­statt Shrine, a ger­man Catholic facil­i­ty next to the PR-52 Express­way and that too was closed.

 

At that point we were tired of strik­ing out, so we decid­ed to go home. But the sto­ry doesn’t end there. Every­thing I have told you about so far hap­pened on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th. But, we decid­ed to return on Feb­ru­ary 20th.

On the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 20th I start­ed by renew­ing the plate tag fore my SUV. After that, it was off to Jua­na Díaz for a sec­ond time.

We had nev­er ded­i­cat­ed more than a day to any town. After all, we fig­ure that the aver­age tourist might spend a cou­ple of hours at the most. But there was some­thing spe­cial about Jua­na Díaz. This was the home of the world famous “Three Kings” (more on that in a minute).

The Juana Díaz Boardwalk and Fisherman’s Monument

On the way to Jua­na Díaz we saw a sign point­ing towards Munic­i­pal Road 535. It was one of those spur of the moment things (where you don’t need to take the detour and yet you do).

Road 535 con­nect­ed us in turn with road #1 (the old road going between Ponce and San Juan). There we turned west and then south at the first inter­sec­tion. That road in turn led us to the “Paseo Tabla­do de Jua­na Díaz” and the “Mon­u­men­to al Pescador”. In case you’re won­der­ing, that would be the Fisherman’s mon­u­ment and the Jua­na Díaz Boardwalk.

There were sev­er­al things that caught our eye. First of all, the entire facil­i­ty is in great shape, free of graf­fi­ti and has ample park­ing. There are sev­er­al side­walk cafes where you can have excel­lent seafood, tra­di­tion­al Puer­to Rican del­i­ca­cies and —of course— adult bev­er­ages. And, since it’s right next to the fisherman’s vil­lage, the food is so fresh that it prac­ti­cal­ly jumps out of your plate.

And what about that dark sand? Well, it’s not dirty! It’s actu­al­ly black sand like you used to have in the neigh­bor­ing town of Maun­abo before glob­al warm­ing and the rise in sea lev­els destroyed it.

There’s even a fisherman’s mon­u­ment on the west end of the board­walk that’s actu­al­ly is quite nice. You can also see the small island of Caja de Muer­to in the dis­tance (that would be cof­fin island, in the King’s Eng­lish). It actu­al­ly belongs to the neigh­bor­ing munic­i­pal­i­ty of Ponce.

It was time to head towards the Three Kings Muse­um, but instead of return­ing along Road 535 we took a dif­fer­ent road that led us straight to the cen­ter of Jua­na Díaz. This time we were lucky and we found the muse­um open. So we walked right in.

The Juana Díaz Three Kings Museum

The Three Kings Muse­um is locat­ed on Calle Com­er­cio (also known as the old Road #14), about a mile east of Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro Square.

Even though the tra­di­tion of the Three Kings of Jua­na Díaz was estab­lished by father Valen­tín Echevar­ría back in 1884, the muse­um was­n’t cre­at­ed until Jan­u­ary 2, 2004. It was the first the­mat­ic muse­um of its kind in Lati­na America.

Admit­tance is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for chil­dren under 12 and $2.00 for seniors over 60.

So what can you expect to see at the Three Kings Muse­um? In two words: “a lot”. On the west­ern side of the build­ing there are three halls and a well groomed gar­den. On the east­ern end there are offices, ware­hous­es and admin­is­tra­tive facilities.

The first hall is all about pho­tographs, art­work and mem­o­ra­bil­ia relat­ed to the Three Kings Of Jua­na Díaz. This includes —of course— the three orig­i­nal capes that they wore on Decem­ber 22, 2004 when they first par­tic­i­pat­ed in a gen­er­al audi­ence with Pope John Paul II. Eigh­teen years lat­er they would vis­it Pope Fran­cis on Decem­ber 21, 2022 for a sec­ond audience.

Being one of the Three Kings Of Jua­na Díaz isn’t easy. Of course, par­tic­i­pants have to be upstand­ing cit­i­zens of the Jua­na Díaz soci­ety. But it takes a lot more than that. They have to be devote Catholics, go through intense scruti­ny and have a long stand­ing record of reli­gious and civ­il service.

And here’s anoth­er piece of triv­ia for you. Did you know that the Three Kings Of Jua­na Díaz aren’t three at all? They’re actu­al­ly 15. That’s right. Even with all their mag­ic the Three Kings Of Jua­na Díaz can’t be in two or three places at once. That’s why they have stand-ins that vis­it more than one event on the same day, or replace those Kings that might be sick or indisposed.

Leav­ing the first hall you go through a lob­by that holds sev­er­al inter­est­ing pieces. There are paint­ings by famous Puer­to Rican artists lin­ing the walls, as well as three mar­ble stat­ues of the Kings carved from gen­uine Jua­na Díaz mar­ble. But the most eye catch­ing pieces are three huge wood carv­ings next to the entrance to the sec­ond hall.

They were carved dur­ing a sev­en-day peri­od, by a group of local artists, in pub­lic, at Plaza del Caribe Mall, in the neigh­bor­ing town of Ponce.

Puer­to Rico has a long stand­ing tra­di­tion of excel­lent wood carv­ing artists. In fact, there’s an arti­cle on my blog “Puer­to Rico By GPS” in which I cov­er one of the largest and finest col­lec­tions at the Muse­um Of The Améri­c­as in Old San Juan. But, believe me, the col­lec­tion at the Three Kings Muse­um is just as amazing.

As you enter the sec­ond hall you’ll be stunned by the amount of carv­ings —all of them about three kings (of course)— as well as itin­er­at­ing col­lec­tions of paint­ings by local artists.

At the end of the hall there’s a stair­case lead­ing to the third hall where you’ll find dozens of addi­tion­al carv­ings, paint­ings and life-size cutouts of the three kings.

Oh, and in case you’re won­der­ing, all the fur­ni­ture is also orig­i­nal and carved by local artisans.

Once a year, on Jan­u­ary 6th, there’s a parade that goes from the Three Kings Muse­um, down Com­er­cio street, to San Ramón Nona­to Parrish.

With­out a doubt, the Three Kings tra­di­tion in Jua­na Díaz has become one of the largest reli­gious and pub­lic events in Puer­to Rico, com­pa­ra­ble only to the Fies­tas de la Calle San Sebastian.

And the kings them­selves have become local and island­wide heroes, with stat­ues at the entrance to Jua­na Díaz, on the cor­ner of Roads 584 and 149, and at Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro Square.

 

But here’s anoth­er piece of triv­ia for you. While the orig­i­nal Three Wise Men rep­re­sent­ed the king­doms of Per­sia, India, and Ara­bia, the Three Kings of Jua­na Díaz don’t. They actu­al­ly rep­re­sent the three races that make up Puer­to Rican Soci­ety: Span­ish, African and Taíno.

Yet more mishaps, why not?

It was close to 3:00pm on our sec­ond day to Jua­na Díaz and we still had “El Salto de Col­lores” left on our to-do list. It’s a beau­ti­ful water­fall, close to the town of Vil­lal­ba, where locals love to go for a dip on hot sum­mer days. But, it was rain­ing in the moun­tains and I had no inten­tion of dri­ving for a sec­ond time, for close to half an hour, just to find the place closed again. So we decid­ed to go back to San Juan.

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!

©2025,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