Luquillo, Puerto Rico | A Town About Beaches

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If you’re look­ing for “things to do in Puer­to Rico”, then you’re def­i­nite­ly in the right place.

If you’d like to enjoy the “best beach­es in Puer­to Rico”, with­out the incon­ve­nience of tak­ing a fer­ry boat —or even a small plane, then Luquil­lo is your best bet.

If you’d like to com­bine your expe­ri­ence with a side trip to El Yunque Nation­al For­est, or even a nat­ur­al water­slide in one of Puer­to Rico’s mar­velous rivers, then read on.

In this post I’ll tell you about all of Luquillo’s many beach­es. I’ll also tell you about the town’s church, which was also found­ed in 1797, and the one-of-a-kind wood­work that makes it a must-vis­it destination.

Final­ly, we’ll go out to the coun­try­side to explore a nat­ur­al water fea­ture that’s been draw­ing crowds since I was a young man back in the 70’s. To top it all off, we’ll go by the famous ‘kioskos de Luquil­lo” where you can enjoy mul­ti­ple Puer­to Rican culi­nary delicacies.

My wife and I vis­it­ed the small town of Luquil­lo, on the morn­ing of Tues­day, May 28, 2024.

Luquil­lo was found­ed 1797 and the munic­i­pal­i­ty ranks num­ber 65th in terms of size or land area.

What’s real­ly inter­est­ing is that this small town has 14 beach­es, all of them pub­lic, that rank among the best any­where in Puer­to Rico and the world.

Luquil­lo is locat­ed on the north­east­ern cor­ner of Puer­to Rico, just 26 miles from San Juan as the crow flies. How­ev­er, the actu­al dri­ving dis­tance is more like 35, mak­ing it a 49 minute dri­ve, more or less, along state road #3.

There’s a faster route along Puer­to Rico’s Route 66 (no rela­tion to the “moth­er road), but the time you’ll save won’t make up for the steep toll expense. So we sim­ply took road #3. Besides, most of the traf­fic is San Juan bound in the morn­ing and Luquil­lo bound in the after­noon. So you’ll be going against the crowd in both cases.

San José Parish, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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Like always, our first stop was at the Catholic church, which in this case is called San José Parish. We had read on the Inter­net that the Parish was open for mass ear­ly in the morn­ing, but —as it turns out— this was no longer the case.

San José Parish is locat­ed on Jesús T. Piñero Street, on the south side of Rosendo Matien­zo Cin­trón Square. That means that the altar at San José parish points south­west instead of straight east like most catholic church­es on the Island do.

I’m always intrigued when I run across odd­i­ties like this one. After all, it couldn’t be like the land point­ing east wasn’t avail­able at the time when the tem­ple was first built. The only rea­son­ing —at least in my mind— is that the orig­i­nal builders want­ed to point the tem­ple straight at El Yunque for­est. We’ll see how this became impor­tant cen­turies later.

When we got to San José Parish there wasn’t a soul in sight. There was —how­ev­er— a large sign with all sorts of parish infor­ma­tion, includ­ing the tele­phone num­ber for the parish office. Accord­ing to the sign, office hours start­ed at 9:00am and it was only 8:05. But hey, we had noth­ing to lose so I gave it a try.

A friend­ly voice answered my call and told me to wait a few min­utes while she came down. Short­ly after the lady opened the tem­ple, turned on the lights and pro­ceed­ed to show us around.

Con­struc­tion of San José Parish start­ed in 1797, mak­ing the tem­ple 227 years old at the time of our vis­it. How­ev­er, that age doesn’t show just by look­ing at the build­ing, because it has been restored and mod­ern­ized sev­er­al times through­out its history.

So, what makes this tem­ple spe­cial? It’s cer­tain­ly not the archi­tec­ture, because the place looks like it was built 20 years ago. And in a way it was.

Back in 1997 the tem­ple cel­e­brat­ed its 200th anniver­sary. To com­mem­o­rate the occa­sion it was restored and a series of wood carv­ings were com­mis­sioned and import­ed from South Améri­ca. The pieces meld Catholic tra­di­tions and sym­bol­o­gy with ele­ments of Puer­to Rican nature and Taíno scenes.

The com­bi­na­tion of Puer­to Rican flo­ra and fau­na imagery with tra­di­tion­al Catholic scenes, and even renais­sance motives pulled direct­ly from DaVinci’s Last Sup­per, all meld to make this tem­ple unlike any oth­er in the world.

San José Parish, Luquil­lo, PR
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There’s no gold or pre­cious stones at San José Parish. But there’s some­thing even more valu­able, the absolute inte­gra­tion of the Catholic faith with a trop­i­cal set­ting and a unique peo­ple; the Puer­to Rican peo­ple, that is.

Across the street from San José Parish you have the Rosendo Matien­zo Cin­trón Square. Rosendo Matien­zo Cin­trón was a Puer­to Rican lawyer and politi­cian, trained in Barcelona, Spain and born in Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico on April 22, 1855.

His polit­i­cal views about Puer­to Rico var­ied through­out the years, but in 1912 he found­ed the Inde­pen­dence Par­ty (not to be con­fused with the Puer­to Rican Inde­pen­dence Par­ty, found­ed 34 years lat­er by Gilber­to Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia from Vega Alta).

His par­ty was the first in the his­to­ry of Puer­to Rico to estab­lish an absolute and non-nego­tiable demand for Puer­to Rican independence.

To this date Puer­to Rico’s polit­i­cal sta­tus con­tin­ues to be an issue and Puer­to Ricans con­tin­ue to go back and forth between non-con­se­quen­tial polit­i­cal for­mu­las. But hey, I digress.

The square is rather fea­ture­less, with con­crete bench­es and a well groomed appear­ance. Bear in mind that the town of Luquil­lo sits right next to the Atlantic Ocean, so this type of con­struc­tion is prob­a­bly best to with­stand the salty and down­right cor­ro­sive environment.

On the west end of the square you have a bust of Matien­zo Cin­trón as well as the City Hall build­ing. On the east end there’s a band­stand for cel­e­brat­ing town events.

After walk­ing around Matien­zo Cin­trón square for a while it was time to hit the beach, so we head­ed for the first one on our list: Playa For­tu­na, on the west­ern end of the municipality.

Playa For­tu­na
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Playa For­tu­na is a peace­ful lit­tle beach that sits right next to “Parce­las For­tu­na”, a low income com­mu­ni­ty that bor­ders the town of Río Grande. It has ade­quate sig­nage, a small park­ing area with tree cov­er, and var­i­ous garbage con­tain­ers. That’s it!

Oth­er­wise it’s what I call a “wild beach”, because it’s more or less like God made it. That said, he actu­al­ly did a great job. The place is sim­ply love­ly (in spite of the few slobs —local or oth­er­wise— that choose to leave their garbage wher­ev­er they please).

When we got there there was a young woman “tak­ing in the rays” all by her­self. I didn’t see any cars in the park­ing area (oth­er than mine) so she must’ve walked over from a near­by airbnb.

Lat­er on, as we were leav­ing, I noticed her going in for a dip. She was about as tall as my wife and I noticed that, even when she was quite a dis­tance out, the water still didn’t reach her knees. Hence, I can only deduce that the depth at this beach doesn’t increase quick­ly like it does at oth­ers that we’ve visited.

We also walked quite a dis­tance along the shore and found it to be clean and free of erosion.

Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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Our next stop was at Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate, just a cou­ple of miles east of Playa For­tu­na. In my hum­ble opin­ion, Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate —or sim­ply Luquil­lo Beach— is the best beach in the larg­er island of Puer­to Rico. There are no two ways about it!

While not an arch­i­pel­ago, Puer­to Rico is cer­tain­ly a group of islands com­prised of Vieques, Cule­bra and Culebri­ta to the east, Mona, Moni­to and Desecheo to the west, Caja de Muer­to to the south and the main Island of Puer­to Rico.

So why isn’t it an arch­i­pel­ago? Well, because that title is reserved for the Caribbean Islands as a whole.

In any case, Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate is the best beach on the larg­er island of Puer­to Rico (once again, my opin­ion). And that’s not because of any­thing done by the gov­ern­ment (munic­i­pal or oth­er­wise). It’s just that God made it that way.

And just so you know, the term bal­n­eario means “gov­ern­ment-run pub­lic beach”. Those usu­al­ly come with a park­ing area, safe­ty buoys, life­guards, ample sig­nage, gaze­bos, con­ces­sion stands, san­i­tary facil­i­ties, show­ers and lockers.

Well, La Mon­ser­rate has most —if not all— of that. It’s just that the place isn’t quite like it was years ago. I know that the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment has strug­gled to get the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to hand over the admin­is­tra­tion of the place. But the fact remains that at this point in time the facil­i­ties look run down.

You feel it from the minute that you arrive at the dif­fer­ent park­ing areas. In many instances the grass is tall and the shrubs need prun­ing. Then there’s the “nick­el and dim­ming”. You have to pay for many things sep­a­rate­ly that dur­ing the beach’s hey­day used to be includ­ed with the small entrance fee.

Case in point, the show­ers. Most of the beach’s orig­i­nal show­ers don’t work. So you end up hav­ing to pay sep­a­rate­ly to use the “con­ces­sion show­ers”. And so it goes on.

And hey, I’m not try­ing to be a “pen­ny pinch­er” here. It’s just that I hate to be tak­en for a sucker.

So what about the beach itself? Is it any good? It’s like heav­en on earth!

You have hun­dreds of trees for shade, the surf is about an inch high, the water is crys­tal clear and it takes for­ev­er to get deep. Oh, and did I men­tion that there’s hard­ly any ero­sion at the shore?

This is all due to a mas­sive reef that sits just out­side the coast and turns the “bal­n­eario” into a sort of “pool”. I love it.

As you leave “La Mon­ser­rate” you’ll find the “Kioskos de Luquil­lo” to the west. But we turned east at the time, so we’ll cov­er those in a few minutes.

Pun­ta Ban­dera, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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Next on our list was “Pun­ta Ban­dera”, a remote beach area that sits just east of Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate, but you actu­al­ly reach by dri­ving around the “bal­n­eario”.

The “Pun­ta Ban­dera” area is a beau­ti­ful coast that’s most­ly great for long strolls along the beach. The water is inch­es deep for very long stretch­es. But, at times the sandy bot­tom becomes rocky. This makes it prone to sea urchins.

To tell you the truth, I almost walked back to La Mon­ser­rate while fol­low­ing the “Pun­ta Ban­dera” coast, and I only ran into a cou­ple of peo­ple along the way. So I’d def­i­nite­ly put this beach under the “eye can­dy” category.

What does that mean? That it’s great for look­ing at it but not for swimming!

Playa Azul, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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Next on our list was Playa Azul. This is a huge beach area with beau­ti­ful gold­en sand, very lit­tle tree cov­er and even less park­ing space. It’s what I like to call a “wild beach”, mean­ing that all you get is the sky, the water, the sand and the sun. In fact, I made a point of count­ing the park­ing spaces and they didn’t amount to ten. Oth­er than that there’s the curb, but it’s paint­ed in yel­low so you’ll be a the cop’s mercy.

Of course, if you go there dur­ing a week­day you might get lucky. But, if you vis­it dur­ing a week­end (espe­cial­ly dur­ing the sum­mer months) your chances of find­ing a park­ing spot are nil.

As for the surf, let’s just say that it’s high­er than at La Mon­ser­rate. There were a few peo­ple in the water, but most were just tak­ing in the rays.

Cos­ta Azul, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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Next was “Cos­ta Azul”, a beau­ti­ful beach area with lots of park­ing space along the curb. “Cos­ta Azul” is also a “wild beach”, but sur­pris­ing­ly it com­bines sev­er­al swim­ming areas into one beach. It has a low surf area, a mild surf area and a high­er surf por­tion. And being that it wasn’t a beach day, there were quite a few patrons there.

Most of them were locals and some even had lit­tle kids.

After you pass the “Cos­ta Azul” area you dri­ve about a mile east and you arrive at “La Pared”. Like the name says, this beach has a long wall built along it and the surf is very high. We were there on a calm day and the waves were still quite impressive.

Maybe that’s why it’s favored by surfers from Puer­to Rico and abroad.

La Pared, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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My wife and I took a few min­utes to talk with the locals that have been surf­ing there for years. They empha­sized that you def­i­nite­ly have to know what you’re doing to use this beach. The surf is high (maybe that’s why they call it the wall, I don’t know) and at times you get rip cur­rents that can make for a very bad day.

The one thing that it does have is a huge park­ing area right across the street.

There were still two beach­es on our list. One was called “San Miguel” and the oth­er “La Sel­va”, but both were with­in the “East­ern Eco­log­i­cal Cor­ri­dor”, a land reserve on the east­ern quad­rant of the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Luquillo.

We actu­al­ly attempt­ed to go there, but the Nat­ur­al Resources Depart­ment Ranger told us that the road was undrive­able, even for my Nis­san Pathfind­er SUV.

We had two places left to explore in the small town of Luquil­lo. One was a water fea­ture up in the Luquil­lo moun­tains, on the Pita­haya riv­er, and the oth­er was an eatery area where most of the peo­ple vis­it­ing Luquil­lo like to end their day.

So off we went to the mountains.

Las Pailas, Luquil­lo, Puer­to Rico
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“Las Pailas” is a nat­ur­al water slide area on the Pita­haya riv­er. I hadn’t been there since I was in col­lege back in the 70’s. Back then there was a dirt trail lead­ing down to the riv­er and a few park­ing spots along road 983.

We use to go to “Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate” in the morn­ing and then vis­it “Las Pailas” in the after­noon “to get rid of the salt”.

Nowa­days “Las Pailas” are quite the same, but the infra­struc­ture has improved quite a bit. Back then all you had was a dirt trail. If it rained while you were in the riv­er, get­ting back to the road became quite a challenge.

Today most of the trail is paved in con­crete and there are ropes to assist you along most of the way.

The park­ing area is quite larg­er and there are tour oper­a­tors con­stant­ly bring­ing groups. I also noticed that every­one was equipped with life preservers.

So, like every­thing else in life, “Las Pailas” is no longer that “secret seclud­ed place” that just a few of us knew about. But hey, it’s bet­ter, safer and —of course— “a lot more crowd­ed”. It’s also not free anymore.

Park­ing per vehi­cle is $5 and access to the riv­er is a dol­lar per per­son. Still a bar­gain if you ask me.

How­ev­er, accord­ing to the law, tour oper­a­tors tak­ing tourists to “Las Pailas” (or any­where else, for that mat­ter) can be held liable for “dam­ages and detri­ments”, reg­u­lar­ly known in Span­ish as “daños y per­juicios”. Maybe that’s why they have every­one wear a life pre­serv­er and they prob­a­bly hand them a waiv­er to sign before even climb­ing on the bus.

Los Kioskos de Luquillo
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Final­ly, after a day under the blis­ter­ing Puer­to Rican sun, there’s noth­ing bet­ter than “a cold one” at “los kioskos de Luquil­lo”, and maybe one of the many Puer­to Rican del­i­ca­cies that are con­coct­ed there daily.

So what are “los kioskos de Luquil­lo” any­way? Back in 1964 the gov­ern­ment of Puer­to Rico came up with the idea of cre­at­ing a series of small eater­ies along the “Bal­n­eario La Mon­ser­rate” road. The idea was to cre­ate jobs while pro­mot­ing Puer­to Rican del­i­ca­cies and attract­ing tourism (both local and from abroad).

The idea was a smash­ing suc­cess until Hur­ri­cane Hugo swept them away in 1989.

Before the hur­ri­cane, these busi­ness­es were sim­ple wood­en struc­tures with tin roofs and no inte­grat­ed sewage sys­tems. After the storm the gov­ern­ment once agin inter­vened and the new “kioskos” were built of con­crete, with elec­tri­cal, plumb­ing and sewage facilities.

Over a mil­lion tourists vis­it the “kioskos” annu­al­ly to enjoy every pos­si­ble Puer­to Rican del­i­ca­cy under the sun. Over 800 hun­dred Puer­to Ricans work at these “kioskos” and their esti­mat­ed rev­enue is well over 43 mil­lion dol­lars a year (accord­ing to 2023 figures).

Return­ing to San Juan from “los kioskos de Luquil­lo” is easy. Just fol­low road #3 until you reach the exit towards road #26 going towards San Juan and the Luis Muñoz Marín Airport.

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!

©2024,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Podcaster,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
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