Naranjito, Puerto Rico – Is It Worth The Trip? 

I’m sure the trolls are going to have feast with this post. Espe­cial­ly those that like to com­ment with­out read­ing at all. Those are the peo­ple who only read the title and voice their unin­formed opin­ions! But after spend­ing close to 90 min­utes in traf­fic, just to get to Naran­ji­to, the least I can do is “tell you about it”. After all, that has always been my promise to my read­ers: “I tell it like it is”!

It was 8:37 in the morn­ing and my wife and I were stand­ing in the town square of Naran­ji­to. After get­ting up at five, deal­ing with car trou­ble, switch­ing to anoth­er vehi­cle and dri­ving for close to 90 min­utes, we final­ly made it.

You might be ask­ing your­self “why so ear­ly?” and the answer has to do with sev­er­al fac­tors. First of all my wife and I have dis­cov­ered that Catholic church­es on the Island cel­e­brate an ear­ly mass. Then they close for the greater part of the day. This is to pro­tect them­selves from thieves and van­dals. It’s a sad thing to say, but that’s what they’ve told us.

Sec­ond, access to Naran­ji­to has been “one-way” since Jan­u­ary 30, 2023. This is due to the repairs being done at its cable-stayed bridge (El Puente Ati­ran­ta­do de Naran­ji­to, as the locals call it).

So What’s The Story With The Bridge?

First let me pref­ace my com­men­tary stat­ing that I’m not an engi­neer or an archi­tect. Nor do I play any one of these pro­fes­sion­als on TV. I can only tell you what I’ve read in the papers and heard on the news.

El Puente Ati­ran­ta­do de Naran­ji­to, as it’s called in Span­ish, is a cable-stayed bridge built in 2004. At the time the stick­er price was around $32 mil­lion. Short­ly after its inau­gu­ra­tion the struc­ture start­ed show­ing build­ing defects. The pave­ment was uneven and some experts even say that there was card­board in places where there should be con­crete. Ouch!!!

Naran­ji­to Cable Stayed Bridge
(click on image to see it larger)

Fast for­ward to 2023 and the peo­ple of Puer­to Rico are fac­ing a $25 mil­lion fee to have the bridge fixed. And, of course, like they say in Puer­to Rico “la cul­pa es huér­fana” (no one is to blame).

The sit­u­a­tion got so bad that the bridge had to be closed on Jan­u­ary 30, 2023. Of course, the peo­ple of Naran­ji­to were up in arms, because it forced them to take alter­nate routes that were longer, more con­vo­lut­ed and had few­er lanes. All that led to mas­sive traf­fic jams and lots of angry “naran­jiteños”.

So the con­trac­tors came up with a halfway solu­tion. Instead of work­ing on the entire bridge at once, they’re work­ing on one side of the bridge and open­ing a sin­gle lane in dif­fer­ent direc­tions dur­ing the day. In the morn­ing its open for San Juan bound traf­fic and in the after­noons it changes to Naran­ji­to bound vehicles.

Of course, this is only a “bandaid” solu­tion. It forces many peo­ple to take alter­nate routes if they’re going to Naran­ji­to in the morn­ing or return­ing to the San Juan Metro­plex in the afternoon.

And that’s exact­ly what hap­pened to my wife and I.

We had to take a “scenic route” along PR-165, 164 and 152. That had us bor­der the town of Corozal, only to get to Naran­ji­to ear­ly in the morn­ing. Need­less to say that this puts a damper on tourism, regard­less of how much or how lit­tle they might cus­tom­ar­i­ly receive.

In any case, there we were, eager to explore anoth­er Puer­to Rican town.

My Impressions About Naranjito, The Town

Naran­ji­to is a small town in the cen­tral moun­tain­ous region of Puer­to Rico. It’s bor­dered by Corozal from the west, Toa Alta from the north, Bar­ran­quitas and Com­erío from the South and Bayamón on the east.

Naran­ji­to was found­ed on Decem­ber 4, 1824. This would lead you to believe that there are lots on antique colo­nial struc­tures there. And you would be wrong. Most of the build­ings look like boxy 20th cen­tu­ry struc­tures. This leads me to believe that at some point this town suf­fered a sig­nif­i­cant seis­mic event.

I’ve includ­ed a video clip as we trav­eled through town so you can see what I mean. All the build­ings look boxy and modern.

Such is the case with the Catholic church, City Hall, the main square and the Per­form­ing Arts Cen­ter. They’re all nice look­ing mod­ern buildings.

And let me be clear. I have noth­ing against mod­ern struc­tures. It’s just that when a town is a year short of being two cen­turies old you expect old­er structures.

And speak­ing of mod­ern struc­tures, the Naran­ji­to Per­form­ing Arts Cen­ter is espe­cial­ly nice. There’s a small tourism office on the first floor. There you can get infor­ma­tion about the town and a very nice brochure of the “ruta gas­tronómi­ca” (more on that in a minute). They also hold itin­er­at­ing exhi­bi­tions on the sec­ond lev­el to pro­mote local artists.

At the time of our vis­it there were two exhi­bi­tions. One was by “naran­jiteño” painter Walde­mar Andi­no Rodríguez. I’m no art expert, by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion, but I found his work mesmerising.

The oth­er was a col­lec­tion of sculp­tures by Naranjito’s own Miguel Charriez.

Final­ly, when we were leav­ing town, we stooped at “el mon­u­men­to al trovador puer­tor­riqueño” (that’s the Mon­u­ment to the Puer­to Rican Trou­ba­dour). It’s a small stat­ue, in the cen­ter of an also small park, at the entrance to town, by the riv­er. The two bench­es next to the stat­ue seem to invite you to sit and admire the piece. But there’s no park­ing area. So I had to park on the shoul­der of the near­by bridge and walk back to the lit­tle park. Some­how, this defeats the purpose.

Naran­ji­to Mon­u­ment to The Puer­to Rican Trou­ba­dour
(click on image to see it larger)

After leav­ing the Mon­u­ment to the Puer­to Rican Trou­ba­dour I walked back to my car, drove to the next light and made a u‑turn to head to “la ruta gas­tronómi­ca”. “La Ruta Gas­tronómi­ca” is a 10-mile-long stretch of Road 152, pep­pered with dozens of restau­rants, on both sides, that caters to every imag­in­able culi­nary taste.

It’s also where the orig­i­nal “chin­chorreo” was born.

And what is “chin­chorreo”, you might ask? It’s what many Puer­to Ricans like to do on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days. Think of it like “tapa crawl­ing” in Madrid, but in a car. Friends and fam­i­ly hop into their vehi­cles and vis­it dif­fer­ent restau­rants to sam­ple dif­fer­ent cuisines along the way. And, of course, cold beer and adult bev­er­ages are also in order.

And where does that word “chin­chorreo” come from anyway?

Well, in Puer­to Rican Span­ish a “chin­chor­ro” is a small hang­out where food and bev­er­ages are served. In their orig­i­nal state they’re usu­al­ly rough and prim­i­tive (the chin­chor­ros, that is). But, as time has gone by, many of them have evolved into full-blown restaurants.

Ruta Gas­tronómi­ca Brochure
(click on image to see it larger)

And that’s what hap­pened at the “Ruta Gas­tronómi­ca”. And believe me, it’s hard to find a table on weekends.

As you start your ascent towards the “Ruta Gas­tronómi­ca” on Road 152 there’s a restau­rant on your right hand side called “Las Cataratas”. Right next to it there’s a small obser­va­tion deck on the south side. Look straight down and you’ll enjoy one of the nicest water­falls in the area. It’s called “Las Lagri­mas”, which in Span­ish means “the tears”.

Las Lágri­mas Falls
(click on image to see it larger)

It was around 10:30am so it was too ear­ly for lunch. Besides there was one more place that I want­ed to vis­it before head­ing back home. I want­ed to find an obser­va­tion deck from which you sup­pos­ed­ly could get strik­ing pic­tures of “el puente atirantado”.

After all, the archi­tec­ture of the bridge is impos­ing, even if the actu­al con­struc­tion might have been shoddy.

But guess what, the obser­va­tion deck was also a mess. It was cov­ered in graf­fi­ti, there was garbage every­where and the veg­e­ta­tion was so over­grown that you could­n’t see the bridge.

Naran­ji­to Cable Stayed Bridge
(click on image to see it larger)

Thank­ful­ly, there was a restau­rant called “Cam­po Viejo”, about ¼ of a mile south, with a great deck of their own. From there I was able to shoot both pic­tures and video. And just so you know, the place was very nice and I hear that the food is also excel­lent. And with a view like they have you can’t go wrong.

I was get­ting late to return, if we want­ed to go over the bridge. After 12:00 we would’ve had to take one of the alter­nate routes. That would have added lots of unnec­es­sary miles. So we left “Cam­po Viejo” and head­ed for the bridge.

As we passed the bridge I noticed that there were only a cou­ple of work­ers. I remem­ber com­ment­ing to my wife: “No won­der it’s going to take so long to repair. There’s nobody here”. Well, lat­er that after­noon I heard on the news that the peo­ple of Naran­ji­to were up in arms because the bridge repairs are going at a snail’s pace. In fact, the news crew that cov­ered the piece didn’t find any­body at the bridge either.

Of course, the next morn­ing the gov­er­nor “sud­den­ly showed up” at the site and there were plen­ty of work­ers there. Go figure!

By now you must think that I’m urg­ing you not to vis­it Naran­ji­to. But noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. But I always try to paint a clear pic­ture. If you’re going to Naran­ji­to expect­ing to find old colo­nial struc­tures, for­get it. It’s a small town, with 20th cen­tu­ry build­ings, that’s clean, well kept and full of old people.

Yes, Puer­to Rico’s demo­graph­ic shift is present in every cor­ner of the Island, espe­cial­ly in small­er towns. Younger gen­er­a­tions have left the Island and old­er gen­er­a­tions are get­ting old­er by the minute. Just walk through any town and you’ll wit­ness the “gray­ing” of Puer­to Rico.

And it’s not that Puer­to Rican’s have lost the abil­i­ty to make babies. It’s just that the babies are being born else­where. But it gets worse. Those younger Puer­to Ricans that are leav­ing the Island are in their “pro­duc­tive” and “repro­duc­tive” years. That means that the Island invests in edu­cat­ing them and that edu­ca­tion comes to fruition else­where as well.

But hey, this isn’t an econ­o­my post either. Just look around you and you’ll see what I mean.

As for Naran­ji­to, it’s a great lit­tle town that’s “all about food”. If you want to hang out with friends on a week­end after­noon, have a cou­ple of “cold ones” and enjoy great food it’s hard to beat. Just don’t go there in a hur­ry, since the addi­tion­al miles are going to slow you down. And make sure to watch my accom­pa­ny­ing video. You’ll see what I’m talk­ing about in liv­ing color.

Oh, and make sure to get the GPS coor­di­nates for your hotel before you leave in the morn­ing. That way you’ll be able to punch them into your GPS and return to the San Juan Metro­plex in the evening.

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.

NOTE: Due to the large exten­sion of land cov­ered in this post, you will need to zoom in and out on the map to see every pin. Please par­don the inconvenience.

See you next time!

©2023,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590