Río Grande: Much More Than We Bargained For! 

Río Grande City Square
(click on image to see it larger)

Today we are going to talk about Río Grande. Río Grande Puer­to Rico, that is. But before we do, let me tell you why this arti­cle is late.

August has been a com­pli­cat­ed month for me. I start­ed by vis­it­ing my son on the main­land to cel­e­brate the third birth­day of my youngest grand­son. Lit­tle did I know that I had caught Covid-19 on the way there. Hence, what were sup­posed to be 8 days of fun and relax­ation at my son’s house turned out to be 5 days in bed, a missed par­ty and anoth­er week in bed back home.

Before I left I post­ed the Toa Baja episode and pro­grammed it to be pub­lished on August 18. So at least I had a lit­tle lee­way. But even so, I’ve been run­ning behind to get this week’s post and video out in time.

On August 28 I final­ly vis­it­ed the town of Río Grande. It was hot, real­ly hot!!! In fact, that day the ther­mome­ter hit 95°F in the shade. That was the real tem­per­a­ture. The per­ceived tem­per­a­ture was around 108°F. We also broke the 20-year record for that day of the year.

Our Lady of Car­men Parish
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Río Grande is a nice town and the may­or does a great job of keep­ing it clean and tidy. As always, we got there ear­ly, in the hopes of find­ing the Our Lady Of Car­men Parish (Par­ro­quia Nues­tra Seño­ra Del Car­men) open. It was closed.

Lat­er on I learned that it clos­es on Mon­days. More on that in a minute.

Many of you have asked what’s my fix­a­tion with find­ing the dif­fer­ent Catholic tem­ples open. Well, here’s the rea­son­ing behind it. Puer­to Rico is a Catholic soci­ety at heart. You can argue that protes­tantism has made great inroads on the Island since the Unit­ed States took over back in 1898, But the fact remains that Puer­to Rico is essen­tial­ly Catholic. We inher­it­ed that from Spain.

Puer­to Rico has some of the old­est and nicest church­es in the Caribbean. Vis­it­ing those church­es is a tourist activ­i­ty like any oth­er. There are peo­ple that go around vis­it­ing old church­es and mon­u­ments. I guess you could call them “his­to­ry buffs”, or maybe the “reli­gious buffs”. So I try to doc­u­ment as many church­es as pos­si­ble to cater to that crowd as well.

Hav­ing found the church closed, we decid­ed to take a stroll around the main square. It’s a nice square that’s con­sid­ered among the best in Puer­to Rico. How­ev­er, like I said in the video, I’m a suck­er for flow­ers. It has too much con­crete and too lit­tle vegetation.

I also read some­where that in the past this square had huge trees that were appar­ent­ly removed dur­ing the last remod­el­ling back in 2008. Believe me, they’re sore­ly missed. Espe­cial­ly on 95°F days, like last Mon­day. It was like stand­ing in a fry­ing pan.

All that said, the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Río Grande does a great job of keep­ing the square, and the town in gen­er­al, spot­less. Just add some plants please.

Rio Grande City Hall
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After explor­ing the square we decid­ed to go by City Hall to inquire about the Church and the oth­er points of inter­est in Río Grande. When we got there we met Mrs. María Sánchez, the town’s Press and Pro­to­col Director.

She imme­di­ate­ly called some­one at the Church who said that it was always closed on Mon­days. We were also told that the church inte­ri­or was quite spe­cial and that we should try to come back the next day.

We spent about a half an hour with María learn­ing about Río Grande and it’s many attrac­tions. She told us about “La Paseado­ra”, a fam­i­ly-run boat ride along the Espíritu San­to riv­er. I also learned that the Espíritu San­to is the only nav­i­ga­ble riv­er in Puer­to Rico.

María Sánchez
Pro­to­col and Press Director

I asked María about “Las Picúas” beach, because in my mind I pic­tured it like Vacia Tale­ga in the neigh­bor­ing town of Loíza. I wasn’t aware of the social strife that has tak­en place there for years between the local fish­er­men and the res­i­dents who have prac­ti­cal­ly blocked off access to the sea (more on that in a minute).

As we left City Hall we decid­ed to dri­ve by “Las Picúas”. I was so unin­formed about “Las Picúas” that I actu­al­ly thought it was at a dif­fer­ent loca­tion alto­geth­er. You actu­al­ly get there by way of road 968, as if you were dri­ving towards the Río Mar Coun­try Club.

There are sev­er­al large resorts in Río Grande, with golf cours­es, beach­es and all sorts of ammeni­ties. But the peo­ple that read Puer­to Rico By GPS are the adven­tur­ous trav­el­ers. They usu­al­ly stay at mod­est hotels and make up their trip as they go. So that’s why they’re not men­tioned in this post. It’s a mat­ter of “mar­ket­ing niches”.

As you pass the large resorts you turn right at this point (18.383818, ‑65.767171) and the road becomes “Camino Las Picúas”. You can tell you’re on the right road because the pot­holes become larg­er quick­ly, the grass along the road is becomes taller and urban sprawl becomes more evident.

Need­less to say, I was expect­ing one thing at “Las Picúas” and what I dis­cov­ered was some­thing total­ly dif­fer­ent. Watch the video to see what this area is like.

“Las Picúas” area is yet anoth­er sad exam­ple of how law­less­ness and envi­ron­men­tal reck­less­ness have tak­en over Puer­to Rico. Sup­pos­ed­ly it’s a pro­tect­ed area, but the “sprawl” is so bad that you can hard­ly see the shore.

The hous­es are built right on the water and in such a way that you can’t get to the shore either. It’s an end­less line of con­nect­ed fences that com­bine to form a wall between the street and the sea. This was the main rea­son that led to the fishermen’s upris­ing, because they were hard­ly left any access to the ocean.

In a sad attempt to com­ply with some sort of reg­u­la­tion, there are sev­er­al alleys lead­ing to the ocean. I actu­al­ly fol­lowed a cou­ple of those alleys to the end, only to find  rocky bar­ri­ers and stale water. I also saw hous­es, on both sides of those alleys, that were built to the very edge of the water. It remind­ed me of the Ocean Park area in San Juan, where there once were about 200 feet of sand between the water­line and the hous­es and now the water hits against con­crete walls.

Oh, and those walls weren’t always there. They had to be built to stave off the ero­sion caused by cli­mate change.

While we were there we ran into a per­ma­nent camp called “El Eri­zo (The Urchin) run 24/7 by the fish­er­men pro­test­ers. That’s where we learned about all the envi­ron­men­tal atroc­i­ties that have tak­en place at “Las Picúas”.

Accord­ing to Mr. José Tor­res and Mr. José Mal­don­a­do, the pro­test­ers man­ning the camp that day, they’ve had to fight tooth and nail to keep the res­i­dents from clos­ing off the beach alto­geth­er. They also told us that none of the res­i­dents of the area actu­al­ly have a deed to their prop­er­ties. Instead the land was pur­chased as a 75 acre farm and sold as lots with only an affi­davit as proof of purchase.

That’s ile­gal, if not inmoral, because in the eyes of the law none of the res­i­dents are right­ful own­ers. So how did they get water and pow­er installed? That was Mr. Mal­don­ado’s question.

Tor­res told us that Río Grande has a 14 kilo­me­ter beach­front, yet “Playa Las Picías” is the only wild one left! Think about that!

It was get­ting late for my “abue­lo chores” (that’s pick­ing up my grand­chil­dren at school) so we decid­ed to return to San Juan and com­plete our explo­ration of Río Grande the next day.

The next morn­ing we were at Our Lady Of Car­men Parish around 9:30am. The tem­ple was still closed, but there was a lady at the church office that let us in and turned on the lights so we could film the interior.

María was right. The church is wonderful.

The tem­ple is beau­ti­ful and well kept. It’s not as old as oth­ers we’ve vis­it­ed on the Island, but its absolute­ly won­der­ful in its own right. There’s a tryp­tic above the altar that has a vir­gin in the cen­ter and two cherubs on the sides. All three are the largest of their kind in Puer­to Rico.

At first they don’t look so large, but remem­ber, I said of their kind.

All three fig­ures are carved in wood and cov­ered in plas­ter. That’s what makes them the largest of their kind.

The rest of the church is also beau­ti­ful with all sorts of reli­gious artifacts.

I am not a devote Catholic. In fact, I’m not a Catholic at all, but I am sen­si­tive enough to rec­og­nize when a place has reli­gious and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. This church has both and it’s visu­al­ly stun­ning to boot.

El Yunque Nation­al For­est Entrance
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There was only one place left to vis­it in Río Grande and sur­pris­ing­ly it was the main attrac­tion. I’m talk­ing about El Yunque Nation­al For­est, a 29,000 acre area run by the Unit­ed States For­est Service.

Many peo­ple believe that El Yunque is a Nation­al Park, but it’s not. It’s actu­al­ly the only trop­i­cal rain­for­est in the Unit­ed States, and it’s run by the U.S. For­est Service.

And here’s anoth­er piece of triv­ia for you. Did you know that El Yunque was a “nat­ur­al pre­serve” well before the Unit­ed States took over Puer­to Rico?

Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park South Entrance
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That’s right! It has been a pro­tect­ed for­est since the 19th cen­tu­ry, when King Alfon­so XII of Spain declared it “reser­va de la coro­na”, or reserved for the Span­ish Crown. That, by the way, was just four years after the found­ing of Yel­low­stone Nation­al Park in Wyoming.

El Yunque is actu­al­ly one of the three most vis­it­ed attrac­tions in Puer­to Rico. The oth­er two are Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro and Fort San Cristóbal, both in Old San Juan.

We didn’t vis­it el Yunque this time, although I am going to tell you all about it in this post. And there were two main rea­sons for this. First, I’ve been to El Yunque a thou­sand times, and I have a moun­tain of footage,. And sec­ond, because if I did –and I shot any footage–, I wouldn’t have been able to use it in my video.

Why? Well, let’s just say that the minute you pass the “El Yunque” sign your “First Amend­ment Rights” are cur­tailed. And that’s not only at “El Yunque”, by the way. It’s at any U.S. Nation­al Park.

Film­ing In Nation­al Parks PDF
(click on image to download)

Effec­tive Octo­ber 28, 2022, the U.S. Nation­al Park Ser­vice basi­cal­ly banned all YouTu­bers and Tik Tok­ers from U.S. Nation­al Park prop­er­ties. They did it by rein­stat­ing and broad­en­ing laws and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing com­mer­cial film­ing in the parks. These reg­u­la­tions have always exist­ed, but they applied only to com­mer­cial crews, not the reg­u­lar Joe hold­ing a GoPro or a smartphone.

By apply­ing these dra­con­ic rules across the board, they are effec­tive­ly favor­ing large crews, with the bud­get and where­with­al to jump through all the hoops. They’re also shut­ting out the small­er guys like me who don’t have the means or the time to com­ply with all their processes.

There­fore, every inch of El Yunque footage shown in this week’s video was shot before Octo­ber 28, 2022. This has forced us to leave a few areas out (because we sim­ply didn’t have the footage) but hey, what can a guy do?

As you enter El Yunque the first thing you’ll find on your right hand side is El Por­tal. It’s a small muse­um and vis­i­tor cen­ter with an ample park­ing area and trop­i­cal plant exhibits. The place was recent­ly remod­elled and they did an excel­lent job.

La Coca Water­fall | El Yunque
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A lit­tle fur­ther up the road you find “La Coca” water­fall on you right hand side. It’s an 85-foot fall with a sol­id black rock face that always has a thin but con­stant stream of water.

It’s an excel­lent place to make pho­tographs, but be advised that the rocks can be slip­pery and that the seem­ing­ly harm­less trick­le of water can become a roar­ing cur­rent dur­ing rain events. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Yokahu Obser­va­tion Tow­er
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Just a lit­tle fur­ther up the road you’ll find the Yokahú Obser­va­tion Tow­er on your left-hand side. It’s a 69-foot con­crete struc­ture, built dur­ing the ear­ly 1960’s. From there you can observe four types of forests (if you know what to look for). Those are “col­orado”, “tabonu­co”, “pal­ma sier­ra”, and “bosque de nube”. I’m no help when it comes to veg­e­ta­tion, but what I can tell you is that the Island’s peas­ants used to say that when the “yagru­mos” show the white under­side of their leaves (those are the trees that grow in the “tabonu­co” for­est) it’s because a hur­ri­cane is com­ing that year.

You can also see a spec­tac­u­lar view from the top, that on a clear day can span most of the north­east coast of Puer­to Rico.

Juan Diego Falls
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Yet a lit­tle fur­ther up the road, on your right hand side, there’s anoth­er beau­ti­ful water­fall called Juan Diego. Most peo­ple miss it because it has a tee­ny wee­ny sign. But that’s more than what it used to have,. That’s why GPS coor­di­nates are so helpful.

Anoth­er thing I noticed, when I vis­it­ed back in Sep­tem­ber of 2022, is that they built steps and a trail lead­ing to Juan Diego. Years ago you had to trek through the brush and fol­low the riv­er. It’s a beau­ti­ful water­fall that’s well worth the short hike.

La Mina Water­fall
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There’s yet anoth­er beau­ti­ful water­fall at El Yunque called La Mina. But that one takes a half-hour hike and the trail was destroyed dur­ing hur­ri­cane María. The last I heard is that it’s still closed and that there’s no date for reopen­ing it.

There are sev­er­al trails at El Yunque, all of which are beau­ti­ful and inter­est­ing. But, since the For­est Ser­vice has been hard at work recon­struct­ing them after hur­ri­cane María, I can’t tell you which are avail­able and which aren’t. Your best bet is to ask a ranger.

What I am going to tell you about the trails is this. If you do decide to walk one of the trails stick to it. Don’t ven­ture into the wilder­ness. There are no major preda­tors in Puer­to Rico but peo­ple have been lost for days at El Yunque. And believe me, that’s no fun.

To leave El Yunque just take road 191 going north until you reach the lit­tle town of Palmer. Turn right on road 955, left on State Road #3 and retrace your steps back to San Juan.

Water Fea­ture Park on the way home
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As I did that I ran into a small park on the cor­ner of Road #3 and 955R, across the street from Advance Auto Parts. It’s a beau­ti­ful park with bridges, large stat­ues of par­rots and a water fea­ture which –I sup­pose– evokes the Espíritu San­to Riv­er. Once again, as in the case of the main square, they’ve done a great job but it looks bar­ren. It needs some flow­ers and water. If it’s going to have a water fea­ture, it has to have water. Right?

Río Grande is a great town with lots of things to see and do. Just the fact that it’s home to El Yunque Nation­al For­est makes it a must see des­ti­na­tion. The few things that might have sound­ed like crit­i­cism should actu­al­ly be tak­en as “improve­ment opportunities”.

After leav­ing the park I took State Road #3 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!

©2023,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

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