San Lorenzo | Waterfalls, Mountains and Adventures 

Our Lady of Mer­cy Par­rish (Click on image to see it larger)

It was May 1st, 2023. The weath­er lady was fore­cast­ing dry weath­er and tem­per­a­tures as high as 109° F. Under those con­di­tions many peo­ple would head for the beach. But expe­ri­ence has taught me that that’s the for­mu­la for a ter­ri­ble sun­burn. And after that you feel even worse. So my wife and I head­ed for the moun­tains instead. To the moun­tains of San Loren­zo, Puer­to Rico that is!

San Loren­zo is a beau­ti­ful town that’s about 24 miles south of San Juan, as the crow flies. Of course, that’s close to 28 dri­ving miles and about an hour’s worth of traf­fic. Zory and I have decid­ed to vis­it every town in Puer­to Rico dur­ing a three-year peri­od and post our find­ings both in the Puer­to Rico By GPS blog and on our YouTube channel.

At first we start­ed writ­ing to each mayor’s office and ask­ing for a city offi­cial that would point us in the right direc­tion. After a while we dis­cov­ered that most city offi­cials don’t care, so we decid­ed to do what actu­al tourists do: “vis­it on our own and give our hon­est opin­ion”. Not that we wouldn’t have giv­en our hon­est opin­ion any­way, but at least the peo­ple from each town would’ve had the chance to influ­ence our thoughts. That’s way more than they get to do when an angry vis­i­tor slams them on YELP!

In the end it’s a truer expe­ri­ence for our read­ers and view­ers, because they cer­tain­ly won’t get the chance to con­tact any city officials.

We got to San Loren­zo at 8:53 in the morn­ing. How do I know? Because that’s the time record­ed on the first pic­ture that I took with my iPhone.

Poli­car­pio San­tana Pub­lic Square (click on image to see it larger)

Puer­to Rico has an excel­lent col­lec­tion of old church­es —most­ly catholic— that all seem to have some­thing in com­mon. They open ear­ly in the morn­ing and close around 10:00 in the morn­ing. That means that, if you wish to see the inte­ri­or, you have to be there ear­ly. So, we parked in front of the Poli­car­pio San­tana Pub­lic Square and head­ed for the Our Lady Of Mer­cy Par­rish (Par­ro­quia Nues­tra Seño­ra de las Mer­cedes), just across the square.

To our sur­prise it was closed! We walked up to the gate, just to make sure, and it was actu­al­ly closed. We’ve also learned that some­times these tem­ples just “look closed”, and when you walk up to the gate you dis­cov­er that the pad­lock is actu­al­ly open.

Find­ing the church closed was a pity because it looks ver nice from the out­side. So, we could only imag­ine that it should be nice inside as well. Besides, the orig­i­nal her­mitage was built in 1737, so we’re talk­ing about a very old tem­ple that must have an inter­est­ing architecture.

We walked around the tem­ple and dis­cov­ered the admin­is­tra­tion office in back. We put on our friend­liest face and asked the lady polite­ly when the tem­ple would be open. Her first response was “the tem­ple is closed”, which we already knew. Her tone was stern and com­mand­ing. We asked again when it would open and se replied that it only opened for mass very ear­ly in the morn­ing. Basi­cal­ly, she gave us the “cold shoul­der” treatment.

In my accom­pa­ny­ing video I ask a very basic ques­tion: “aren’t church­es sup­posed to be invit­ing”? I mean, these aren’t the mid­dle ages when you had to com­ply with the church’s every wish or you would burn in hell!!! This is 2023 and most church­es are los­ing con­gre­ga­tion left and right!

Of course, we weren’t there in a reli­gious capac­i­ty. Our inter­ests were more of a cul­tur­al or tourist nature. But whichev­er the case might have been, her job was to get us in the door, not to dri­ve us away.

Priscila Flo­res The­ater (click on image to see it larger)

We thanked the lady “for all her help” and went on our way. Our next stop was the Priscila Flo­res The­ater, a few steps north of the Parish. Priscila Flo­res is con­sid­ered one of the best folk­loric singers in Puer­to Rican his­to­ry and she was obvi­ous­ly a San Loren­zo native. But, as luck would have it, the the­ater was closed too.

I must admit that, in the cae of the the­ater, I wasn’t sur­prised. After all, how many the­aters do you know that are open at nine in the morning?

We were bat­ting well below. aver­age, so I said to my wife: “let’s walk around town for a while (just to see what we see) and we’ll “get the hell out’ve Dodge”.

City Hall (click on image to see it larger)

We start­ed walk­ing south on Muñoz Rivera street because it seem like one of the main arter­ies in town. A few blocks lat­ter we found City Hall. It’s a nice build­ing, paint­ed in bright red (more on that in a minute) that was rebuilt in 1938. The orig­i­nal one must’ve been built some­time after 1811, when San Loren­zo sep­a­rat­ed from the neigh­bor­ing town of Caguas and became a municipality.

And I do say “must’ve been built” because I tried to find the exact date online and was unable. And what about the bright red? Well, Puer­to Rican pol­i­tics is so fanat­i­cal and big­ot­ed that when one of the two major polit­i­cal par­ties wins an elec­tion they start paint­ing every­thing blue or red. Blue for the pro state­hood par­ty (PNP) and red for the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PPD).

To me it’s pure idio­cy that only leads to wast­ed time and mon­ey. And God know that there’s nev­er enough of the lat­er to go around.

May­or’s Square (click on image to see it larger)

Right behind the San Loren­zo City Hall is anoth­er square called “La Plaza de los Alcaldes” that —as the name implies— hon­ors the 34 may­ors in San Lorenzo’s his­to­ry. We walked around the square for a while and there were sev­er­al things that caught my eye. First, it’s clean and the land­scape is well pruned. Sec­ond, the water foun­tains actu­al­ly work, some­thing that I can’t say about the ones at the Poli­car­pio San­tana Pub­lic Square, or the ones at the Our Lady Of Mer­cy Par­rish, for that mat­ter. Those were either defec­tive or sim­ply turned off. And final­ly, every may­or was male. No female may­ors to be seen.

I lat­er con­firmed this point online. In its 212 years San Loren­zo has had 34 may­ors and none of them has been a female! Just sayin’…

After leav­ing the “Plaza de los Alcaldes” we went back to Muñoz Rivera street and con­tin­ued walk­ing south. We want­ed to reach a “vir­tu­al library” that we had been told about at city hall. I also pub­lish a week­ly pod­cast titled “Hablan­do De Tec­nología” that’s on its 404th episode, so any­thing “vir­tu­al” or “tech­no­log­i­cal” wets my intel­lec­tu­al appetite.

We final­ly reached the place sev­er­al blocks south. It’s a bright yel­low build­ing named after Dr. Rafael Mar­cano Blan­co. The tem­per­a­ture on the street was already reach­ing its peak and we were dying for a lit­tle “air con­di­tion­ing”. We had no idea that this place would be “cool” in more ways than one.

As we entered the build­ing we met two won­der­ful ladies who spent well over an hour answer­ing our ques­tions and point­ing us in the right direction.

I won’t men­tion their names, because they didn’t autho­rize us to do so, but they know who they are and we’ll be eter­nal­ly grateful.

As for the library itself, it has every­thing you could hope for in a learn­ing facil­i­ty and then some, from com­put­ers and audio­vi­su­al gear to spe­cial­ized rooms and cus­tom exhibits. There’s one area in par­tic­u­lar that caught my eye ded­i­cat­ed to José Luis González, author of “El País de 4 Pisos” (The Four Storey Coun­try). I read his book in col­lege and it was eye open­ing, to say the least.

One of the ladies at the library point­ed us towards oth­er places worth vis­it­ing in San Loren­zo. I had actu­al­ly heard of two of them, but by the time we got to the library we were frankly so dis­ap­point­ed that we were ready to give up. Well, she rekin­dled our inter­est and we left the library head­ed for “Los 7 Chorros”.

Los 7 Chor­ros (click on image to see it larger)

Los 7 chor­ros is a beau­ti­ful water­fall on the out­skirts of San Loren­zo that’s any land­scape photographer’s dream. You have 7 water­falls (hence the 7 “chor­ros”) that meld into one beau­ti­ful pond. The water­fall is locat­ed up in the moun­tains on the Ema­jagua Riv­er, a trib­u­tary of the Río Grande De Loíza.

And when I say out­skirts, I’m talk­ing about 12–13 miles along curvy Puer­to Rican coun­try roads. So if you choose to vis­it “Los 7 Chor­ros” expect to dri­ve for around 30 to 40 minutes.

When you get there you’ll find a small restau­rant in front, owned by “don Chu”, that goes by the same name of “Los 7 Chor­ros”. The falls are in pri­vate prop­er­ty but the own­ers are gra­cious enough to let every­one in. Just ask for Nan­cy, that’s don Chu’s daughter.

There’s a con­crete stair­way that leads down to the falls and small dog called “Bruno” that, at first, doesn’t seem to friend­ly. But don’t wor­ry, he always bites before 8:00 in the morn­ing, so if you get there lat­er you’ll be OK.

There’s a sign at the entrance with 5 sim­ple rules that shouldn’t even have to be there, but “hey” some peo­ple need to be remind­ed. Of course, that’s not you!

In any case, here they are:

1. Park­ing is free
2. Admit­tance is free
3. Enter at your own risk (that includes deal­ing with Bruno, just kidding)
4. The own­ers assume no respon­si­bil­i­ty for you or your car.
5. If you bring chil­dren with you, they’ll be your respon­si­bil­i­ty too.

Oh, and one last thing, the gate is only open Wednes­day thru Sun­day. Mon­days and Tues­days, it’s closed.

Sim­ple, right?

I wasn’t there to swim so I shot my video, sev­er­al pho­tographs for my land­scape col­lec­tion and was soon ready to be on my way.

As I was about to leave I met Lucy, anoth­er one of don Chu’s daugh­ters. She asked if we were vis­it­ing Mon­taña San­ta (that’s “the sacred moun­tain”, in the Queen’s Eng­lish). At 3,500 feet above sea lev­el, it’s a place where the tem­per­a­ture drops about 10 or 15 degrees.

At first we had giv­en up on the moun­tain, because we weren’t sure how to get there, but Lucy said she was going there any­way and offered to show us the way.

View from Sacred Moun­tain (click on image to see it larger)

The view from Mon­taña San­ta is well worth the trip, but be advised that the road is a white knuck­le dri­ve, if there ever was one. In fact, there’s a sec­tor where the grade is close to 45°. So make sure your vehi­cle is up for it. And if it has an auto­mat­ic trans­mis­sion, like my Pathfind­er does, don’t attempt it on the way back or you’ll burn out your brakes for sure.

Instead take the flat­ter option that Lucy showed us along the old “Panoram­ic Route” (Road 7740), con­nect­ing with Road 181 due north, then road 183 and even­tu­al­ly road 203 and you’ll end up back on road 30. From there it’s back to Toll Road 52 going north, then Road 18 and back to the San Juan Metroplex.

San Loren­zo is one of those small towns in Puer­to Rico that are nice, but are hard­ly mov­ing a fin­ger to attract out­side tourists. And it’s a pity because local tourists don’t add a pen­ny to the Island’s econ­o­my as a whole. And God knows that we need those dol­lars. Instead, they only attract local tourists that sim­ply move mon­ey around.

I don’t know if it’s an aver­sion to speak “el difí­cil” (“the hard one”, as Puer­to Ricans jok­ing­ly refer to the Eng­lish lan­guage) or sim­ply a lack of imag­i­na­tion, but the fact is that small towns on the Island do prac­ti­cal­ly noth­ing to attract tourists from the mainland.

Well, guess what? There’s a cus­tomer for every­thing. There are peo­ple that trav­el the world vis­it­ing old church­es. Oth­ers vis­it muse­ums, water­falls or grand vis­tas. And guess what else? Puer­to Rico has plen­ty of those!!! Why is it that peo­ple flock to Saint Agustin in Flori­da and we can’t get it in our heads that Puer­to Rico was found­ed 44 years earlier?

Being old has val­ue, but our small town­ships don’t get it. The may­ors of these cities have minia­ture gold mines on their hands and they are doing noth­ing. Maybe I shouldn’t gen­er­al­ize, because some of them do. But most don’t. And when you do find those iso­lat­ed efforts there’s usu­al­ly an inspired entre­pre­neur behind them. As an illu­mi­nat­ed friend of mine repeat­ed­ly says: “gov­ern­ment is overhead”.

So why don’t I men­tion those entre­pre­neurs? Well, some­times I do. But Puer­to Rico By GPS is a busi­ness ven­ture in itself and it’s only fair that we should charge for our cov­er­age of pri­vate projects. Of course, there are some that would con­sid­er that “pay­ola” or “pay-to-play”, but accord­ing to the FTC, as long as you dis­close, it’s just business.

How­ev­er, the sad fact is that nowa­days most peo­ple want every­thing free. Maybe it’s an “Inter­net” thing. In any case, that’s why we rarely men­tion pri­vate concerns.

Final­ly, I have a friend from the main­land that I met many years ago. When we met I picked him up where he was stay­ing and showed him around Puer­to Rico free of charge. After that he vis­it­ed Puer­to Rico sev­er­al more times and once again I spent time with him show­ing him around.

One year he asked me “why I did what I did”? I wasn’t sure what he was ask­ing, so he clar­i­fied: “why do you show me around again and again and you’ve nev­er asked me for a penny”?

My answer prob­a­bly sur­prised him. I said: “I show you Puer­to Rico because it’s my home. And guess what? I’ll prob­a­bly nev­er vis­it your state. But some­day you’ll have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do for some­one what I’ve done for you. All I ask is that you do the same. Show him/her your home.

Well, guess what? Sev­er­al years lat­er the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it his state arrived and we did so, twice. He offered us his home and showed us around exten­sive­ly. I’ve seen places in his state that even many of the locals haven’t seen.

So, in the end, that’s why I do what I do: “because Puer­to Rico is my home” and I love to show it!!! And if I some­times come across as a crit­ic it’s because I want it to improve.

Oh, and here’s a map with all the coor­di­nates to the places vis­it­ed in this post.

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.

I hope you enjoy our trav­els. 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