There Was Something Off About Toa Baja

Orlan­do Mergal
(click on image to see it larger)

It was 11:00am on the morn­ing of July 20, 2023. My wife Zory and I were stand­ing in the mid­dle of Vir­gilio Dávi­la Square in the lit­tle town of Toa Baja, Puer­to Rico. There was some­thing off about the place and at first I couldn’t put my fin­ger on it. Then it hit me! Every­thing was reversed. The church was on the wrong side. Even worse, it was back­wards. Were we in anoth­er dimension?

I’ve lived in Puer­to Rico for over 60 years. Most towns in Puer­to Rico fol­low the mod­el inher­it­ed from the Spaniards. They in turn inher­it­ed it from the Con­stan­tine Roman Empire. The Catholic church is on the east side of the main square with the altar fac­ing east. That means that the front door of the church faces the square. City Hall is gen­er­al­ly at the oppo­site end of the square.

Well, in Toa Baja every­thing is crossed. City Hall is on the east side of the square. The Catholic church is on the west end. To make things even worse the church is fac­ing away from the square. What kind of a screwup hap­pened there?

Well, it wasn’t a screwup. It actu­al­ly had to do with a riv­er, like every­thing else in Toa Baja.

The morn­ing we vis­it­ed Toa Baja we actu­al­ly arrived from Toa Alta. There too the town is all about the riv­er. So much so that they both have the name of the riv­er includ­ed in the name of their town. That name is “toa”.

“Toa” was the name that the orig­i­nal set­tlers of the Island gave the mod­ern day “La Pla­ta” riv­er. Those set­tlers were the Taínos, which accord­ing to some his­to­ri­ans were exter­mi­nat­ed dur­ing the first 50 years of the Span­ish con­quest. Oth­ers argue that the Taíno gene pool is actu­al­ly alive and well in a large seg­ment of the Puer­to Rican pop­u­la­tion liv­ing in the Island’s west­ern mountains.

In any case, both Toa Alta and Toa Baja owe their very exis­tence to the “Toa” riv­er. In fact, in their hey­day both towns were agri­cul­tur­al pow­er­hous­es thanks to the river.

Sad­ly, today most of that fer­tile land is uncul­ti­vat­ed and cov­ered in brush. Toa Alta has some lands ded­i­cat­ed to cow farm­ing and hors­es. But Toa Baja’s fer­tile expans­es are most­ly emp­ty. In fact, many of the best lands have been tak­en over by squat­ters and underdeveloped.

But I digress. Back to our story.

When we arrived in Toa Baja we found a small town that was clean, well kept and most­ly emp­ty. After all, it was around 11:00am so we expect­ed a lit­tle hus­tle and bustle.

San Pedro Após­tol Parish
(click on image to see it larger)

Like always, our first stop was at the “San Pedro Após­tol Parish”, built in 1747. It was closed. Expe­ri­ence has taught us that most Catholic church­es open ear­ly in the morn­ing, cel­e­brate mass and then close for the day.

This wasn’t always this way. When I was a child in the 60’s I recall that most church­es nev­er closed. You could walk right in, say your prayers and then go about your day. But not any­more. Today church­es are sub­ject to rob­bery and van­dal­ism. On the oth­er hand, most of them don’t have the man­pow­er or the bud­get to have some­one watch­ing all day. So the eas­i­est thing to do is close.

This makes it hard­er to catch them open because each tem­ple does things differently.

Toa Baja City Hall
(click on image to see it larger)

After find­ing the parish closed we walked across the square to City Hall. I remem­ber telling my wife: “there’s some­thing weird about this town”. “It’s like everything’s reversed”.

When we got to City Hall, which was on the east­ern side of the square, we were told that the church was only cel­e­brat­ing mass on Sat­ur­days and Sun­days because the priest was off on a trip to South Amer­i­ca. We were there on a Thurs­day, so that sup­posed a sec­ond trip just to see the church interior.

I had read that the “San Pedro Após­tol Parish” is one of the old­est in Puer­to Rico. It’s also one of the nicest and among the best pre­served. So a sec­ond trip was more than warranted.

But why was it back­wards? Did some­one screw up? Well, the answer has to do with the river.

Back in the 1840’s the town suf­fered severe flood­ing. Back then town’s were con­struct­ed close to the rivers because it pro­vid­ed easy access to water and trans­porta­tion. But that same prox­im­i­ty made the towns sub­ject to flooding.

Well, the towns­peo­ple of Toa Baja had had enough. Every time it rained pro­fuse­ly the entire “toa val­ley” was cov­ered in water. And so were their homes. So they decid­ed to move the town east, away from the river.

Mov­ing the church was out the ques­tion. After all it was one of Puer­to Rico’s old­est and the cost would have been pro­hib­i­tive. So they decid­ed to build a lit­tle stone fea­ture with a vir­gin, on the church’s east side, to make it less obvi­ous that it was look­ing away from the new square. How­ev­er, it’s the first thing that catch­es your eye.

Some peo­ple don’t know why, but they just feel that something’s off.

But let me tell you, the “San Pedro Após­tol Parish” was well worth the trou­ble of mak­ing a sec­ond trip. It’s sim­ply beau­ti­ful. So we returned the fol­low­ing Sun­day morn­ing just to see the inte­ri­or. When we got there the church was still closed and the town was silent.

I guess when you live in the city you get used to the fast-paced break­neck style of liv­ing. But not in lit­tle Toa Baja. Over there life hap­pens slowly.

My wife and I drove around town for a while while we wait­ed for the church to open. While we did we ran into a gen­tle­man who told us about the “ris­er”. Lat­er in the day the were going to cel­e­brate the 100th birth­day of one of the town patrons.

Does that hap­pen in the city? Hell no! But in a small town like Toa Baja it’s important!

We returned to the church and it was still closed. Short­ly after a lady arrived and inquired why we were there. I told here about my blog and YouTube chan­nel and she agreed to let us in a few min­utes before mass so we could film the interior.

The church is amaz­ing. The inte­ri­or is in its orig­i­nal brick with arch­es and hard­wood beams. The look is aus­tere but ele­gant. It has that old world charm that you no longer see in mod­ern churches.

There’s noth­ing lux­u­ri­ous about this tem­ple and yet it has a charm all its own.

And then there’s the altar, which is carved in baroque sil­ver and has been part of the tem­ple from the very day it opened to the public.

So what about the rest of town? Well, across from the church you have the Vir­gilio Dávi­la Square. Vir­gilio Dávi­la was a poet, edu­ca­tor, politi­cian and busi­ness­man born in Toa Baja dur­ing the mid 19th century.

It’s a huge square, with ample sit­ting space, clean, well kept and with hard­ly enough trees. It’s also devoid of a cen­ter piece of some sort. Maybe a water foun­tain would do the trick.

On the east side of the square you have City Hall. To the naked eye the build­ing seems old. Albeit, I didn’t research it or ask. What I can tell you is that the peo­ple are nice and eager to help.

Leav­ing Toa Baja you have two options. You can take Road 165 south and con­nect with toll road 22 to return to San Juan or you can take road 165 north and bor­der the seashore going towards “Bal­n­eario Pun­ta Sali­nas”. In our case we did the later.

The road along the seashore going towards “Bal­n­eario Pun­ta Sali­nas” is amaz­ing. Some peo­ple actu­al­ly park along this road and bathe there. But I wouldn’t rec­om­mend it for a cou­ple of rea­sons. First, this area is not a beach. Yes it has water, but it “open water”. That means that it gets real deep real fast! It’s also sub­ject to high surf, rip cur­rents and oth­er perils.

Sec­ond, the area can be soli­tary. And giv­en Puer­to Rico’s high crime rate it isn’t the best place to be all by yourself.

But hey, it makes for excel­lent eye candy.

A few miles down the road you find the entrance to “Bal­n­eario Pun­ta Sali­nas” on your left-hand side. “Bal­n­eario Pun­ta Sali­nas” used to be a Blue Flag Beach. What does that mean? In short it means that it was among the best in the world. For more infor­ma­tion about the Blue Flag Pro­gram check out our video. Of course, this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is giv­en out year­ly and things change. So what was true then doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly hold true today.

And that’s the case with “Pun­ta Sali­nas”. Hur­ri­cane María was hard on all Puer­to Rican beach­es, but Pun­ta Sali­nas was hit par­tic­u­lar­ly hard. So author­i­ties are work­ing hard to bring it back to its for­mer glory.

In any case “Pun­ta Sali­nas” is nice. Just check out the recent footage in this article.

So what are “bal­n­ear­ios” any­way? In Span­ish a “bal­n­eario” is a gov­ern­ment run pub­lic beach. Now, tech­ni­cal­ly all beach­es in Puer­to Rico are pub­lic, at least accord­ing to the law. But “bal­n­ear­ios” are the best of the bunch because they usu­al­ly come with show­ers, gaze­bos, food con­ces­sion stands, life­guards, secu­ri­ty buoys, thou­sands of palm trees to keep the sun at bay and ample parking.

And guess what, they’re prac­ti­cal­ly free. Your only expense will be a small park­ing fee.

As you leave Pun­ta Sali­nas turn left on road 165 and fol­low the GPS coor­di­nates on the map below to “Isla de Cabras”. The name “Isla de Cabras” means “goat Island” in the King’s Eng­lish. But I wasn’t able to uncov­er any infor­ma­tion that there were ever any goats there.

In fact, call­ing it an Island is a stretch. Albeit, it’s sur­round­ed by water. It’s actu­al­ly an islet. But you couldn’t tell just by going there. It looks more like a strip of land that extends into the ocean. This is because of a man made strip that con­nects the orig­i­nal islet to firm land.

When you approach “Isla de Cabras” the first thing you’re going to see is Fort San Juan De La Cruz, bet­ter known along the locals as “el cañue­lo”. If you’re a main­lan­der you’re going to have trou­ble pro­nounc­ing that name so just hit on the lit­tle play­er to learn exact­ly how it should sound. el-cañue­lo

Fort San Juan De La Cruz was part of the defense sys­tem used by the Spaniards to pro­tect the entrance to San Juan Bay. It also pro­tect­ed the entrance to the Bayamón riv­er on its west side.

Ships attempt­ing to enter San Juan Bay would be caught in a cross­fire between Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro and Fort San Juan de la Cruz. Add this to the fact that the entrance to San Juan Bay is quite nar­row, and that there are reefs on the west side, and it made for a very effec­tive defense.

Sad­ly, many years ago Fort San Juan de la Cruz fell into dis­re­pair and the gov­ern­ment decid­ed to fill it with sand to avoid van­dal­ism. That’s why you can only see the outside.

You should also know that, in its orig­i­nal state, the fort was sur­round­ed by water. This made it even hard­er to breach.

The Unit­ed States Park Ser­vice is in charge of this fort but they haven’t made any announce­ments about bring­ing it back to its orig­i­nal glo­ry. On the oth­er hand, they have done an excel­lent job on the Old San Juan side. So I guess it all has to do with how much inter­est the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Toa Baja shows for the fort and how much they insist on bring­ing it back to life.

Imme­di­ate­ly after you pass Fort San Juan de la Cruz you enter a recent­ly inau­gu­rat­ed recre­ation­al park that offers: swim­ming areas, show­ers, restrooms, pri­vate secu­ri­ty, kayak­ing, green areas for events, recre­ation­al fish­ing, div­ing areas, snorkelling, a play­ground for kids, a boat ramp, gaze­bos, an activ­i­ty room and even food and snack concessions.

Lep­er Asy­lum Ruins
(click on image to see it larger)

Final­ly, towards the north­ern shore of the islet, you’ll find the ruins of the old Lep­er Asy­lum. There isn’t much left of the orig­i­nal facil­i­ties, but let me let you in on a lit­tle secret. This is actu­al­ly the best place to observe “la marea de los muer­tos” (or tide of the dead) every month of November.

Tide Of The Dead
(click on image to see it larger)

The image you see below was actu­al­ly shot on Novem­ber 2nd, which is the actu­al day of the dead. The cur­rent was so strong that the waves crashed tens of feet into the air.

Like the lit­tle town of Cataño, which we cov­ered in a pre­vi­ous post and video, Toa Baja has lots of pos­si­bil­i­ties. Just to give an exam­ple, the lit­tle town of “Palo Seco”, that you passed through on your way to Isla de Cabras, used to be a thriv­ing restau­rant area. Today it’s a ghost town.

You can argue that Puer­to Rico has gone through rough times dur­ing the last decade. Hur­ri­canes, earth­quakes, shifts in our eco­nom­ic struc­tures and even bank­rupt­cy have left our coun­try in sham­bles. But lots of it has been self inflict­ed, due to cor­rup­tion and poor decisions.

But hey, Puer­to Rico receives bil­lions of dol­lars in Fed­er­al funds and I just don’t see them reflect­ed on the Island’s real­i­ty. It’s like they go into a black hole. I also don’t hear any new ideas. It seems like we do like Ein­stein used to say: “we keep doing the same things and expect dif­fer­ent results”. That’s lunacy!!!

I know this doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of this post, but it angers me when I see places burst­ing with poten­tial con­vert­ed into “sleepy lit­tle towns”. Puer­to Rico could be a tourism mec­ca if we only put our minds to it. It could tru­ly live up to its name of “rich port”!!!

But what do I know? I can only say like the Span­ish poet León Felipe”:

“Yo no sé muchas cosas, es verdad.
Digo tan sólo lo que he visto.
Y he visto:
que la cuna del hom­bre la mecen con cuentos,
que los gri­tos de angus­tia del hom­bre los ahogan con cuentos,
que el llan­to del hom­bre lo tapo­nan con cuentos,
que los hue­sos del hom­bre los entier­ran con cuentos,
y que el miedo del hombre…
ha inven­ta­do todos los cuentos.
Yo no sé muchas cosas, es verdad,
pero me han dormi­do con todos los cuentos…
y sé todos los cuentos”.

And, in the rare case that you might not under­stand, here’s the Eng­lish translation:

I don’t know many things, it’s true.
I only say what I’ve seen.
And I’ve seen:
that the cra­dle of man is rocked with stories,
that man’s anguish is drowned with stories,
that man’s cries are cov­ered with stories,
that man’s bones are buried with stories,
and that man’s fear…
has giv­en way to all the stories.
I don’t know many things, it’s true,
but I have been laid to sleep with all the stories…
and I know all the stories.

Let’s for­get the sto­ries and build a new reality.

Puer­to Rico can be tru­ly great,

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