Vega Alta, A Town About A Beach 

Lit­tle girl at Cer­ro Gor­do Beach

Vega Alta is one of those towns that I hard­ly vis­it, unless I’m going to the beach. And even then, I don’t vis­it the beach —any beach— as much as I used to either. With that said, this week Zorai­da and I vis­it­ed the love­ly town of Vega Alta, on the cen­tral-north­ern coast of Puer­to Rico.

To us mere mor­tals Vega Alta would be pro­nounce “vega alta”, like you write it. But accord­ing to my friend, and Vega Alta home­town boy, Jorge Sei­jo, no real –veg­al­teño” would be caught dead pro­nounc­ing it that way. You can tell real “veg­al­teños” apart because they say: “veg­al­ta”.

Vega Alta used to be part of a larg­er ter­ri­to­ry called “Las Vegas del Cibu­co”, that was split in half by the Cibu­co riv­er. Then in 1775 they were actu­al­ly split into “La Vega Alta de Espinosa (present day Vega Alta) and “La Vega Baja del Naran­jal” (present day Vega Baja) which was found­ed a year lat­er. To this date many peo­ple refer to these two towns as “Las Vegas del Cibu­co” or sim­ply —you guessed it— “las Vegas”.

So what is a “vega” any­way? Well, I’m glad you asked. A vega is a mead­ow, in the King’s Eng­lish, which in turn is “a low ground by a riv­er”. Hence, both Vega Alta and Vega Baja are fre­quent­ly affect­ed by floods dur­ing the rainy months.

Vega Alta is hard­ly a tourist des­ti­na­tion. It’s one of those places where peo­ple live and go about their busi­ness, like so many oth­ers around the Island. How­ev­er, if you look close­ly you’re going to run into inter­est­ing sto­ries. And that’s what my wife and I did for a cou­ple of hours.

Click on image to watch the video

As always, we arrived in Vega Alta ear­ly in the morn­ing. It was 7:27 on the morn­ing of April 5. The Catholic church was open so we walked right in.

Last week I got an email from one of my read­ers that was sur­prised to learn that I was raised in the protes­tant church. She thought I was a Catholic, being that our first stop is always the Catholic church.

Well, the truth is that I’m not a church-going Chris­t­ian either way. I was just brought up in the protes­tant faith. The rea­son why we always vis­it the Catholic church is because Puer­to Rico was orig­i­nal­ly a Span­ish colony. Hence, the Island was pre­dom­i­nant­ly Catholic. Some may argue that it still is, although the num­bers might not sup­port that notion.

This Span­ish her­itage result­ed in beau­ti­ful tem­ples through­out the Island, which in turn are tourists attrac­tions for those who go around the world vis­it­ing old church­es (yes, there is such a tourist). And Puer­to Rico, I might add, has dozens and dozens of beau­ti­ful examples.

Catch­ing these tem­ples open can be a whole oth­er chal­lenge because many cler­ics cel­e­brate mass ear­ly in the morn­ing and close the tem­ple until the evening. Why? Because of increas­ing van­dal­ism and theft. They sim­ply don’t have the resources or the peo­ple to watch over the tem­ples dur­ing the day.

It’s a sad thing to say, but it’s a fact of mod­ern life.

Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion Church
(click on image to see it larger)

Vega Alta’s Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion Church was built in 1813. It’s not spec­tac­u­lar on the out­side by any stretch of the imag­i­na­tion. In fact, it’s rather “boxy”.

I’ve also said in the past that I’m not an archi­tect. So my appre­ci­a­tion for these old struc­tures is main­ly based on the amount of “grandeur” that they might exhib­it. That said, the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion Church might look rather “boxy”, with its flat roof and lack of a bell tow­er, but it more than makes up for it on the inside.

The inte­ri­or has that “old world charm” with stained glass win­dows, chan­de­liers and sober decor. Alto­geth­er it evokes a feel­ing of peace and seren­i­ty that’s quite inviting.

And here’s anoth­er ques­tion that, if any­thing, shines anoth­er light on my igno­rance about the Catholic faith. Why is it a church and not a Parish? What’s the dif­fer­ence? If by any chance you hap­pen to know, leave a com­ment. I love to learn.

Gilber­to Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia Square
(click on image to see it larger)

A few steps to the west of the Immac­u­late Con­cep­tion Church is Dr. Gilber­to Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia Square. It’s an unpre­ten­tious square, when you com­pare it to oth­ers that we’ve explored. But the city keeps it clean and in tip top shape. Across the square, on the north­west cor­ner, is the old City Hall build­ing, which is being remod­eled to serve as the new Munic­i­pal Theater.

Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia was born in Vega Alta on July 9th, 1909. He was a lawyer, jour­nal­ist, author, politi­cian and the founder of the Puer­to Rican Inde­pen­dence Par­ty. Dur­ing his tenure the Puer­to Rican Inde­pen­dence Par­ty obtained 20% of the vote and had 15 leg­is­la­tors elect­ed into office, the high­est amount it has ever had in its history.

Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia was not a doc­tor in med­i­cine, but rather a doc­tor in law, spe­cial­iz­ing in civ­il rights and con­sti­tu­tion­al law. He trained at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico and at Wash­ing­ton D.C.’s pres­ti­gious George Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Law School.

In 1936, at the young age of 25, he relo­cat­ed to New York City to defend Puer­to Rican nation­al­ist leader Pedro Albizu Cam­pos and oth­er mem­bers of the Par­ty. After the tri­al he remained in the city defend­ing the civ­il rights of oth­er His­pan­ic workers.

And here are sev­er­al oth­er facts that I dis­cov­ered while research­ing for my video and blog post about Vega Alta. Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia was also the great uncle of Puer­to Rican artists René Pérez Joglar —also known as “Res­i­dente Calle 13”, singer Ileana Merced Cabra Joglar com­mon­ly known as “iLe”, and Lin-Manuel Miran­da, who gained noto­ri­ety for his “Hamil­ton” and “In The Heights” plays.

After strolling around Dr. Con­cep­ción de Gra­cia Square for a while we walked north along the José Rosa­do Negrón, Esq. Pedes­tri­an Walk to the new City Hall Build­ing, that sits a few blocks north by State Road #2.

New Vega Alta City Hall Building
(click on image to see it larger)

The area has pub­lic art, seat­ing facil­i­ties and a band­stand for pub­lic events. One thing I noticed all around the city was the pres­ence of city work­ers prun­ing parks and plazas. I mean, they were every­where with their weedwack­ers and sheers clip­ping here and sweep­ing there. All in all the place looks pristine.

After reach­ing the new City Hall build­ing we walked all the way back along the José Rosa­do Negrón, Esq. Pedes­tri­an Walk to Muñoz Rivera Street, also known as munic­i­pal road 676. From there we walked east along 676 to a place called “La Placita De Güisín”. In case your Span­ish is kind’a rusty, those two dots above the “u” are called a “diere­sis” and they’re sup­posed to be pro­nounced “guee”. Hit the play­er below if you would like to hear how it’s pronounced.

In any case, why is “La Placita De Guisín” so impor­tant. Well, because we were told by sev­er­al towns­peo­ple that sev­er­al build­ings in the area (includ­ing that one) were owned by “the Miran­das” and that there’s a gallery being built a cou­ple of doors east that will hold Lin-Manuel Miran­da mem­o­ra­bil­ia. It’s sched­uled to open on May 2, 2024.

So what’s the con­nec­tion? Well, Lin-Manuel Miran­da was born in New York City to Puer­to Rican par­ents. Dur­ing his child­hood he would spend at least a month of every year at his grandparent’s house in “you guessed it”, the lit­tle town of Vega Alta.

Hence Miran­da has a spe­cial place in his heart for Puer­to Rico and has always defend­ed its culture.

There was one place remain­ing in our vis­it to Vega Alta and it was all the way across town. It was also what gave way to the posts name. Of course, I’m talk­ing about the beau­ti­ful Cer­ro Gor­do Beach.

Cou­ple enjoy­ing the beach
(click on image to see it larger)

You won’t find Cer­ro Gor­do in most of the Puer­to Rico Tourism Company’s pub­li­ca­tions. The fact is that most vis­i­tors to the Island hard­ly leave the San Juan Metro­plex alto­geth­er. And that’s their loss and the entire rea­son for Puer­to Rico By GPS’ existence.

Just ask any main­lan­der what’s the best beach in Puer­to Rico and chances are that he’ll say “Fla­men­co”. After all, it con­stant­ly ranks among the best beach­es in the world in pub­li­ca­tions like Conde Nast Trav­el­er. But, hey, Fla­men­co is in Cule­bra, a small Island east of the larg­er Island of Puer­to Rico.

To get there you’ll only have two options: a “pud­dle jumper” and the fer­ry. The first can be quite expen­sive, espe­cial­ly if you par­ty is numer­ous and the fer­ry is sim­ply a tragedy.

But Puer­to Rico has dozens of oth­er beach­es that are also great. In fact, I wrote an entire book about the sub­ject titled “Puer­to Rico Beach By Beach”. My wife and I vis­it­ed 53 of Puer­to Rico’s most gor­geous beach­es, took pic­tures, shot video and researched every lit­tle detail about them so that you would­n’t have to.

I know. It’s hard work, but some­one had to do it. Back to our story…

When I was a young man I stud­ied my first two years of col­lege at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico’s region­al col­lege in Bayamón, a larg­er city that’s a few miles south­east of Vega Alta. Most of our beach escapades took place at Cer­ro Gor­do Beach.

And believe me, the place is and has always been gor­geous. The water is a crys­tal clear turquoise blue, the surf is usu­al­ly under an inch high and the sand is pris­tine white.

And here are a few extra tips that I’ve picked up through­out the years. Cer­ro Gor­do is a bal­n­eario. That means ‘pub­lic beach” in Span­ish. Most bal­n­ear­ios are closed on Mon­days. They’re closed for main­te­nance and cleaning.

That means that if you go there on a Tues­day morn­ing it’ll be “sparkling”.

Fur­ther­more, Puer­to Ricans most­ly vis­it their beach­es on the week­ends. That means that if you’d like to have the place to your­self, your best bet is to go there on a Tues­day, Wednes­day or Thursday.

Chil­dren are safe at Cer­ro Gor­do beach
(click on image to see it larger)

And, of course, like most bal­n­ear­ios you’ll have life­guards, safe­ty buoys, sig­nage, show­ers, restrooms, con­ces­sion stands and ample park­ing. Oh, and did I men­tion that the whole thing is free?

That’s right!!! Well, sort of, because you will have to pay for the park­ing. But that was a measly $5.

All in all, a day at Cer­ro Gor­do is sure to be a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence at a min­i­mal cost.

The eas­i­est way to get back to the San Juan Metro­plex from Cer­ro Gor­do Beach is through the neigh­bor­ing town of Dora­do. You can choose to explore it as well, but we’ll be doing that in our next post.

For now just take road 690 going south until you reach the inter­sec­tion with road 693. Turn left on 693 (that will actu­al­ly be going east) and fol­low the road all the way through the town of Dora­do, over the “La Pla­ta” riv­er and to the inter­sec­tion with road 165. Turn left on road 165 and fol­low it until you reach exit 7B.

This stretch will be looooooooong. You’ll be dri­ving along the north coast of the town of Toa Baja first, with the beach on your left hand side, then by Puer­to Rico’s decay­ing pow­er plants (that’s a sto­ry for anoth­er day), then along the Cataño dock yards and final­ly by the Fed­er­al Prison on your right hand side. Then you’ll go under the PR-22 toll road and final­ly reach exit 7B on your left hand side.

Turn left on exit 7B and you’ll get on PR-22 going towards the Minil­las Tun­nel and the San Juan/Condado area.

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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