Guanica Dry Forest: Cacti, Cliffs and Red-Billed Oystercatchers

Who would expect to see so many kinds of cacti on a tropical island? We were intrigued to view the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea from a desert trail in Guánica State Forest, on the southwest end of Puerto Rico.

A United Nations International Biosphere Reserve, the Guánica State Forest, also known as Guánica dry Fores , is one of the most extensive tropical dry coastal forests in the world, totaling around 9,000 acres. It’s a paradise for birdwatchers, and we saw many. Read all about it.

Enjoy Bob’s video of our 3.7-mile hike along the rocky coast and through the desert.

Our day spent hiking and beaching also presented us with captivating flora and fauna! Lisa took a few pictures of her favorites, especially the red-billed oystercatchers. She guessed the name after watching them in action!

Back to Puerto Rico!

After a month in cold Washington, DC, we are back in Puerto Rico, where Covid is relatively low and everyone wears masks, even outside. Where the weather is warm so we can eat out safely. Where the beaches are lovely and the people are so friendly.

Road Trip!

Our first stop is the village of Cabo Rojo, in the southwest corner of PR. The drive from San Juan was 2 hours and 15 minutes. We’re staying in an apartment in the historic center, right next the the Alcaldía (City Hall) and two blocks from the Plaza in the center.

Our house, for a month

A number of beaches can be reached in 15 minutes or less by car, and we plan to explore as many as we can over the next month. We also plan to do a lot of hiking, find some new boutique distilleries, visit new cities, and experience life off the beaten path.

Buye Beach

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Playa Buye, a small local beach ten minutes away. It was adorable, and remarkably crowded with Puerto Rican families for a weekday. There were a couple of bars, a waterside concession, and a number of cinderblock cabins. It was lovely until the rain came.

Buye Beach

Balneario Boquerón

Today we’re visiting Balneario (Public Beach) Boquerón, and it’s perfection. Three miles of pristine sand and turquoise bay. Hardly any people.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Check back to find out!

Three Days in Culebra

We spent three days exploring Culebra, 12 miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. It’s hard to believe that this tiny island – world-renowned for its pristine beaches, incredible snorkeling in turquoise water, and vibrant underwater landscapes – used to be used by the US Navy for bombing practice.

Culebra totals just over 10 square miles, and served as a U.S. Naval base until 1975. That’s why you can still find a couple of rusting World War II tanks there, detritus that has been reimagined as art by Culebrans. You can read all about the tanks in this article from Atlas Obscura.

The flight alone was spectacular.

More than 20% of Culebra is preserved as a National Wildlife Refuge, which serves as a habitat for endangered sea turtles and seabirds, among other creatures. The flight in and out literally takes your breath away as you behold soaring mountains, dappled clear waters, and lush forest.

Flamenco Beach

If you’re looking for natural beauty, come visit. If you’re for nightlife, go elsewhere.

Three Days in Culebra YouTube Video

Related Links

Culebra
Puerto Rico Ferries
Messy Suitcase Snorkeling Culebra (Snorkeling Series Video #1)
Gypsea Mermaid Guesthouse
Dinghy Dock Restaurant
Vieques Airlink

Leaving Puerto Rico Today

Beto’s enjoying a last hour of beach time before we fly to the snowy northeast today.

Lisa is capping her last run in San Juan in 2021 with coffee and a pastry (from 787 Coffee, of course) by the ocean.

Enjoy some last images of the weird, wonderful beach at Punta Las Marías, our home for the past month.

This evening we board a plane bound for Manchester, NH, where our car is parked. Then, tomorrow we plan to get up super early, drive across the state of Vermont before an approaching snowstorm, scoop up Gavin and his cat Ellie at Champlain College in Burlington, and drive down to Sarasota, NY for the night. On Sunday, we rise early and drive another seven hours to our next home: Washington, DC!

We are not looking forward to going from 84 degrees to 29 in a few hours’ time.

Beautiful, Isolated Playa San Miguel

Here’s an important Spanish word for you to learn if you’re going to read our blog while we’re in Puerto Rico: Playa. It means beach. Puerto Rico is covered with gorgeous beaches — the northern ones facing the Atlantic Ocean and the southern ones the calmer Caribbean Sea — and we want to visit as many as we can while we’re here! There are endless varieties of sand-and-sea to be found on the Isla Encanta, each one more beautiful than the last.

We pulled out Google Maps and saw that Playa San Miguel was just one exit or so east from our condo in Luquillo on Rte. 3. We packed up a cooler with drinks and snacks, grabbed our beach chairs, towels, and sunscreen, and headed out.

irst look at Playa San Miguel. Guau! (That’s “wow,” in Spanish

Rough Road

To get there we had to drive our low-hanging rental five miles down a dirt road that seemed fine at first … until we hit the puddles. Small ponds might better describe them. Then they became lakes. I help my breath as Bob slowly navigated the Corolla along the edge of each, praying we wouldn’t get stuck in the muck in the middle of nowhere. Where was Bob’s Toyota Tacoma when we needed it? (Back in a parking lot in Manchester, NH.)

Bob commented that when we lived in PR in the 90s, he bought his guagua (truck, specifically a Jeep Cherokee with a cow-catcher grill on the front that Puerto Ricans call a “rompamonte”) so we could easily navigate these types of roads, but back then, I was working so much that we never did. This is part of the reason we have returned. Same adventurous spirit, more time — but sadly, no guagua.

The long road traversed the La Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noreste, a nature reserve and a prime eco­tourism destination.

Somehow we made it to an entrance to a beach, where we saw a sign that told us, essentially — don’t drive on the sand, pack our your litter and don’t mess with the sea turtles that nest here.

Learn about this nature reserve at http://www.corredorecologicodelnoreste.org/visiting-the-corridor

We parked at the edge of the road, walked through a break in the trees, and found … paradise.

An Empty Beach

The sand was golden, stretching for miles in both directions, and the beach was completely empty of humanity. Three pelicans flew over, followed by a snowy egret. Little birds scuttled along the sand. To our right, a large, low-hanging tree with fat round leaves provided the perfect shady spot for setting up our base camp, which we did.

View toward Luquillo

Keeping It Clean

As I walked down to the ocean, I found a bit of litter wrapped up in the brown seaweed that had washed onto the sand with high tides. I picked up a paint can from the debris and began filling it with plastic cups, a mask, food wrappers, plastic forks, and more evidence of mankind. The disadvantage of an unmaintained beach is that it’s not cleaned regularly, and this debris was clear evidence of the litter that’s filling our oceans. I decided that one way to leave my mark on this island is to leave it cleaner than I found it. I filled another plastic bucket found with trash as well, and will bring trash bags next time.

Glorious Beach

But despite the litter, San Miguel Beach was perfect. The tide was rougher than in the bay where we are staying, waves crashing loudly onto the sand. I was wearing a bikini, which normally makes me nervous about bodysurfing, but no one was around, so who cared if the top or bottom got pushed down? We bodysurfed for a long time, laughing. It was amazing! I felt like a kid again. We were aware of a slight rip current, so we kept an eye on each other and made sure we didn’t go too deep.

San Miguel Beach Panarama

Alas, lunchtime came too soon, and it was time to go hunting for food. Next time we will pack a lunch, because it’s not very appealing to drive this long, wet road twice.

We definitely plan to return to Playa San Miguel, many times. But not today. It poured last night, and our car would likely sink into one of the lakes on the dirt road and disappear.

We also need to learn more about this Ecological Reserve. We’ll keep you posted!

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