EL MORRO

San Felipe Del Morro

El Castillo San Felipe Del Morro (El Morro), which was declared a World Her­itage site by the United Nations. El Morro has a maze of tun­nels, dun­geons, look­out tow­ers, ramps and bar­racks. This fort is the city of San Juan’s larger of two forts. El Morro over­looks San Juan bay with six lev­els, filled with gun emplace­ments on 140 feet tall walls. The guns were able to aim and fire at any ship in El Morro’s field of view. The walls are not only 140 feet tall but also 20 feet thick. The forts’ first bat­tery of defense was com­pleted in the 1540’s, but it was not until 1589 that the the Span­ish engi­neers after also build­ing the wall around the San Juan penin­sula that the fort was fin­ished. The fort with­stood sev­eral attacks, from first the Eng­lish in 1595, the Dutch in 1625, and The Amer­i­cans in 1898.

EL YUNQUE

El Yunque

EL Yunque is the only Trop­i­cal Rain­for­est in the United States.  It’s named after the “Good” Taino spirit Yukiyi. It is divided into four sec­tions: Tabonuco for­est, Palo Col­orado for­est, Palma Sierra for­est, and Bosque en las nubes (For­est in the clouds). The entire Rain­for­est is on 28,000 Acres of land which is filled with 88 rare trees, 50 native orchids, 240 native tree species, Moun­tains, won­der­ous green­ery and exotic ani­mals. The well known Coqui is there, The Puerto Rican Par­rot and the rare Puerto Rican Boa, which is the Islands largest snake.   It can grow up to 7 feet long. In addi­tion to El Yunque’s beau­ti­ful moun­tains and plant life, are the numer­ous trails which can take you to some of the most breath­tak­ing views of the island.   If you go along The EL Yunque trail, you will come across the Los Picacho’s look­out tower, the tower at Pico El Yunque and the fab­u­lous vis­tas at the remote El Yunque Rock.  You can climb the stairs to the top of the tower and get a 360 degree panoramic view of the moun­tains, where there are so many shades of green grass, col­or­ful flow­ers and even clouds where it’s actu­ally rain­ing! El Yunque even has two water­falls, one called La Mina and the most famous water­fall, La Coca Falls.   Water rushes down the fall that is cov­ered with beau­ti­ful moss on the stones.   Many peo­ple go down onto the fall to take pic­tures.   It is a mag­nif­i­cent back­ground shot, but you have to be care­ful because the rocks are slip­pery. El Yunque is a must see when you go to Puerto Rico.   As the old Cliché goes, See­ing is Believing.

ARECIBO OBSERVATORY

Arecibo Obser­va­tory

Hid­den by the sur­round­ing moun­tains along the North-Western area of Puerto Rico, lies the Arecibo Ionos­pheric Obser­va­tory. It was built in 1960, and is funded yearly by a $7.5 Mil­lion grant from the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion. These funds are man­aged by Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity in Ithaca, New York. The “Dish” can be seen from a jumbo jet 33,000 feet in the air, but a map is needed to find its entrance on ground. Sci­en­tists from all over the world have vis­ited there. In fact, because of the work that was done at the facil­ity by two Amer­i­can astronomers, in 1993 Rus­sell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Tay­lor, Jr., won the Nobel Peace Prize in Physics, giv­ing the dish world recog­ni­tion. The Obser­va­tory is also famous from the movie “Con­tact” in which Jodie Fos­ter plays the role of an astronomer search­ing for extra-terrestrial life.

TAINO BURIAL GROUND

Tibes Indian Cer­e­mo­nial Park

787−840−2255 /787–840-5685  The Indian Cer­e­mo­nial Cen­ter of Tibes, located in the city of Ponce was dis­cov­ered in 1975.  The first inhab­i­tants of the area were pre­sum­ably the Igneris Indi­ans who came from South Amer­ica. They must have set­tled here at about the begin­ning of the Chris­t­ian era, near the third cen­tury. Slowly, the Tai­no Indi­ans occu­pied and shared the places acquired by the Igneris. The Tai­nos, at approx­i­mately 800 years before the Dis­cov­ery of Puerto Rico, had con­structed the “bateyes” or Cer­e­mo­nial Parks, that we have today at the Tibes Cer­e­mo­nial Park.  Here they used to cel­e­brate their “Arey­tos” or tra­di­tional fes­tiv­i­ties, their sports and other impor­tant events. Maybe in the past, they uti­lized the place as a ceme­tery or bur­ial place. There is evi­dence that they con­structed struc­tures (bohi­os) in the Cer­e­mo­nial Cen­ter although their liv­ing quar­ters were not built there.  At the Museum in the Cer­e­mo­nial Park of Tibes, we may see buri­als, charms, idols, ves­sels, pet­ro­glyphs and other arti­facts used by the Tai­no and Igneris Indi­ans who lived here. The place is a sanc­tu­ary of pre­his­toric trees such as “higuero, hacar, gua­n­a­bana, cora­zon” among oth­ers. There are vari­eties of birds such as “mar­tinete (ham­mer), ruiseñor (nightin­gale), pitirre, múcaro (owl), zorzal y carpin­tero (wood­pecker), which existed at the times of our Indi­ans. There is also yucca, tobacco, corn, “lerenes” and other indige­nous plan­ta­tions in the area.

Tibes Indian Cer­e­mo­nial Center

	Hours	Tues-Sun 9am-4pm
	Loca­tion	Rte. 503, Tibes, at km 2.2 (2 miles/3.2km north of Ponce),
	Phone	787÷840−2255
	Prices	Admis­sion $3 adults, $2 children
	Other	Guided tours in Eng­lish and Span­ish are con­ducted through the grounds

Bor­dered by the Ri­o Por­tuguez and exca­vated in 1975, this is the old­est ceme­tery in the Antilles. It con­tains some 186 skele­tons, dat­ing from A.D. 300, as well as pre-Tai­no plazas from A.D. 700. The site also includes a re-created Tai­no vil­lage, seven rec­tan­gu­lar ball courts, and two dance grounds. The arrange­ment of stone points on the dance grounds, in line with the sol­stices and equinoxes, sug­gests a pre-Columbian Stone­henge. Here you’ll also find a museum, an exhi­bi­tion hall that presents a doc­u­men­tary about Tibes, a cafe­te­ria, and a sou­venir shop. Note: This infor­ma­tion was accu­rate when it was pub­lished, but can change with­out notice. Please be sure to con­firm all rates and details directly with the com­pa­nies in ques­tion before plan­ning your trip. The Indian Cer­e­mo­nial Cen­ter WEB SITE

EL CAÑUELO

EL CANUELO

Forti­n San Juan de la Cruz (Fort Saint John of the Cross), bet­ter known as el Cañuelo, is located on Isla de Cabras, Puerto Rico. This fort was orig­i­nally built in wood in 1500. Its loca­tion at the entrance of the San Juan bay, and in front of the Fort San Felipe del Morro, across the bay, it cre­ated a cross­fire for any invad­ing ships enter­ing the bay. It is said that, at one time, there was a huge chain cross­ing from El Morro to El Cañuelo that was stretched dur­ing attacks to pro­vide a phys­i­cal bar­ri­cade across the bay entrance. The fort also guarded the mouth of the Baya­mon River on the other side. The fort played an impor­tant role dur­ing a 1625 Dutch attack to the island. Dur­ing that time it was burnt to ashes, the Spaniards rebuilt it with a stone fort in the 1650s. The square fort is about 80 feet per side, with one guerite (garita in Span­ish). Orig­i­nally built on a rocky islet, nearby Isla de Cabras (Goat Island).

BOQUERON BEACH

Boqueron Beach

Boqueron is a beach vil­lage located in the town of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico.  The vil­lage is one of the main tourist attrac­tions in the south­west­ern part of the island. As of the United States 2000 Cen­sus, the bar­rio pop­u­la­tion was 4,963. Boqueron beach (bal­n­eario de Boqueron) is a pub­lic beach and resort man­aged by the Puerto Rican gov­ern­ment. It’s rated as one of the best beaches in Puerto Rico along with Luquillo Beach.  The beach was awarded blue flag beach sta­tus by the Foun­da­tion for Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion. Other beaches in Boqueron are Buye and El Com­bate. The vil­lage is home to two pro­tected wildlife refuge. The Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, an habi­tat for a num­ber of native bird species includ­ing the endan­gered Yellow-shouldered Black­bird also known as La Mariq­uita de Puerto Rico or Capita¡n. The Boqueron state for­est is one of the seven state forests man­aged by the depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources of Puerto Rico. Accord­ing to local leg­end, after the Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresi shared some of his trea­sure with his fam­ily and friends, he would hide what was left over in a cave located in “Bar­rio Ped­er­nales” which is just south of Boqueron Bay. Through­out the years no one has found any trea­sure in the cave.