A Wasted Day In Cabo Rojo

Puerto Rico started 2020 on the wrong foot. The earthquake that hit the southwestern portion of the Island destroyed many structures and peppered the region with refugee camps. Cabo Rojo wasn’t hit particularly hard by the earthquake, or the aftershocks that still occur to this day, but tourism in the area has certainly felt the brunt of these natural phenomena.

Operators in the area are feeling the effects in the form of reduced visitors from here and abroad. Locals have curtailed their visits because of the extensive media coverage emphasizing danger and destruction. Snowbirds from the mainland don’t know the difference between Fajardo, Rincón, Maunabo or Cabo Rojo. They just know that it’s trembling in Puerto Rico so they’re not coming here.

Enticing locals should be a lot easier than attracting continentals. For us it’s a matter of hopping on our cars and driving for a couple of hours. And there’s certainly a spirit of cooperation and camaraderie among islanders who would like to see the affected areas come back to life. But then there are situations that leave you scratching your head.

Yesterday I went for a drive with Zoraida. We’ve been going through a rough patch lately and I felt like a day out in nature would lift our spirits. So we decided to visit the town of Cabo Rojo. The idea was to photograph birds at the various nature reserves and then post an entry on Puerto Rico By GPS, thus incentivizing others to visit the area. 

We got up at 3:00am and by 4:30am we were on the road. Our objective was to spend the day “birding”, make some pretty pictures and be back by 7:00pm. Well, by 1:00pm it was all over. At 4:00pm we were back in San Juan, disappointed and “pictureless”. Let me tell you what happened.

Our first stop was “Laguna Cartagena”, located on the county line between the towns of Cabo Rojo and Lajas. We got there at 6:45am. The gate was closed. There was no schedule posted anywhere and no one to ask. The YouTube videos that I consulted talked about a drivable trail around the lagoon, the many birds you could photograph, and how large the place was; over 4,2862km.

Our first reaction was to try to go around the place. Maybe there was another entrance. Since there was no one to ask we could only imagine. So we drove a little further down the road and found a dirt trail that seemed to follow the facility’s bob wire fencing. We started down the trail only to find that it got narrower and narrower, muddier and muddier and rougher by the minute. After a mile or so of trying to deal with the worsening terrain we managed to turn around.

By the time we got back to the park entrance it was 7:30am, our best light was gone, the gate was still closed and our car had mud up to its antenna. There was still no one to ask. Finally I stopped a cyclist that was riding by. He told me that the place had been closed to traffic for months and that the only way to explore it was on foot. Yeah, right… all 4,2862kms of it. Needless to say, we left frustrated and angry.  Continue reading...