After a 7 month hiatus from international travel, save a weekend visit to Mexico for climbing, I finally got back on an airplane and headed out for more adventure. My ultimate goal for this year was to go from the USA to Cape Horn located in Chile at the southern tip of South America and visit everywhere in between. And because one of my long time friends, Trevor, was living in Puerto Rico, I decided to try out some island adventuring along the way. So I begin this year’s trip in the Caribbean making my first stop in San Juan, Puerto Rico and in the end, I spent nearly nearly 2 months adventuring around this beautiful island soaking up the rays on the beach and climbing as much as possible.

On July 4th, the United States’ Independence Day, I flew into the San Juan airport. Prior to visiting I had arranged to stay with Trevor since he’d moved to San Juan a little while back to play for Puerto Rico’s pro soccer team, PRFC. He lived a little east of the city in the neighborhood, Isla Verde, which was just a short 5 minute walk from the Isla Verde beach! So that afternoon after catching up with Trevor, I headed out to the beach with his teammate and also roommate, Brian, to check out the Independence Day festivities on the beach.

Being a US Territory, they also celebrate the same holidays as we would, and the beach was quite apparent of that. It was a total madhouse. Jam packed with both tourists and locals alike with Reggaeton music blaring in every direction. Volleyball nets were set up, umbrellas scattered all over, and the alcohol was flowing in mass quantities.

A few days later the adventures began. I’d gotten myself on a WhatsApp group of PR climbers before coming so I began sending out messages to find partners. This is where I met, Kate, whom would become one of my main climbing partners during my visit. On Friday she asked if I wanted to climb after she got off of work and where I was staying. I mentioned I was staying in Isla Verde. “Really!? I’m in Isla Verde too, what building?” “I’m in Condo Los Pinos.” “Whoa! Me too!” This made meeting up pretty easy, all we had to do was meet in the parking lot at her car! So when she got off of work we headed to my first climbing spot in Puerto Rico, San Juan’s local crag located in Bayamón just south of the city, in Julio Enrique Monagas National Park.

Monagas reminded me a lot of my local crag in Austin, TX but set in a lush tropical forest instead of small, arid river canyon. And summer climbing here, well… in pretty much all of the Caribbean, can be summed up in one word: sweat. So. Much. Sweat. You come down from a climb as if you’ve just stepped out of a swimming pool. But all of the climbing on this island is so worth the amount of water expelled. Each place I visited was really special and contained some of the best climbs I’ve had the pleasure of getting on, all within a relatively short distance from San Juan!

Then on the first Saturday that I was there, Trevor had a home game. So I headed out to the stadium with him to spectate. It ended in a 0-0 draw, so it wasn’t the most exciting game I’ve ever seen, but nevertheless, it was pretty cool getting to watch a childhood friend play the sport you and him played many years together, professionally.

A few days later I met up with Will. He’s a climber from Austin that by chance moved to Puerto Rico the same day I arrived and crazy enough, we’d never met in Austin despite both being climbers and having mutual friends! When one of our mutual friends saw that I was going to PR, she put us in touch, and it was a good thing too because Will became my main climbing partner while I was in PR.

To meet up with him, I got to get my first taste of what it’s like to drive on the wild streets of Puerto Rico. Borrowing Trevor’s car, I set off to find him a little while after sunset. And of course things started going wrong almost immediately. I dropped a pin, started up Google Navigation on my phone, and began following the directions. Then something didn’t seem right, it felt like I was going the wrong way. So I checked and Google decided to reroute me to a faster trip. Which would be great if it hadn’t changed the end destination to somewhere completely different… So I fix it and it proceeded to do this 2 more times before I gave up and just used Google Maps as maps instead of a GPS navigator! And of course on top of all this, I had to dodge the lawless Puerto Rican drivers and the potholes scatter about. You are never totally sure when someone will turn out right in front of you, swerve into your lane, be driving head on a foot on your side of the road or find a deep pothole just waiting to rip your wheel off.

Anyway, after navigating the wreckless drivers and confusing interchanges, I eventually picked Will up and we headed to the bar. There we talked about all things climbing and began making plans to visit the island’s best climbing spots. Of which, we visited many. So instead of boring those non climbers out there with climbing stories filled with funky climbing jargon, I’ll just let the photos do the talking

During our trip out to Yabucoa, we decided to try and find some camping near the beach. So we head toward the coast and found a nature reserve called, Reserva Natural Inés María Mendoza and took our camping gear out to Punta Yeguas where there was a nice grass clearing and some nice views of the ocean. It was really a perfect night for camping with a full moon, variable clouds, and a nice cool ocean breeze. Then in the morning, I was woken by the sun peaking over the horizon and emerged from my tent to enjoy the spectacular sunrise!

A few days before I was set to leave Puerto Rico, Orlando and his wife Miriam drove me out to El Yunque National Forest. I’d been in Puerto Rico for over a month and hadn’t gone yet and they thought that was unacceptable. So we headed up to the park and checked out a nice waterfall and went for a wonderful 2 hour hike through the rainforest up to the top of the El Yunque trail. I even got the full rainforest experience with showers soaking us on the way down!

One last cool spot I visited before departing Puerto Rico was La Cueva in Natural Reserve Cabezas de San Juan near Fajardo on the north east corner of the island. The day we had gone to the park it was, of course, closed. So instead of using the roads to get to La Cueva, we had to walk along the beach and wade through the waist deep water next to mangroves in Las Cabezas Bay. I’m actually glad the park was closed. More adventure!

La Cueva is a small cave with a 40 foot (12 meter) water filled rock corridor leading up to the foot of the cave. In front of the corridor is a bunch of boulders breaking the waves so you are left with a large pool! So we hung out here for a few hours and enjoyed a supreme sunset before we headed back. The trek back was really cool too. The water in La Cabezas Bay is crystal clear allowing our headlamps to light up the sea life just below the surface. Small schools of blueish, transparent fish, squid, and these crazy fish with sword like but not sharp features for noses. These fish were constantly charging straight at us!

In the end I spend 49 days adventuring around this incredible island creating some very special memories! I’d like to give a big thank you to all the friends, especially Will, Kate, Orlando and Mirim for always helping me out and making my time in Puerto Rico so incredible!

Hasta la próxima vez Puerto Rico!

P.S.
My adventures in Puerto Rico took place a month before this beautiful island was ravaged by Hurricane Maria. Still, now almost 4 months later, the vast majority of the island is without power. Please keep them in your thoughts and send as many good vibes as you can! They really need it!

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