Around and Back Again: Hiking the Big Island of Puerto Rico's 375 Miles of Coastline (Day 1)

You should begin early in the morning, the earlier the better. In my case it wasn’t so early, probably around 9:30 a.m. or quarter till 10:00. The night before you begin, you should rest well after a moderate but highly nutritious dinner, preferably loaded with protein. In my case, I had slept about two or three hours. Anticipation had overwhelmed exhaustion and led to unending tossing and turning.

Will the one liter bags be frozen by the time I leave? Did I pack an extra battery for the wood stove? Are the moleskins in the first aid kit? Where is the first aid kit? Do I have a first aid kit? Can’t forget the baby wipes. I should just try to go before I leave. I still need the baby wipes. Lunch might be disagreeable and I might have to do as the bear does.

One after another thought paraded across my mind until retreating miraculously and allowing actual dreams to take over; dreams that I couldn’t remember as I exposed my eyes to the newborn light sneaking around the window blinds. My Nokia phone/alarm clock had not malfunctioned or lost its charge during the night and so just as I had programmed it to do a few hours earlier it chimed right on schedule at 6:00 am. The alarm sound escalating in volume while I struggled to find the contraption in the morning dimness, filled me with urgency as I attempted to avoid awakening my lovely and peacefully sleeping wife. I reach the whining gadget and with the skill of a habitual practitioner depress the phone/alarm clock’s single best feature; the snooze button. “Please…just five more minutes.” The Nokian Tyrant complies, satisfied in the knowledge that in less than five minutes it will once again shatter my dreams.

Oh the wonder of sleep, the intensely pleasurable satisfaction of shutting off neurotransmitters and allowing consciousness to be postponed; the surrender of self awareness to a peace that is only trumped by death. Time was ticking away as my mind, obviously in league with Nokias Rex, composed poetically infused descriptions of sleep and embarked on a contemplation of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “…to sleep, perchance to dream…” blah, blah, blah. By the time I recognized the existence of a conspiracy to keep me from that blissful state and restrained my overactive psyche, its accomplice, with impeccably sadistic timing, released its electronically engendered song once again.

I quickly silence it but this time the Mrs. stirs and is awakened. She opens her eyes questioningly or as if surprised; like she always does. I can’t see this because my face is buried in my pillow but after 15 years of sharing a bed, among other things, I know the first thing on her mind when she opens her eyes is a question. On this occasion the question is, “Are you going to do it?” My response, delivered in a sepulchral voice, with prolonged enunciation ,”Yeeeeees…” sounds more like a plea for help than an affirmation of my intentions.

She turns around not as an invitation to spoon but rather out of mild, playfully feigned exasperation and as she does so she says, “You two are so crazy.” Serotonin charges through my brain and my eyes open. The words are taken as a taunt; a challenge. But it’s all fun. Lying on her side of the bed, turned away from me as I rise from my side, I know she’s smiling; partly because she likes me a little loco but mostly because what I am about to do makes me happy, which luckily for us and all concerned, makes her happy.

I jump in and out of the shower, get dressed, wake the kids, get them dressed, make breakfast, clean up breakfast, grab the trash, the keys and the kids and zoom, zoom, zoom, out the door. Ah, the life of the Domesticated Adventurer! My watch tells me I’m early, the day is bright, my girl and my little one aren’t fighting and I feel optimistic. Traffic in the direction we are headed is light and in minutes we arrive, mercifully curtailing any opportunity my three exquisitely curious children might have to cross examine me about my upcoming endeavor.

Jaime, the eldest, and Diego, our youngest, head off towards school having wished me luck and then cheerily warning me about a collection of dreadful outcomes to our adventure. These were hurled back at me as they walked away; laughing in crescendo as they playfully topped each other’s macabre creativity.

“Be careful with the caimans!”

“Yeah, and the bull sharks around the river mouths!...”

“Oh, don’t get lost!”

“Yeah, don’t’ get lost! And don’t’ lose JC!”

“Yeah, and don’t drown!”

“Yeah don’t’ drown and beware of falling coconuts!”

“Yeah, be careful with the coconuts, they can crack your head open!”

Jaime delivers the coup de grace, hysterically exclaiming, “That’s all right, there’s nothing in there!”

Ha! Ha! Ha! My dear boys, despite all evidence to the contrary, sweet, loving and respectful children! As I endured the two young masters’ playful abuse, Alia stood in my defense, holding onto my arm and responding with a firm “No!” or “Stop!” to each of their scenarios of doom. When the boys disappeared into the school and we were “all alone”, as she likes to say, Alia turns and a sweetly amusing melodrama of motherly concern begins.

“Don’t pay any attention to the boys. Everything is going to be fine and you and your little friend are going to have a wonderful time. Just be careful because you know I love you and I couldn’t live without you. Oh, and remember to use a hat and drink lots of water. Okay? Okay! Love you! Bye!” She floors me as she confidently walks to school and I climb into the mini-van wondering if I had just witnessed the beginnings of an eventual role reversal in the parent child dynamic. God help me!

The short drive back to the house allows me just enough time to go over my mental checklist and feel satisfied that all is in order. At home again, I call JC to confirm our time of departure as I check on the water bags in the freezer and due to some minor errand he must complete, we settle on leaving a little later. It’s all fine with me, but I still question his commitment, just for fun. He knows this and plays along, emphatically assuring me that he is Gung Ho, Kamikaze committed. The allusion to suicidal WWII pilots is mildly unsettling but I laugh and tell him I’ll be waiting.

It seems to me that the reader may mistake the preceding for the prologue to some adventure filled story about a journey to some exotic faraway land, when actually, my friend JC and I were simply going for a walk on the beach, so to speak. To be more precise, we were embarking on a walk of every beach, or rather, every single mile, foot or inch of coastline of Puerto Rico’s big island. This was to be done consecutively by sections, each section encompassing all the miles that we could walk in one full day. We were in no hurry to complete our circumnavigation, we would do sections as the opportunity presented itself throughout the year. The particular condition of a Domesticated Adventurer dictates that all activities of an adventurous nature must be concluded before dinnertime. Two or three nights away from our respective base camps; i.e., homes, might be authorized by our respective expeditionary support teams; i.e., wives and children, but the two to three weeks needed for the continuous rounding of the Isle of Enchantment would not be so enchanting to our respective support team leaders; i.e., wives. Reason enough for us to take what we could get and continue to hope that domestication would not someday snuff out our adventurous spirit.

On this first section, a kind of testing of the waters, we had agreed to walk as far as we could until lunch time and then simply turn around and walk back. This yo-yoing should ensure that we would be attending to our responsibilities by 3:00 or 3:30 p.m.. On that first day, like most other days, we were obliged to be home by dinnertime; however in my case, my wife had expressed the "convenience" of my arriving sooner than that.

"Four o'clock is reasonable, isn't it? I mean, how far are you guys going to walk?", she asked while trying not to sound unsupportive.

"You know the kids get anxious in the office and they never stop asking when we can leave and then they take over the computers and Maru gets tense; so if you could pick up the kids at the office by four, it would be very convenient."

The smile on her lips together with the sarcasm in her gaze betray the true nature of her apparent request. Arriving by four is not just "convenient", it is imperative and her apparent request is really a command. In a useless attempt at asserting my personal sovereignty I tell her I'll "try" to be back by then but the knowing smile on my wife's usually enticing lips suggests that she has no doubt that I will. For this reason, she ignores my pathetic, little act of rebellion and says nothing more. Ah, the life of The Domesticated Adventurer!

Our spirits were high as JC and I finally set off on the trail which, as far as we knew, was being blazed for the first time by us. In the process of researching our route, I had googled numerous keywords related to a complete rounding of Puerto Rico's big island and come up with nothing suggesting that anyone else had already done it. There were references to individuals circumnavigating the island in a variety of water vehicles, i.e. boats, kayaks and paddle boards, but I had yet to find anyone who had documented rounding the island by walking the entire length of the coast . While I appreciated the romance and adventure inherent in heading out into the unknown, a central precept of domesticated adventuring states that one should be as informed as possible with regards to the territory one is intent on moving across. There are logistical considerations that can only be contemplated if one is sufficiently informed. Google provided invaluable images of the terrain but the two dimensional, four year old photograph lacked the topographical detail we would have liked and which seemed necessary in order to accurately calculate the number of miles that could be covered in each section; indispensable information if we were to have a car waiting for us at the end of the day.

The "trailhead" at the Balneario de Carolina, just east of the Isla Verde Marriot Hotel, was as beautiful as ever. Early mornings on this stretch of coast, so familiar to me, are magically serene. The orientation of the beach favors the flow of offshore winds over the sea green water, polishing it's surface to a mirror smooth texture that reflects sun rays with every rise and fall of the incoming swells. Breakers near the shore release their rooster tails of spray and crash and crackle on the coarse grained, reddish ivory sand; their gentle assault slightly stirring the ground we walk on. After a short distance we move closer to the shoreline where the sand is harder and the hiking easier. The sun rises vigorously to face us and promises to contribute to the challenge of the coming day; its light filtered by dust from the Sahara and ash from Mt. Soufriere. The haze resulting from the soft, south easterly, particle laden breeze, doesn't completely metallize the cloudless blue sky but still dulls its cerulean potential.As we head for Punta Cangrejo we look forward to turning east and facing a little further into the wind, thereby minimizing the oppressive effects of sun and natural air pollution.

Below us, small vessels head out to sea through Boca de Cangrejo, as we cross the bridge over the 40 foot wide channel where the Atlantic meets the dark waters of Laguna la Torrecilla. Suddenly, I am reminded of afternoons thirty years ago, navigating that same channel on a friend's Whaler, heading towards some outer reef to surf uncrowded, perfect waves. The memory is complete, crystalline, involving all my senses. JC asks for the time and I give it half absorbed in the past as we round the first of many rocky points, the wind greeting us with a refreshing slap now that we've turned towards the east south east and almost directly into it.

From Cangrejo to Punta Maldonado and just beyond, the littoral is dotted with small improvised establishments selling fried food and light beer. Seaside restaurants among the shacks vibrate with the sound of jukeboxes booming and blaring hours before noon, prompting us to quicken our pace in the hope of leaving all the noise behind us. Our strides quickly carry us down the beach and with the fading musical cacophony we begin to hear the natural harmony, melody and rhythm of the coast. Soon after Punta Maldonado, man made structures are no longer visible from the shoreline and the illusion of solitude is achieved. Since it is a week day, only a few people enjoy the sand and water here and there and once we're past the large natural pool in front of Chatarra, a dangerously shallow surf spot with impossibly cylindrical waves, the coast ahead appears completely deserted all the way to Vacia Talega, our planned turn around.

Vacia Talega endures the effects of wind and wave erosion just barely. Its deeply scarred and jagged surface makes for difficult hiking terrain. One fall will necessarily result in actual lacerations, no mere scrapes or bruises for the clumsy or unfortunate hiker who loses his balance here. The trekking poles, which I have recently gotten used to, prove very effective in preventing any major stumbles and help me move quickly over the hungry, razor-like rock under my boot shod feet. We had to hurry. Having reached Vacia Talega we decided not to turn back but rather to continue on to where we might arrange transportation to JC's car. We were hungry for more and JC knew someone who would drive us back if we could hike a few miles up the coast before sunset.

Once off the elements tormented point, we are on sand again. Moving east, the 3 pm sun at our backs nibbles at my neck with pointy teeth and I raise my collar in response. The color of the stained sand on this side of the point is grayish. Plastic becomes common and soon all kinds of objects thrown back by the waves populate the sandy shore as far as we can see: a hobby horse, numerous tires, old shoes and sandals, a winter coat, diapers, syringes, refrigerators, sofas, dishwashers and TVs. West of Vacia Talega the coast seemed virginal and inspiring. East of this beautiful point the shoreline had been desecrated, raped, ruined by the wares of man. I was intrigued by the sharp contrast and looking down at my feet to avoid the depressing sight that is this stretch of beach, I formulate a theory.

Somewhere up the coast, through the mouth of the Loiza and up the river, a man steps out of the cab of his shiny Ford F-150, opens the truck's tailgate, climbs in behind the old dishwasher, pushes it to the edge of the open door, looks down beyond the slight overhang he backed into and satisfied that he is perfectly positioned, shoves the contraption into the Rio Grande de Loiza. On one of the many occasions that the great river swells and gushes, the machine is dragged out to sea where it rests on the bottom, not far offshore, until winter's north swells throw it angrily back on the beach.

We walk on, intermittently amazed by what the sea deposits on the shore. A few yards ahead I see a banana, perfectly yellow, blemish free, just beyond the tide line. I take it. A hundred feet further down the beach, three plums, also perfect, roll back and forth with the lapping of the tiny shore-break. I take them too. Up ahead JC is waiting for me and approaching him I see the bright green watermelon he holds in his arms. I show him my finds and we speculate on their origin. Maybe kids on a passing cruise ship had enjoyed tossing the fruit overboard and now we were the beneficiaries of their naughtiness or maybe we had come upon an offering. Loiza is the center of Santeria on the island and it would not be unusual to find some Santero's magic on the sands of this old town. We want the fruit so we settle on the kids and the cruise ship and move on, ignoring the possibility of some curse befalling us for taking some african god's produce.

It's not long before JC tires of the additional weight so we stop and cut into the watermelon we no longer want to carry. It is sweet, over flowingly juicy. In no time the fruit is gone and under the gaze of someone in a cluster of bushes a few yards inland, we shoulder our packs and hurry off towards the river-mouth and our ride back home. I look back, straining to get a better look at the dark figure in the bushes. It hides from me but I am not too concerned. Distance is growing between us and there is always the ocean for escape. While I am relatively sure that the dark figure is not a vengeful Santero or Brujo, I stop looking over my shoulder only once we are well away. There are more menacing characters than witches and warlocks on the shores of the Isle of Enchantment, particularly on the shores of Loiza.

Like many other municipalities in Puerto Rico, Loiza is besieged. The community periodically experiences gangland style bursts of violence that emulate the savagery and barbarism of any urban battlefield. A few yards beyond the palms, beach grape shrubs and tall grasses, on the streets, one in a thousand will be murdered. This, together with the sad desolation of the appliance graveyard we were traversing, quickened our pace.

El Rio Grande de Loiza is a muddy torrent when we finally come to it and we are glad we won't have to cross it. On the eastern bank, a hundred yards across from where we stand, a tall, sinewed black man, throws out his net. We pause briefly at the river's edge and watch the fisherman bring in what most likely isn't more than one or two tiny fish and then throw out his net once again. Looking back to the west, the light of the sun hazily penetrates the heavy air. As evening nears, whatever breeze we had enjoyed retreats and almost on cue Leptoconops, the most common caribbean species of biting midge, takes to the air. Blessed is he who has DEET at this particular hour of the day. With the first bites on my bald head I expertly remove the miraculous substance from my day pack, spray twice into my hand, return the repellant to its place and rub my head and neck, all in under 5 seconds. Leptoconops bites linger. Long after the fiendish, microscopically endowed hellion has been mushed into oblivion by the bitten, the effects of its bite must still be endured. The itch can persist for hours and the dermatologically tender risk infection and uncomfortable sores.

Looking south along the river's edge, the mangrove trees cloak the many pools and puddles of brackish, stagnant water where the midges most likely thrive. We prepare to enter their lair. I unroll and button my sleeves, leaving only my Cutter treated hands, neck and head, apparently exposed but invisibly shielded. As we start on our way home, stealing one last look at the other side of the river, I already long for our next hike to begin. I can see large pines down the coast, about a quarter mile from the river mouth and then, beyond, a long corridor of sand bounded by ocean and foliage. It calls to me.