What to Do in Puerto Rico: Gozalandia Waterfall

This 50 foot beauty was worth the trek but not easy to find. Sometimes called the "secret waterfall" it's been featured in several films (like The Perfect Getaway) so it stands to reason that the secret is out and you should be able to find this natural pool with a little persistence and patience.

From Maravilla in Las Marias we wound our way down the mountain to San Sebastian. From Route 446 you turn right on a bridge in town until you get to a long locked gate on your left. Sound vague? Well it is. With only those directions we came into town only to find the bridge we were supposed to turn onto was blocked off for construction. But wait..was that even the bridge? Is there another bridge?

We stopped by a man sweeping his driveway and rolled down the window. I greeted the man and then asked if he spoke English. He said no and asked if I spoke Spanish. In my paltry, broken Spanish I told him "We look for Gozalandia Waterfall" and then smiled. A woman from the porch came closer and spoke with him, both of them glancing over at the defunct bridge.

"Ok follow him," she said to us, as our spontaneous guide hopped in his car and pulled out in front of us. We wound around past the bridge and up a hill into a neighborhood for some time until the car in front of us stopped and our guide got out of his car to talk to a man in his yard. We sat for several minutes, listening to the exchange with no comprehension, smiling wide tourist grins every time they looked over at us in between words. Finally the man whose grass we were half parked on motioned us to move our car into his yard and pointed down behind the house.

Our guide, ever accommodating, explained in Spanish that we would have to cross this man's property to get to the falls and he would show us. At least I think that's what he said. In any case we followed him down the fence to a broken section and crawled through to an overgrown path that lead down the hill. Our giude chattered on in Spanish, throwing a "No habla espanol? Nunca?" over his shoulder every so often to which I would reply "Nunca, lo siento."

After a turn in the wrong direction, to the sighs and agitated arm gestures of our guide, we finally got to a place where we could hear running water. A pavilion had been built at the bottom of the hill with a lagoon and just below that was a path that lead to steep wooden steps down to the pool of the waterfall. Our guide bid us well at this point, still shaking his head at our touristy gumption and trekked back up the mountain.

Relieved to have found it and ready to rest from the humid hike we gratefully sank into the cool waters of the pool. Within minutes the swelling in Mom's feet went down and we all felt lighter.

Several other families and couples were there sitting on the rocks or swimming in the pool and one daring dude was using a rope to climb up part of the falls to slide down what looked like a painful though smoother portion of rocks.

To the right of the falls is a section of rocks that are smooth and bulbous like hardened lava. If you're brave enough there is a little cave in the rocks. A 3 second breath hold is all you need to get into it and then you pop up into a cave big enough for 3 people to precariously chat and make echoes.

The moral of our Gozalandia Waterfall adventure, as with so much of Puerto Rico, is that the locals are the key to your success. Their generosity and good spirits were revealed to us again and again on this trip. Maybe it's just how Puerto Ricans are. Or maybe you can learn to be that way living on such a gorgeous island.

What to do in Isabela, Puerto Rico

Isabella is not a tourist town. People don't fly down from their cold, damp houses in the north to lounge about in Isabella on Jobos beach...but maybe they should. It was in Isabella, where we stopped on our way to Maravilla B&B that we had the warmest reception of our trip (of which everyone was incredibly friendly) and saw some things we really hadn't even expected to find.

The main plaza, that displays the Rodin-esque sculpture pictured above, is a tiny blip in the sprawling town of closely packed orange and pink houses The narrow streets seem to wind on forever past porched houses with tropical bloom gardens and then suddenly you are dumped out into the main square. We backed our tiny rental car into a questionable spot on the corner of a street musing about whether or not Puerto Rico tickets as heavily as back home but decided to chance it and find some lunch.

We hustled into the first sandwich shop that looked like it could accommodate a vegan. Orange booths lined the restaurant and the boards hanging above the grill displayed a confusing mixture of English and Spanish words. We stood in front of the counter and stared at the menu, poorly translating among ourselves until the woman next to me kindly stepped in. She was a Puerto Rican woman who had lived in New York for over 20 years until she decided to come back to her home town. After she helped us order our lunch she asked, "So what do you plan to do in Isabela?"

If the stares and looks of surprise as we drove into town hadn't been enough to give away the fact that tourists were not a common occurrence (at least not in October anyhow)her question pretty much said it all. "What is there to do?" Was the question I replied with. Luckily, in a town as small as Isabela, everyone knows everyone.

"Go a few doors down to the tourism office and ask for Miguel. He can take you wherever you want to go." So we did. And we were showered with gifts, like a tiny pin of Isabela's shield which features the cactus, their town symbol and and charming if amusing photograph of the mayor with his grandchildren. He introduced us to everyone in the office and took us on a little office tour to see the photographs of Isabela's most beautiful sites.

Miguel, who insisted we call him Mike, had lived in New Jersey for a large chunk of his life, but he too had chosen to come back to his home town. Bright and boisterous and ever so excited to have tourists to entertain,

he gave us his phone number to call him the next day so that he could take us to see the Blowhole on Jobos Beach.

The next day we made plan to meet up with Mike but first we wanted to see the old train tunnel outside of town. Tunel de Guajataca used to connect the towns of Isabela and Quebradillas in the early 1900s but recently it has been named a historic site and leads to Guajataca beach. Guajataca means water ladle in Taino, the native language, and this beach is praised for its white sands but is also a dangerous beach with sharp rocks and high waves.

This giant sculpted head sits down the road from the tunnel and is a representation of Mabodamaca. Cacique Mabodamaca was the chief of the Taino people and when the Spanish invaded Puerto Rico he defended his people and his land. There are several legends about how he died. The one that I find most romantic is that he fell off a cliff in battle and the golden pendent he wore, called a guani, that signified him as the chief, fell into the ocean with him, never to be seen again.

After visiting the beach and trying to photograph the crabs sunning themselves, who were all too wary of me and scuttled away as soon as I crouched down, we drove back to Isabela to meet Mike. Mom had called him the day before to make plans to meet in the square and get a tour of the town and a trip to the blowhole. "How much?" Mom asked on the phone to which Mike loudly replied "Oh no! no! It doesn't cost anything. This is my job, it's my pleasure." Definitely not a tourist town.

On the first day in Isabela we had noticed these Charlie signs on lots of houses and so we asked Mike about them. "They're election posters," he explained. "Charlie is a good friend of mine, and he's running for Mayor. A local artist made those signs and sells them around town." When we asked if he thought Charlie would win he just smiled and said one could never be sure.

He drove us all around Isabela, to the beach and to the little resort communityVilla Montana that had been built recently for tourists. He made us promise that if we came back to Puerto Rico we would stay in Isabela for part of our trip.

And then the grand finale, he took us to Jobos Beach and El Pozo de Jacinto. The story of the Blowhole of Jacinto is as follows: There was a little boy named Jacinto who lived in Isabela with his mother. Every day it was his job to take their cow out to feed on grass. One day there was a terrible storm with wind and rain and lightning and Jacinto said "I'm afraid to go outside today. I don't want to take the cow out in the storm." But his mother insisted and so Jacinto went. He was walking with the cow on the coast near the ocean when a sudden bolt of lightning and clap of thunder burst through the air and he and the cow were so scared that they jumped and fell into the hole and were swallowed up by the ocean.

Now, when you visit the blowhole you have to yell "Jacinto, give me the cow!" and Jacinto gets angry and water rushes into the blowhole and shoots out the top, splashing the person who dares ask for his cow.

We had a really great day with Mike and I could see myself spending more time in Isabela, hanging out at Jobos beach and eating some tostones with a cocoloco in my hand. Nothing says Puerto Rico like fresh fruit juice, coconut milk and rum right? Although I'd probably go for the virgin variety myself and not taint all that sweet sweet papaya and pineapple juice!