An Unplanned Adventure Hike to the Cave of the Swallows in Manatí, Puerto Rico

Cueva de Golondrinas Beach

 

 

Date: April 2, 2024

Place: Cueva de Golondrinas, Manatí, Puerto Rico

Coordinates: 18.475269, -66.506710

Length: 0.8 miles

Level: easy

On our third day in Puerto Rico my chika and me were traveling from El Yunque in the northeast of Puerto Rico to Guanica in the south.Our original plan was to drive there directly and explore the Guanica area a bit, but I wanted to stop in San Juan, and then we thought to check out another birding place recommended to us by the ranger at El Yunque National Forest. The ranger recommended us to go to the area of Manatí in north central Puerto Rico and named a few popular birding sites there.
We set out west to Laguna Tortuguero Nature Preserve only to find out that it was closed to visitors that day. We continued driving slowly around the lagoon's area, in search of a place to sit for a lunch picnic. On the way my chika kept calling out birds that she saw and I would duly pull over and wait patiently while she got out of the car to take photos.

Common Ground Dove

Even without getting to the preserve, this road trip alone would have been satisfactory to her, birding wise. She saw a number of lifer species that morning.

Saffron Finch

Some of these birds prompted even me to get out of the car and get an unobstructed look. The oriole-like troupial, for example.

Venezuelan Troupial 

We found a place by the beach to have our lunch, after which we continued to Cueva de Golondrinas, the next site on our list of recommended birding places near Manatí. The road to Cueva de Golondrinas ended a short distance from the beach. The ocean view was blocked by sand dunes, a low forest, and a few structures. At the end of the road were two long lines of vehicles parked on both sides of the narrow road. Near them, on a rusty folding chair, sat an elderly man with a large, rusty machete. He directed me with hand signals into a tight space between two other cars. The man didn't speak English and even his Spanish was hard to decipher, but we understood when he told us that he'll watch over our car. I motioned 'how much?' and he asked for $3. I gave him without any questions. There was also a small food cart and inside was a young woman selling home made empanadas. My chika loves empanadas and immediately asked to get one. While we were waiting for her empanada to cook we commenced chatting with the woman, who spoke fluent English. We told her that we wanted to go to Cueva de Golondrinas and immediately she pulled out her phone and showed us which trail to take and which out spurs to avoid. This information turned out to be very useful because there were many trails there, and only one sign post. We thanked her and started our hike by bypassing the lagoon and entering the forest where she pointed the trailhead to us.

Lagoon

As soon as we stepped onto the trail we entered a different world. The trail was cut into a thick forest of low trees, of which I recognized only the coconut palm. The trees were growing thickly and the canopies merged over the trail, creating a shaded tunnel with limited view ahead. We saw no other people on that trail. The empanadas food cart operator told us most people go to the open beach that was east of the Cueva de Golondrinas beach. 

Trail

A few steps ahead we encountered a large, hand-written sign hanged from a tree. The sign says that trash left behind doesn't talk, but speaks volumes about you (the person leaving the trash behind). I checked the guy who put up this sign and he turned out to be a vigilante nature cleaning activist, who runs a continuous campaign for keeping Puerto rico's nature areas clean of trash. I'm all for it, of course. I hope this campaign gets supported by the local communities and by the authorities.  

The trail we were walking on seemed mainly free of human trash. There were many fallen coconuts and I pushed one to the side of the trail, thinking about collecting it on our way back, assuming that it was ok, since there were no signs forbidding it, or claiming this was private property. 

Trail

There was wildlife crawling on the sandy coastal forest floor. The most prominent animal we saw there was the siguana lizards.  There were quite a few of them, darting from the trail as we approached, running to hide in the layer of fallen leaves. 

Common Puerto Rican Ameiva (Siguana)

There were a number of dead end makeshift trails that split off the main trail and disappeared in the bush. We did go down one of them by mistake but we reached a particularly shaped tree that was featured on one of the empanada vendor's 'don't go there' photos, so we were able to get back to the real trail before wandering too far.

Eventually we stepped from under the coastal forest canopy into the sunlight. The vegetation changed from trees to really tall bushes, grasses, and vines. Thankfully the narrow trail was clear enough so we didn't get scratches on our legs. Good thing we didn't need to worry about poison oak either.

While we saw no wildflowers in the forest, we did see some out in the open bush. Not as many as we saw at El Yunque, but enough to make me happy.

Barb-fruit Mallow, Pavonia spinifex

Some of the flowers I did recognize by now, having seen them on our previous hikes at El Yunque National Forest.

White Beggarticks, Bidens alba

In parts the bush was so high that we couldn't see anything over the vegetation but the blue sky. In other parts the vegetation was low enough to reveal some view ahead. Other than some hyperactive butterflies who wouldn't pose for a photo, we saw no wildlife.

We reached yet another split of trails. This time, thankfully, there was a sign post. The only official sign we saw on this entire hike. The sign directed us to the northwest but I took the split that led directly north because it went up the coastal cliff and I wanted to get a glimpse of the view. On the way I also found yet another new wildflower - an upside down looking pea flower.

Butterfly Pea

From the top of the spur trail I did get to see the view and realized that we were very close to the ocean indeed. I went back down to the trail fork where my chika waited for me and we continued along the actual trail to the Cueva de Golondrinas beach.

The trail northwest also went up the cliff, cutting through a dense thicket of waist high bushes. The plant itself was new to me, but the form of this kind f coastal scrub I knew all too well - the low, wind and salt tolerant, hard, semi succulent leaves with thick, waxy cuticle. It was rough to touch, and thankfully, had no thorns.

Trail

Some of the bushes had flowers but the majority of them were already in various fruiting stages. When I searched up this plant I saw that the ripe fruits are dark, so I guess none of the cocoplum fruits I saw that day were ripe. Cocoplum fruit, turns out, are edible, so it is possible that people who walked there before me simply picked off all the ripe berries and ate them.  

Cocoplum, Chrysobalanus icaco

In some places there were jasmine vines growing over the cocoplum bishes. I recognized the jasmine rght away by its sweet fragrance, despite the flowers being all in rags, likely because of the rains of the previous day.

River Jasmine, Jasminum fluminense 

Eventually the trail descended right into a small, enclosed cove that was the Cueva de Golondrinas beach. We saw the cueva, what was called 'the cave' right away. It wasn't so much a cave as it was a tunnel, curved in the rock by the waves. As we moved toward the cave we saw that there was a man sitting in the shade off to the right, under the trees. The man was in his birthday suit so we kept our distance and went directly to the rocks near the water.  

Cueva de Golondrinas 

When we reached the rocks we took off the backpack and our cameras and got ready to go in the water. I was about to rest my camera on a flat section of the rock wheb I saw a small hermit crab in jewel-like green shell crawling away quickly. I managed to take a couple of shots before the crab vanished in a rock crevice. 

Caribbean Land Hermit Crab

My chika's attention was taken by something else at the time - a white ibis crossed the sky overhead. I missed seeing it because I was busy photographing the crab. 

White Ibis

It was at that point when we discovered that we forgot our underwater camera in the car. Oh, well. I took a few shots of the cueve knee deep in the water, then I left my camera on the rock and went back into the cove to immerse myself completely. 

Cueva de Golondrinas 

My chika and I spent some really nice time in the cove. The water was warm and nice, but the currents pulling through the tunnel were pretty strong, shaking and moving us to and fro. There were some fish, and even a few corals in the shallows. Right before we decided to go I dared going back in the water with my camera, holding myself as steady as possible so the current won't knock me down with it, and  I managed to take some distorted photos of the fish from above the water. 

Atlantice Sergeant Major

We felt like staying there longer, but we still had a long drive across the island to Guanica. We took some time to dry off and enjoy the sun and the scenery before starting back. 

Cueva de Golondrinas Beach

During that time my chika spotted a tern in the sky. This one I got to see as well, for my attention wasn't distracted by crabs.  

Royal Tern

We started back on a different trail outlet that began on a different part of the beach, away from the naked guy. (He was still in the same place when we left). Right away we found ourselves under the coastal forest's canopy. 

There I found yet another wildflower - a spider lily - beautiful and delicate, with thin, hairlike petals. There were a few lily plants there but only one of them was blooming at the time. 

Perfumed Spiderlily, Hymenocallis latifolia 

I haven't identified which trees comprised that unique coastal forest, other than the coconut palms. I did like the strange contorted shapes of their trunks, though. 

The first forest segment on our way back was short. Soon enough we were again walking through the cocoplum thicket, and we had a great view of the beaches east of us. The farthest beach, the one shortest distance from the access road, had a bunch of beachgoers on the sand there, and none inside the turbulent water.  

The sky above the coast was clear, but loking to the south, inland, the sky was cloudy, and the clouds seemed to be gathering. 

This reminded me once again of the long drive we had to do still, and that I was the only driver on this trip, since the car rental company wouldn't add my chika as a second driver. 

On the way back we walked fast. We reconnected with the original trail we came up on, and found our way back under the same coastal forest canopy we came through in the beginning, loking at the same siguana lizards. 

I was surprised to see the hermit crabs there as well, and of course I took the opportunity to take their photos. 

Caribbean Land Hermit Crab

My chika reminded me of the coconut I had pushed aside and indeed I found it, but I noticed it had a hole and it was leaking. I let the coconut drop and started looking for another one when suddenly the elderly man with the machete appeared out of nowhere. He was smiling at us as he held a coconut in a stretched out hand. He then motioned us to follow him and we walked behind him out of the forest and aroud the lagoon, back to the lines of cars parked by the narrow road. 

There the man crouched by the road side and started whacking the coconut with his rusty machete, peeling off the husks at first, then cutting off a piece of shel from the top. He handed me the opened coconut and refused to accept money for it. He walked over to the empanada vendor and said a couple of words to her, and she offered us a straw. We thanked him, and of course we thanked the vendor for the straw, and most of all, for the accurate description she gave us of the trail. We got to meet her son too. 

After getting inside the car we had to wait a few minutes while the elderly man assisted another visitor maneuver his car into another tight parking spot. Eventually we were able to take off and drive away.

It was a very nice hike to a gem of a beach. It was also the kind of experience that had enough unplanned aspects of it to have a strong adventure and exploration feel to it. We didn't get to see any golondrinas (swallows) but we had a great time in the water. My chika and I took turns sipping the fresh coconut water until it run out. The drive to Guanica was supposed to take a little over two hours according to the navigator, but it took well over three hours because of road work in the narrow part of the road in the middle of the large mountains in the middle of Puerto Rico. We arrived at our lodge in Ensenada at Guanica after dark. There was no more exploration for us that day, other than that of our new lodging.