Traveling to Utuado Puerto Rico in 2020 With Stops in Arecibo and San Juan

Puerto Rico Road Trip - From San Juan to Utuado

11/16/2020

Our trip to Puerto Rico was fairly spontaneous. When I received an email that my Spirit Airlines travel credits were set to expire soon, we looked at our calendars while searching for flights. It turned out that flights to San Juan, Puerto Rico, worked out perfectly in our favor!

Once we booked our flights, we started researching and planning.

We had four nights on the island with three days to play! It was difficult to narrow down our plans, because every side of the island offers very different attractions. Ultimately, we decided to go west to Aricebo then south to Utuado and go on a jungle adventure.

This is just SOME of the places we wanted to visit!

Read more about how we planned this entire trip to Puerto Rico in the more detailed post - Coming Soon!

It seemed to rain every afternoon on the island.

We flew into San Juan extremely late Thursday night and traveled straight to our Airbnb. We had booked a night at The 360 Degree View of San Juan House and were welcomed by our New-York-transplant host Robert.

He showed us around the house, then we went upstairs and enjoyed his beautiful rooftop for a few hours. We chatted about the island and were introduced to a Puerto Rico staple, Medella Beer.

Taken the next morning from our Airbnb.

You can read about all of our Airbnb’s across the island HERE!
Plus, if you have never booked with Airbnb use our code to receive a discount: Traveling Tacos Airbnb Code

The 360-degree view from our Airbnb rooftop.

More views of Old San Juan!

Walking around Old San Juan.

We woke up the next morning and enjoyed the daytime view of the city before packing up and walking through Old San Juan toward our rental car. We had reserved a vehicle through Enterprise Rent-A-Car and had to pick it up from their Condado Plaza Hilton location.

We followed the sidewalk, looked down on the ocean, and walked past the Castillo San Cristobal. Sadly, it was closed, and we were unable to tour it. It was an impressive sight nonetheless.

Castillo San Cristobal.

We made sure to bring rain gear for our hikes, and they came in use in San Juan!

We had to take shelter from a midafternoon rain storm in Luis Munoz Rivera Park. While we waited the weather out, we watched some iguanas run around in the tall grass. The rain stopped after thirty minutes, and we eventually finished our walk and picked up our vehicle.

If you want to read more about what it was like to drive around Puerto Rico, check out the post HERE - and check out our YouTube video below!

The entrance to La Plaza del Mercado de Santurce.

Our first stop was a fresh market to pick up some fruit for the weekend! We drove to La Plaza del Mercado de Santurce and were very happy that we stopped. This market had all of the interesting foods we were looking for and great street-side restaurants.

Bananas, mangoes, and a papaya, were our first purchases, because we knew what they were. Feeling more adventurous, we bought some rambutans and a guanabana. We didn’t actually know, at the time, what we had bought, but all of the fruit only cost us $12. We were beyond excited to taste everything.

Some of the rambutans we purchased.

Our El Pulpo Ceviche and Tostones!

We stopped at one of the restaurant counters and had a wonderful, local woman help us order some octopus ceviche, El Pulpo, and fried plantains, Tostones! We chatted with her and her husband while enjoying the delicious food, and they told us all about their life on the island. They were just the first of many welcoming locals whom we met along our trip!

After cleaning our plate, we started the drive to our “home base” for the next few nights in Utuado. Along the way we tried to stop at another market, Plaza del Mercado de Río Piedras Rafael Hernández Marín. Unfortunately, we could not find it! Instead, we kept driving and eventually stopped for some coffee at Valle Verde Cafe.

Not far outside of Utuado, we whipped a u-turn to grab food from Sabor Isleño by Los Paneles, and we couldn’t have made a better choice. This busy restaurant had the best food in Puerto Rico! The view of Utuado, the atmosphere, the drinks, and the food were magnificent.

First mojito of the trip!

Our first time having mofongo - it was delicious!

The owner was our server, and he made sure our experience was excellent. We loved the Mofongo and Surullos, and we had them in just about every meal after this!

If you want to read more about all of the meals we ate across the island check out our “List of Great Restaurants across Puerto Rico” blog post HERE!

After the absolutely delicious meal, we finished our drive to The Lago Caonillas Lake View House. It was our home sweet home for two nights, and it was the most cool place we have ever stayed! We purposely booked it because of the stunning, online photos, absolutely beautiful views of the jungle, and because of the hot tub!

The amazing view of Lago Caonillas from our Airbnb.

See more about this incredible jungle getaway in this blog post HERE!

That first night, we gazed up at the stars and looked over our itinerary for the next day. While doing so, we stumbled across some articles on DicoverPuertoRico.com that convinced us to change our plans!

Cafe El Bohio.

The next morning, we woke up, had a dip in the hot tub, then drove to get some breakfast. Cafe El Bohio was just up the hill, and we enjoyed a breakfast of fried pork, rice, and beans. It was a great and filling meal before an adventurous day ahead!

We walked off our food around Lago Caonillas before driving back down the mountain through Utuado to our first stop of the day, Cafe Gran Batey. Our arrival to this adorable, family run coffee farm could not have been at a better time.

Cafe Gran Batey.

Part of the coffee drying process at Cafe Gran Batey.

Cafe Gran Batey is owned and operated by a lovely, elderly couple. The wife, who gave the tour, did not speak English. Lucky, another family was on the premise at the same time, and the father spoke English well enough to translate for us!

The tour and first cup of coffee were free, and we learned more than we could have imagined in the few hours we spent there! We learned all about the coffee growing and roasting process and about how they use composting and grow other fruits to keep the farm sustainable.

Fresh coffee beans!

After buying a year’s supply of coffee beans, we said “Adios”, and left with big smiles on our faces. We continued down the road to our next stop to learn even more about Puerto Rico and its people.

It was a truly wonderful afternoon, and if you want to learn more, about Cafe Gran Batey please read the blog post HERE and see more from our tour in our YouTube video below!

The Caguana Ceremonial Indigenous Heritage Center.

Next, we arrived at the Caguana Ceremonial Indigenous Heritage Center very excited to learn about the native Taino people. It is a major archeological site that gave us a better picture of the people who lived here as recently as the fifteenth century.

This site is believed to have been a ritual site where religious ceremonies and important meetings were held. It is also where many many games of Batey were played, and these physical contests were also considered praise to the gods.

Walking one of the batey courts.

Ancient Taino petroglyphs!

We walked around the stone sites for a while before asking some questions to the ranger on site. He told us all about the land, the site’s significance, the Taino religion, and Puerto Rican culture. It felt great to learn more about the place we were exploring. When we had no more questions, we headed back toward Utuado to have a bite to eat.

Watch more from our trip to Caguana Ceremonial Indigenous Heritage Center in the video below!

We stopped along the highway again and grabbed dinner at La Placita del Vivi. Again, we ordered more of the Puerto Rican staple mofongo and mojitos and recounted how great the entire day had been. Soon, we were back in the hot tub and staring at the stars.

The next day, we hit the road slightly earlier than the day before and intended to have a full day of exploring the surrounding jungle. A delicious cup of Gran Batey coffee and a piece of fruit were all we needed before starting our day.

Enjoying the hot tub at our Airbnb.

Fresh mango for breakfast with a cup of Cafe Gran Batey espresso!

The entrance to Canon Blanco.

Our first stop was Canon Blanco! exploring-canon-blanco-looking-for-petroglyphs-in-utuado-puerto-rico.htmlThis spot had been recommended in my Girls Love Travel Facebook group, and when we pulled up, we were both giddy to see what we had found!

The canyon touts petroglyphs, and the signs had a picture of them, but sadly, we never found any in the few hours we spent wandering. The canyon scene surrounded by mountains made up for the slight disappointment.

The white walls were in stark contrast to the lush, intruding jungle, and the water below ripped through the canyon. We had an incredibly fun morning hopping across large boulders, wading across the rushing river, and looking for signs of the Taino people.

Exploring Canon Blanco!

Canon Blanco lived up to all the hype!

See more of our canyon exploration in the YouTube video below!

While leaving Canon Blanco, I set Google Maps to La Piedra Escrita to try to see some petroglyphs, but sadly, we never made it to the other canyon. John had made detailed driving plans while we were preparing to visit Puerto Rico, but that slipped both of our minds, and we paid the price for following Google Maps. The road we were led down had been eaten by the jungle, and as we were turning around, it popped one of our tires.

Knowing that we could find more danger than we wanted in the remote jungle, we quickly removed the popped tire and secured our spare tire.

It was quite an eventful detour, and we felt silly having popped a tire when we had prepared driving directions, and we wish we had been smarter.

You can read all about this major setback in this separate post “What It’s Like to Drive In Puerto Rico’s Jungles”.

Getting our flat tire fixed at the nearby Pep Boys.

Luckily, we had purchased insurance on our Enterprise rental car, so all we had to do was go to a partner repair shop and get a new tire. The bad thing for us was that the closest store open on Sunday was in Arecibo, on the north coast of the island, about 2 hours from where we were! We waved goodbye to Utuado and slowly drove to have our tire replaced.

Enjoying the beaches in Arecibo!

While the flat was being taken care of, we explored a nearby, unofficial beach of Aricebo and found a coconut tree with fresh fruit! John climbed up and grabbed one.

We enjoyed the fresh coconut water, and John ate almost all of the meat. Though we had never planned this activity, we couldn’t have been happier with the situation. It didn’t take too long to have our tire replaced, and once it was done, we were hungry.

John and his prized coconut.

We drove through Arecibo toward the lighthouse to grab some dinner. We chose Carbon y Leña Beach Restaurant just off the beach and enjoyed one of the largest, most flavorful meals we had had in Puerto Rico.

We savored a gigantic, fried red snapper over mofongo, chicken, and a mash of yummy goodness. After we completely stuffed ourselves, we started making our way back to San Juan for our final night on the island.

You can read more about this delightful meal in the separate post HERE!

When we got back to the city, we dropped off our rental car and had arranged for an Uber to take us to Hotel La Terraza where we had booked a room through Airbnb.

We chose this boutique hotel because of its rooftop infinity pool! It was very nice, but sadly, we arrived a little too late in the evening and during a rain shower. It didn't stop us from getting in for as long as we could, but eventually we had to call it a night and start packing our stuff.

You can see more from this stylish stay in the post HERE!

Our last night swim in San Juan!

We were so sad to wake up the next day knowing that our vacation was ending. It was such a bittersweet feeling, because there had been so much more we wanted to explore! We had to say, “Until next time,” and make our way to the San Juan Airport.