Last Updated on June 6, 2019 by PowersToTravel
We stayed the night at Yabucoa, at the Parador Costa del Mar. Turns out there are two hotels from the same chain within 1 mile of each other. The chain is called “Tropical Inns.” I’m really glad we stayed at the Parador Costa del Mar rather than the other one, Palmas de Lucia. Ours was perched on a headland; no beachfront property here. The views were great. However, there were no opportunities to walk anywhere. The road is too narrow to walk on, and the cliffs too high to scale. Palmas de Lucia was located on the beach, however the beach was not well cared for, with seaweed and palm fronts everywhere, and was actually smelly.
Due to personal health issues, the person responsible for breakfast at the Costa del Mar was out, and all of the guests here were directed to the Palmas de Lucia Inn down the road for breakfast. The breakfast was actually the best breakfast we had in Puerto Rico; we were able to choose from a variety of menu items, pancakes being top of theirs and my list. It was a sit-down-and-be-served restaurant, not a pick-it-up-yourself-and-heat-it-in-the-microwave hotel restaurant.
So, I left the inn full of pancakes and ready to explore this southeastern corner of Puerto Rico, visited by so few. We drove along the headlands south from Yabucoa to Maunabo along route 901. The views of the sea and land were tremendous, and there were opportunities to stop the car for pictures. We arrived at the sea, and followed the signs to the Faro, the lighthouse.
The gate was locked. We looked forlornly at the sign which announced it is open everyday. We walked along the fence a bit towards the view, and then found a convenient breach someone had made in the fence, and decided, it really was “every day” and that day was ours. We strolled through the rocky headland towards the lighthouse. The weather was stormy, windy, with alternating bright spots of light, and ominous clouds.
After sheltering in the rocks from a quick storm, we left our lighthouse, and followed a legitimate path down to the beach. We discovered a dirt road leading through the palms, parallel to the beach. We walked along the road and soon found ourselves at the entrance to our private reserve, El Humedal Punta Tuna. The name sounded romantic to me, so I photographed the sign. When preparing to write this story I found that El Humedal was simply “Tuna Point Wetlands”.
Perhaps it is the weather that made this location spectacular, perhaps it was the amazing view we found as we drove along the inland road, Rt 2, on our return to Yabucoa. Regardless, Punta Tuna is worth a trek.
(Update: Oct 2017): We recently learned that Hurricane Maria made landfall just at this location.
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Parador Costa Del Mar – not a luxury hotel by any stretch, yet we still had a large room, with a balcony view to the sea. Wifi was only available on the outside patio, which was kind of useless, since it was too bright out there to see our computer screen. We ended up sitting in some chairs on the upper balcony above the Reception which perhaps belonged to rooms up there, but were deserted at the time. The swimming pool was actually too cold for comfortable December swimming. However the hotel was well located to explore the southeast coast.
We stayed there two nights and one day and didn’t find a single restaurant to recommend in Yabucoa. The only restaurants recommended we couldn’t find! Near the entrance to the highway are a string of kiosks. We should have eaten there.
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