Piñones and Puerto Rico's Wilderness Coast

Luxury condo towers, hotels and upscale restaurants line a picture-perfect beach in Isla Verde; the island's most popular area for tourists.  However few realize that if you continue east, Avenida Isla Verde turns into Highway 187, which threads some of the most exotic encounters that wait only minutes away.

Piñones is the haphazardly assembled shantytown that awaits across the bridge.  Here, you'll find roadside restaurants and clapboard shacks serving up all kinds of seafoods and yummy local specialties.  But those are hardly the highlights!  Piñones ushers in un Bosque Estadal; a State Forest that has recently been established.  This entire coastal area, once mostly cleared by the Spaniards for livestock grazing and agriculture, is now returning to its original wilderness environment of dense tropical vegetation overshadowed by sprawls of swaying coconut palms.

Local government has recently made a great investment towards natural development of this entire stunning area, which still largely remains one of the island's biggest unknown attractions.  The Wilderness Coast trail was recently completed, and is best enjoyed on bicycles the way it criss-crosses the highway to feature elevated boardwalks which weave through inland mangrove forests, and the coastal sections which hug stunning, untamed areas just as Columbus saw in 1493.

Unless you're a diehard surfer, the majority of beaches aren't for casual swimming.  Further the highway extends to the east, the more secluded various sections become; especially on a weekday.  Numerous turn-offs into the unknown are on the coastal side, where miles of endless beach await beyond the verdancy.  For me, no visit to the island would be complete without time spent along the Wilderness Coast -- where getting lost is the only way to find yourself. 

More Wilderness Coast Photos