Camuy River Cave Park

These last few days have been hectic, so I apologize for being behind on the posts! The biggest highlight was when we went to the Camuy River Cave Park. It is located between the municipalities of Camuy, Hatillo and Lares in northwestern Puerto Rico, but the main entrance to the park is located in Quebrada, Camuy. The caverns are part of a large network of natural limestone caves and underground waterways carved out by the third-largest underground river in the world, the Río Camuy (Camuy River). The cave system was discovered in 1958 and was first documented in the 1973 book Discovery At The Río Camuy by Russell and Jeanne Gurnee, but there is archaeological evidence that these caves were explored hundreds of years ago by the Taino Indians, Puerto Rico's first inhabitants.  Over 10 miles of caverns, 220 caves and 17 entrances to the Camuy cave system have been mapped so far. This, however, is only a fraction of the entire system which many experts believe still holds another 800 caves. 

While the drive was not fun at all, the caves were well worth it! Being able to explore such an incredible natural land feature was incredible. The entire your took about an hour and we had a tour guide who walked us through, but all of our information was presented via an audio recording. The trip was well worth it and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. When we weren't exploring a massive cave system we were either playing tennis or laying out at the beach (tough life, I know). Even though our trip is coming to an end (we leave tomorrow), we still have fun things planned and will continue to take in all this great weather! 

We hear the weather is about to take a turn for the worse back home, so thankfully we leave tomorrow and should hopefully miss it! If you're in Chicago, stay safe tonight!

- Andrew