Today we woke up at 7am to go on a two-hour bus ride over to the northwestern side of the island. The reason for the long trip was to see part of the great cave system here in Puerto Rico. This ancient cave system can be found all over the island. The particular area we visited is called Camuy River Cave Park. These limestone caverns were carved out by underground waterways many years ago. It is the third largest underground cave system in the world with over 10 miles of caverns. We rode a little trolley car down a winding path to the base of the cave. The trail was very slippery. In the cave we saw bats and some large spiders native to the area. The large chamber of the cave that we toured through was about 700 feet long and 215 feet high. These caves were used by the Tainos, the native people of Puerto Rico, as a sacred area for their rituals. When these cave systems were discovered in the 1950’s, evidence of hundreds of years of Taino use was also found.
As someone who has never explored a cave system of that size before, I found the caves to be breathtaking and very interesting. On the path back to the opening of the cave I started to use my flashlight to look around near me, there were large spiders and small streams of running water everywhere. It makes me wonder exactly how the Tainos used the caves and how far into them they went. Without a well-made path and lots of lighting I imagine it would have been very hard to explore these caves. I find it interesting that the Taino people used them as they did due to how hard they would have been to navigate. This can be related to how easy we have it in now living with all our modern day conveniences. Housing today is held up and made possible due to modern conveniences. For housing back in the Taino time, a cave system might have seemed like an easier place to stay for protection then to make your own and maintain it. In the future I hope that more of these caves get opened up to the public for people to explore and enjoy them. They really inspire a connection with the country because of their rich history not only with the native people of the land, but with the natural wonder of rock being carved out by a once very large underwater river. These kinds of natural beauties caused by rivers can be found at places in the United States such as the Grand Canyon, but to have a cave system as large as this one being more open to the public, it would not only attract tourists to the beauties of the island but also give them a greater appreciation for Puerto Rico as a whole.
