December 18, 2023

Puerto Rico, Luquillo & El Yunque

If you read part 1 of Puerto Rico, today I am sharing other activities that we did. My friend had suggested to me to try out food at Kiosks. Locals love this place. Besides spending some time at seven seas beach, obviously we didn’t like the beach as it was rocky and steep beach, we came to Luquillo beach.

Luquillo

I would highly recommend a day or half at Luquillo Beach in Luquillo. There is a small fee to park your car. And you can exit and come back too. Right outside, the beach area there are famous Luquillo Kiosks. We got some drinks and food from the kiosks. Particularly, they didn’t have a lot of veggie options but ask around I got some tomato cheese empanada, and my husband got some chicken ones.

It’s known for all the fried food you see. There is a small food place inside the beach premises too, we got best pina colada from them. Alongwith other options, moreover people also sell lot of things at the beach – Helados (ice sorbet), coconut water, coconut candy, even drinks. We spent a day at Luquillo Beach. It’s a very nice beach.

They had facilities inside like showers, food café etc.

Beach is conveniently near Luquillo kiosks. A long series of food stalls/restaurants.

We just went to few kiosks and picked up some empanadillas an ate them at the beach. Lots of options of local foods. For vegetarians they had few options and for empanadas they had tomato cheese similar to pizza flavor. It makes up for light snack or food for the beach.

Secondly, for dinner also, you can try sit down food at the kiosks. My friend suggested La Parilla to us and Terruno looked good too and Rellena’o where you can customize mofongo. Overall, it was good day at this beach. Now, if you live close to any other beaches, there are plenty you can skip this.

views from Yokahu tower – Luquillo beach

El Yunque National Forest

El Yunque National Forest is a national park. It’s a rainforest as name suggests and once you enter the park there is a visitor center to get all the information. We skipped that part to save time.

It’s like road to hana in Maui. You just pass through all little hikes to waterfalls, observation points etc. Few things were closed but we still enjoyed about 3-4 hours and explored. You can get in the waterfalls if you like to, so dress in bathing suit. You can see a lot of birds, hear coqui frogs and snails. There are few places to get food and use restrooms, picnic tables etc. I would highly suggest either pack some sandos with you or eat at these places I am suggesting. We had breakfast at home and packed some popcorn and soda just for snacking. At the last, we stopped while exiting at La Muralla to get some coconut water but also shared a pizza empanada. It was best compared to all others as he fried it before giving it. If you want bigger/proper meal to share – Rainforest café inside the rainforest looked good. I would suggest spend morning at El Yunque and then come to Luquillo Beach as its just 15 mins from the rainforest. Spend half a day at the beach. I was told that it rains in the afternoon usually. It rained before we came in around at 9.30 am. So, it can rain anytime I guess.