Puerto Rico Must-See: Rio Camuy Cave Park

Many visitors to Puerto Rico plan their entire vacations around the larger cities such as San Juan, but they are truly missing out on some amazing experiences by doing so. Just two hour's drive from San Juan is the Rio Camuy Cave Park which hosts not only the largest cave system in the western hemisphere, but the third largest in the world. In addition, it also contains the world's third largest subterranean river system. A rare find is an odd species of fish called Alaweckelia Gurneei, which were discovered in the subterranean pools. They are unique because they evolved over time compensating for the extremely harsh conditions in the caves and ended up completely blind.

The Rio Camuy Cave Park is a massive 268 acres and located in the Puerto Rican countryside. It offers cave tours, sinkhole tours, hiking trails, food, and the typical tourist type shops. To date approximately 220 caves have been officially discovered, but experts believe that there are more than 1,000 in total, leaving another 800 yet to be seen. The best part is all of this can be seen for a $12 ticket, which is less than the cost of one movie in many cities.

When you arrive at the Park for your tour, you will be greeted and separated into two groups. One group is for the Spanish speaking tour and the other is for the English speaking tour and tours groups leave approximately every 15 minutes. To get to the actual entrance to the caves, you must first get on a tram ride that takes you right to the mouth of the cave. Then your tour guide will brief you on some safety guidelines such as paying attention to walking on slippery ground and take you into the cave. The tour itself is very informative and well worth it. The caves are an amazing site to see and it almost feels as if you're stepping back in time to some prehistoric existence.

Along the tour you will walk through massive caverns, see amazing stalagmites and stalactites, be able to drink from what they call the "fountain of youth" which is a natural spring that trickles down the wall of the cave, and even experience thousands of bats flying around you. Our tour guide turned the lights off in the cave and the bats rushed in and then when the lights were turned back on the bats receded back into the darkness of the deeper parts of the cave system. There are so many things to experience on this tour that makes the Rio Camuy Cave Park a definite must-see for anyone visiting Puerto Rico.