“Let’s go to the beach to cure the soul
Close the screen, open the Medalla
Slow and happy, facing the wind
Take advantage the sun is hot
And let’s enjoy the scene
Let’s jump in the water to feel how good it is
And let’s get tropical
Chinchorreando across the coast….
So you can let loose, little by little
Because to have fun, you don’t need to leave Puerto Rico.”
– Lyrics of “Calma” by Puerto Rican singer Pedro Capo
Singer Pedro Capo must have had Cabo Rojo in mind when he penned the 2019 Latin Grammy Song of the Year, “Calma,” an infectious ode to the unique joys of Puerto Rico’s laid back coastal life.
Cabo Rojo unfolds across the island’s sun and sea splashed southwest corner, an area of beautiful secluded beaches, majestic limestone cliffs and pristine nature reserves. It’s among the island’s sweetest, most Caribbean seaside stretches, and is home to both Boqueron and Combate, two of Puerto Rico’s most quintessential beach towns, where the art of just hanging out hits new heights.
So when you are in Puerto Rico, take a break from the ritz and the glitz of the Condado and Isla Verde tourism bastions and make sure you take a dive down here and enjoy the simple splendors of Cabo Rojo. The sea is as clear as it is calm, and invitingly warm, and the joys of island life are in reach from a hammock swinging in the tropical breeze, whether it’s a fried fish fritter or an icy cold piña colada you’re after. The town has been attracting visitors since the days when the pirates ruled the Caribbean and is a favorite vacation spot for island residents. The dress code du jour is never much more than sandals, shades and swimsuit, but you won’t’ be giving up much in leaving the city.
Cabo Rojo’s coastal communities teem with activity at night that lends them an air of a tropical carnival throughout the year. Singers perform in open air bars and seafood restaurants line the narrow streets of the town’s seaside havens, while artisans and food vendors sell their delights outside, with a flavorable breeze mixing with the music and laughter. On weekends and during holidays, you’re likely to encounter dancing in the streets, possibly to the exuberant drum and brass beat of a live salsa band, an amazingly talented local busting out a Spanish ballad at akaroke event or some 80s dance music spilling out from a bar.
But of course, this is the far west, so before heading out for some apre sol fun, make sure you are ready to celebrate a glorious sunset from a coastal perch with your refreshing libation of choice in hand. This is one of the best spots in the Caribbean to watch the sun set.
The town’s culinary specialty is fresh seafood, with dozens of waterfront restaurants across Cabo Rojo. The charming fishing villages of Joyuda and Puerto Real are legendary for the quality and quantity of family seafood restaurants, which also excel at the local comida criolla, and a perfect stop for a leisurely lunch or early dinner to watch the sensational west coast sunset. Digging into a delicious fried red snapper or grilled Caribbean lobster, set off by some expertly prepared tostones or rice and beans, while looking out from the restaurant deck to the calm sea is an amazing experience you won’t want to miss. However, Cabo Rojo cuisine is much more varied than its iconoclastic seafood tradition, with a new generation of young chefs offering new renditions of this winning formula and other cutting edge culinary explorations that has enhanced the dining scene along with a greater diversity of international restaurants. Likewise, you can still get the coldest beer in the world and a piña colada in a coconut, but town bars have also upped their offerings to include craft beer and cocktails and other more sophisticated offerings. Meanwhile, community galleries and boutiques sell local art and fashion for the most discriminating of tastes.
With 18 beaches along 28 miles of coastline (the largest of any Puerto Rico town), and some of the island’s clearest calmest waters, Cabo Rojo is probably the best place on the island to take a swim. It’s heaven for water sports lovers, with dream snorkeling and diving sites, sailing opportunities and deep sea fishing excursions from the marinas scattered throughout town, with the Puerto Real and Boqueron marinas two of the most popular.
But Cabo Rojo is much more than its coast. State and federal nature reserves in town are idyllic areas for biking, hiking and bird-watching. Cabo Rojo’s cultural charms include a century-old lighthouse with an astounding panoramic view of Puerto Rico’s southwest coast, and a historic downtown area. Driving along Cabo Rojo country roads is also charming experience in itself. You’ll roll through highlands with grazing cattle, farmland and patches of tropical forest as the Caribbean coast glistens in the background. Cabo Rojo is an important player in Puerto Rico’s back to el campo revolution, in which a new generation is rediscovering farming, producing everything from gourmet coffee to organic goat’s milk to grass-fed organic beef. The town is also home to Puerto Rico’s oldest continuously operating business, a sea salt producer, and driving along the town’s picturesque coastal salt flats is another unexpected pleasure. Their pink sheen is what gave Cabo Rojo, or red cape, its name.
The gorgeous Combate and Boqueron beaches are the town’s most popular, and there are beach and water sports rentals, from beach chairs to jet ski tours, available at both. Buyé is another gorgeous narrow white beach that threads between a blue gentle sea and a green craggy fence of tropical shade trees that keeps a portion of the beach deliciously shady throughout the day. There are rest room facilities and food and refreshments and beach chair available on site, among other amenities, and makes for a great day at the beach.
Combate, however, is our vote for most in the spirit of smash hit “Calma,” which prescribes kicking back on the beach with some cold drinks and your lover as a cure for the soul. From nearly every point you stand on it, the virgin beach at Combate stretches out endlessly before you, its sands the whitest and the sea fronting it the bluest you are likely to see. There’s not a palm tree in sight, but instead a line of native Portia and mesquite trees, towering sea grapes and flowering mangroves that provide a fat line of protective shade on the narrow beach that unfolds for over three miles.
Combate Beach Resort accesses this gorgeous beach at its sultriest spot and is surrounded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge, making it an idyllic retreat to get away from it all, as well as a preferred location to explore both Combate and the greater Cabo Rojo area. It’s just a short walk over a wooden bridge and sand path cutting though the gorgeous tropical brush between the hotel’s back patio and the fine white sand fronting azure sea. There’s plenty of room for everyone to stake out their own piece of shade on the beach, and corresponding stretch of sea and sand over here, and it’s just a short walk to the string of beachfront bar-restaurants that constitutes Combate’s “downtown.”
This boutique hotel, which is the most awarded small hotel in Puerto Rico, brings the best of the Puerto Rican parador experience to a new high, with quality and comfortable rooms, friendly and efficient service and gorgeous grounds and first class amenities. The shady pool area and surrounding deck is the perfect area to chill out, with a backdrop of tropical forest and surrounded by the sliver of tropical forest separating the property from the beach. It also offers extras like a 24-hour wine cellar and bodega with a broad selection of fine wines and tapas, and homemade award-winning tropical sangria you have to try.
The hotel lobby is a great spot to hang out and get information from staff on the area’s attractions.
The breakfast served here from an inventive and flavorful menu will power you through your big day exploring Cabo Rojo’s wonders. The property, which offers bike and kayak rentals, provides direct access to some of the best biking and hiking trails through the 1,836 acre National Forest, an area of coastal salt flats and sub-tropical dry forest that offers sweeping vistas and is the most important stop in the Eastern Caribbean for migratory birds, making it a perfect spot to bird watch, with 145 bird species having been identified. The hotel also has other sports facilities including basketball and volleyball courts.
Annie’s Place has an envious location overlooking the sea beside the beach and Combate village, and delivers on the tried and true formula of fresh seafood and Puerto Rican classics expertly done. Santos Seafood Bar and Restaurant, a block off the beach, has a fanatical local following for its service, flavor and prices, a family establishment that has become a permanent feature of the village scene. Our favorite place to eat was the straight-forward El Carey Bar and RestauranteOUT at the center of town. The unassuming chef, Eric Baez, is a disciple late-great chef Alfredo Ayala, the godfather of the the nueva criolla cuisine, and offers up expertly prepared Cabo Rojo classics, working from a palette defined by the freshest seafood he scours for daily across the southwest, and traditional Puerto Rican cuisine t hat would make abuela proud. Whether its serenata de carrucho, grilled Caribbean lobster or an inventive mahi mahi filet, El Carey delivers; you leave here satisfied, not only for the fulsome flavor, but also the price of your bill.
If you are here Friday night or Sunday afternoon, don’t miss the karoke fiesta going on at Santos – for a let-your-hair down good time. Enjoy the ice-cold beer or our favorite rum drink as locals with some serious crooning chops deliver it passionate versions of Spanish love songs, classic ballads and pop hits. On the night we were there, one woman launched into a dramatic version of La Lupe’s “La Tirana,” while what looked like a local fisherman delivered a stunning rendition of Luis Miguel’s “Si Nos Dejan” that hit all the high notes. Both numbers brought down the house as did the performance of a Julietta Venegas pop tune by two giddy and sunburned young women.
Combate is in close proximity to the must see attraction of the century-old Cabo Rojo (Los Morrillos) Lighthouse lies along a spit of land between two bays, a windswept spot, set off by dramatic limestone seaside cliffs, and surrounded by salt flats and a coastal forest reserve. Famous pirate Roberto Cofresi hid in the caves that dot the coast here and attacked trading ships during the 19th century. The lighthouse, which dates from 1881, stands above 200-foot limestone cliffs, which offer dramatic panoramic views of the coast. Make sure you save time to visit and hang out at La Playuela beach, a spectacular pristine horse-shoe with views of the lighthouse and the stunning vistas of Puerto Rico’s southwest corner. Take some time to walk through the reserve surrounding the lighthouse, with rare coastal vegetation and the birds of every color, and the surrounding salt flats which spread out along the sun-splashed, blue coastline. An observation tower at the salt flats offers exceptional views, while the interpretive center is informative.
Combate is just a short drive along Route 100 from the more centrally located Boqueron, but visitors from points east, including San Juan, are just as likely to get here along Route 303 from Lajas which ribbons through rolling farmland and gorgeous coastal views that bears the nickname of the “Extraterrestrial Route” because of alleged sightings across the years. The country road cuts through one of Cabo Rojo’s most remote and beautiful areas, Pitahaya, a place where your cell phone signal will likely drop and which is the lowest nighttime illumination in all of Puerto Rico. That’s partially responsible for the road’s ET fame, and the Puerto Rico Astronomical Society maintains a campground in the area because it is the best place on the entire island to observe heavenly formations at night, and the public is invited to attend the periodic gatherings, which coincide with specific celestial events.
Puerto Rico’s fledging “glamping” industry is also getting underway here via the Pitahaya Glamping Retreat, the perfect spot to get away from it all while not losing the creature comforts of civilization.The compound as a central house that serves as an office and communal pool and fire pit area. There are a ring of campsites with canvas tents and wooden platforms, each outfitted with comfortable mattresses and furniture, a kitchen and barbecue facilities and private restroom and showers. You can spend the days exploring the campground and surrounding countryside, a paradise for butterflies and tropical birds, or explore the mangrove chocked coastline on foot or kayak.
At Pitahaya Glamping Retreat you can spend the days exploring the campground and surrounding countryside.
Boqueron Beach curves in a graceful white arc lined by towering palms and sea graphs and thegentlest sea you can imagine, the water warm and salty to touch and gin-clear to the bottom. This is an official balneario, or public beach, so there is ample parking, dressing, shower and restroom facilities as well picnic areas and a cafeteria. This makes it an excellent stop for families.
The beach is just adjacent to the village of Boquerón, with a great after-beach scene because of its bevy of waterfront restaurants and bars. Have a cold drink and conch or Caribbean lobster fritter at the iconic El Schamar bar an drink in the scene. You can watch the sunset over the wooden dock behind the restaurant, one of the prettiest views in all of Puerto Rico, or continue shooting pool inside as the illuminating orange disk descends outside the wide open windows.
On weekends and holidays, there’s often live music performed at two different squares here, so it’s possible that you may find at some point on a Saturday line dancing in a crowd to bomba and plena music; nothing to worry about, just go with the flow.
When it’s time to eat, however, head direct to Downtown by Chef Jose Carles, just off the beaten path of the downtown area near the yacht club and marina. Carles ran the kitchen for years at the glamorous Royal Isabela resort on the northwest coast as well on South Carolina’s Kiawah Island before deciding on returning home to do his own thing at downtown. You’ll be glad he did. A fisherman himself, Carles’ constantly evolving menu plays off the freshest fish brought to the table that day, as well as the locally-sources herbs and produce gathered from the surrounding Cabo Rojo countryside.
Carles is a master of converting Puerto Rico’s traditional dining experiences into high art, and he can bring the simplest of delicacies to new heights. Fried fish and cheese fritters are served with tomato jelly and fragrant avocado dip, while the traditional black morcilla sausage is paired with steamed Chinese bao buns.
The chef also draws inspiration from creating gourmet delights from food most people would never consider eating, such as the invasive lionfish and the tiny ceti fish, which is more often used for bait than dinner. Try such an adventure while here; you won’t be disappointed. The red snapper and mofongo is among the best in town, but there are nightly surprises on offer here, like sautéed prawns over saffron risotto, a paella that changes with the seasons, succulent Cuban style beef canoe and sautéed octopus in black bean puree. It’s no wonder Downtown has a growing number of steady customers, and you’ll be thinking about your return even before you finish the meal. You can dine outside beneath leafy branches of enormous shade tree while watching the crowd strolling along the bayside promenade or chill out in the inside dining room.
Don’t leave Boqueron without checking in to World Cup Kitchen Bar, a sports bar that serves up gourmet cuisine and 80s hits and has the friendliest staff on the west coast. There’s a lot going on here, and the unique experience won’t disappoint. World Cup specialties include baked eggplant or sweet plantain piñon stuffed with either mahi mahi, salmon, steak, chicken or vegetables and topped with a creamy velouté, garlic or lemon sauce. There are also fine risotto, succulent grilled steaks and fresh seafood specials.
This is a sports bar, however, and the pub fare here is also a few steps above what you expect. The house burger literally towers from your plate, and the homemade cheese make the nachos something special. Everyone is friendly here, and you are likely to meet the husband and wife owners, who place a premium on welcoming service, and the young chef, who shows up every night to dazzle the clientele. The crowd is just as friendly, and this a favorite spot to stop for boaters and cyclists.
Boqueron has a number of fine traditional seafood restaurants, and the waterfront Galloways has among the choicest locations, with its back deck literally on the water looking west, the perfect spot to spy schools of fish on the dazzling sunset. They specialize is seafood and Puerto Rican cuisine but have ample U.S. style offerings. Try Pika Pika if you feel like some tasty authentic Mexican food at reasonable prices, and 101 West, on the drive out of town towards Lajas, is another fine option with fresh fish, smoked ribs and California cuisine offerings and craft cocktails. There is an attractive indoor dining room and bar, and back terrace that provides a taste of the Puerto Rican countryside.
Boqueron is another appealing spot to base yourself while exploring the southwest, and the Boho Beach Club, which was reborn in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, is among the best bets in town, with a stylish lobby, restaurant and guestrooms, and an enthusiastic and knowledgeable young staff, who treat guests like friends and family. The pool and lounge area is among the best in Cabo Rojo, and the lobby restaurant is always busy, serving cutting edge cuisine from brunch through dinner and offering an impressive wine display and bar pumping out craft cocktails and tall tropical drinks. It’s a few blocks from the downtown area, which guarantees you some quiet on holiday weekends, and close to the entrance of the public beach. Another favorite spot to stay in town is Parador Boquemar, down by the village waterfront, offering guests a full-service restaurant and pool area.
Golfing enthusiasts can check out the Club Deportivo Del Oeste country club and marina, which features an 18-hole, Jack Bender designed championship golf course that has hilly terrain with spectacular views. Open to the public, the club also offers tennis, gym and other activities for the family with on site and nearby restaurants.
When you are ready to take a break from the sun, consider a stop at the Schoenstatt Sanctuary, a tiny beautiful Catholic church located between Combate and Boqueron on gorgeous, tranquil grounds that feel like a piece of Europe in Puerto Rico. The small church, which features a carved wood altar and stained glass windows, is located on a hilltop and offers views to the ocean and a sea breeze. The ground have a fountain, meditative gardens and a mosaic stations of the cross. Visitors are welcome daily.
Another option is the charming public plaza at the historic center of Cabo Rojo, a charming spot where men play dominos in the shade and laughing children dart around the colorful Puerto Rican candy stand. There are a number of historic buildings here, including the neoclassic San Miguel Arcangel Cathedral that was built in 1783, and a monument to Ramon Emeterio Betances, a medical student and beloved patriot who led the fight to abolish slavery in Puerto Rico. The plaza also features one of the first obelisks to be constructed in the Caribbean, with the monument dedicated to the founders of Cabo Rojo, with an adjacent Museum of the Patriots. Another attraction is a monument to hometown son Salvador Brau Monument, a poet, historian, sociologist and journalist who published the groundbreaking book “The History of Puerto Rico” in 1904.
Cabo Rojo’s tourism office runs a monthly guided tour of the historic sites called Cabo Rojo Nocturno, which culminates with a performance by the official municipal band playing Puerto Rican classics.