Toa Baja Tour: History, Beach and the Best View of El Morro

Mi gente, I am Capitán Jose Cruz. I am a boat captain, I run tours and transportation in Puerto Rico, and I live in Toa Baja. So yes, of course I built a tour in my own town.

Toa Baja sits right between San Juan and Dorado, and it looks like neither of them. San Juan is the walled city, the hotels and the traffic. Dorado is the resorts and the golf courses. In the middle is Toa Baja: flat green river land, an old Spanish fort sitting alone on the water, a village of fishermen and seafood kitchens, a beach where the families are local, and the suburbs where a big part of working Puerto Rico actually lives.

This Toa Baja tour is a private half day trip for travelers who want history, countryside and beach in one easy morning, away from the crowds. If you are looking for things to do in Toa Baja, or for a different day trip from San Juan, this is the one I would take my own family on.

What you will see on the Toa Baja tour

2. The lazareto ruins and the big guns

Isla de Cabras keeps a sadder chapter too. In the 1870s the Spanish government built a quarantine hospital here, a lazareto, for passengers and cargo arriving from ports with disease. Under the American government it became the island’s leprosy colony, and people lived out here, apart from everyone, until the colony moved to Trujillo Alto in 1926. Some of the brick walls are still standing.

Then came World War II. The United States Army built Fort Amézquita on this same ground, with Battery Reed and its two 12 inch guns pointed at the Atlantic. In 1943 the channel was filled in and the islet was joined to Palo Seco, which is why today we can drive right up to a fort that used to be an island.

4. Levittown, where the good life begins

Now something no other tour shows you: the suburbs. In 1963 Levitt and Sons, the same builders who invented the American suburb in New York, opened Levittown de Puerto Rico on drained wetland here in Toa Baja. Governor Luis Muñoz Marín came to cut the ribbon. It was the first Levittown outside the mainland United States and the last one to carry the name. The plan was 3,000 homes. By the late 1970s there were more than 11,000, built around canals and a lake, sold with the slogan “where the good life begins.”

This is where the new Puerto Rican middle class moved in: families coming down from the mountains, veterans coming home, people returning from New York with children who spoke more English than Spanish. Singers Olga Tañón, Kany García and Jerry Rivera and world champion boxer Edwin “Chapo” Rosario all come from these streets. We drive the boulevard along the coast, pass the lake and the sky blue water tower that is now a public library, and you see how regular people live, shop, eat and say buenos días.

6. The old town, the plaza and the river

On the full tour we continue west through open green flatland to the pueblo, the original town. The plaza is named for Virgilio Dávila, the poet born here in 1869 who wrote about small town life in Puerto Rico better than anyone. Facing it is the parish church of San Pedro Apóstol, whose story goes back to the 1700s. The two keys on our flag and coat of arms are the keys of Saint Peter.

Just beyond runs the Río de la Plata, the longest river in Puerto Rico. The Taíno people called it Toa. It made this valley rich, and it is also why they call us la Ciudad Bajo Aguas, the city under water. More on that below.

7. Lunch where the locals eat

We finish at the table. You pick the place from my list further down, seafood by the water in Palo Seco or comida criolla in Levittown, and you pay your own bill at local prices, not hotel prices.

A short history of Toa Baja, the town that fed San Juan

I want you to arrive knowing where you are standing, so here is the story the way we tell it at home.

Before the Spanish. This valley was Taíno land, the region of Toa. The name comes from the river, and many people here will tell you Toa means mother. “Baja” is for the low, flat land near the coast. Our little sister, Toa Alta, sits higher up the same river.

The first farm. Around 1511, only a few years after the Spanish arrived, the Crown set up an experimental farm in this valley, where settlers learned from the Taíno how to grow the crops of the island and tested crops brought from Spain. Sugarcane, rice and ginger did well. Wheat did not. That makes Toa Baja one of the first places in Puerto Rico that Europeans farmed.

Canary Island families. The rich river soil and the fishing drew settlers, many of them from the Canary Islands. The surnames Marrero, Salgado and Martínez, which you will still see everywhere here, go back to those first families. The town was formally organized in 1745 and its parish followed in 1749.

The pantry of the capital. By 1776 this area counted 12 sugar estates and 6 cattle ranches. Oranges, lemons, guavas, rice, corn, molasses and rum went from here to San Juan by road and by river. As the capital grew, Toa Baja fed it.

Sugar and those who cut it. Hacienda Santa Elena was founded in 1790 and became one of the most productive estates on the north coast, with its own dock on the river and, by the 1830s, a steam powered mill. That wealth was built on the work of enslaved people. In 1843 enslaved workers in Toa Baja rose up and marched on the town before the Spanish militia put the rebellion down. It is part of our history and we tell it.

The river gives and the river takes. The same Río de la Plata that made the soil rich has flooded the town again and again. In 1841, tired of the water, a group of neighbors asked to move to higher ground. The next year that settlement became its own town. You know it as Dorado. So the next time someone tells you about fancy Dorado, you can tell them it started as a piece of Toa Baja.

The twentieth century. Times got so hard that in 1902 Toa Baja was annexed to Bayamón. We got our town back in 1905. Central Constancia kept grinding cane, with its own little railroad, until it closed in 1962. One year later Levittown opened, and a town of about 20,000 people grew past 78,000 by 1980. Cane fields became neighborhoods almost overnight.

Today. About 75,000 of us live here. Hurricane María in 2017 pushed the river over its banks one more time, and we rebuilt one more time. We call ourselves llaneros, people of the plains, and we are proud ones.

The people you will meet

The schedule: two ways to do it

Both versions are private and start at your door. Times are for a 9:00 a.m. pickup in San Juan; we can start earlier or later.

Prices

The price is for the whole vehicle, so the more of you there are, the less each person pays.

I will be straight with you, as always: we are not the cheapest ride on the island. You are paying for a private vehicle, a driver who knows these streets, and a route that somebody who lives here put together.

These are our own vans: black, high roof, cold air conditioning and room for up to 14, with a driver who opens the door for you. Our guests tend to get out smiling.

Where we eat: you choose from the local favorites

Toa Baja has more good places to eat than I can count, so I narrowed it down. Tell me what you are in the mood for and I will call ahead. Before your date we confirm that the place you picked is open that day.

Is this the right tour for you?

You have already seen Old San Juan. Perfect. Now see it from the other side of the bay and hear the half of the story the walking tours leave out. You are staying in Dorado. We are next door, and we pick you up there. You are on a cruise for one day. Take the Express and you are back at the pier with time to spare. You want a full beach day. Then this is not it; ask me about the boat instead. You want rainforest. That is El Yunque, on the other side of San Juan.

Good to know

• Isla de Cabras and Punta Salinas are municipal parks that open Wednesday to Sunday and on holidays, so the tour runs on those days.
• You cannot enter El Cañuelo. We visit it from outside and walk around its walls.
• The water at Isla de Cabras has currents and rocks. We swim at Punta Salinas, not there.
• Hacienda Santa Elena and the Ermita de la Candelaria are on private or protected land and were badly damaged by Hurricane María. They are part of the story we tell, not stops where we get out.
• Rain in Puerto Rico usually passes in minutes. If the weather is truly bad we move your date at no charge.

Keep exploring: Old San Juan tours, things to do in San Juan, boat tours compared, cultural experiences and all destinations.

Your host, a real person

Capitán Jose Cruz

Boat captain, tour and transportation operator, and proud resident of Toa Baja. I designed this route myself, in my own town. This is our own tour, run by ThingsToDoPR and Luxplora, our transportation company. ¡Nos vemos en Toa Baja!

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