Ciales

Ciales sits above the karst country of the north-central mountains, and coffee has been its business since the nineteenth century. A coffee museum in the town covers the crop's history on the island, the processing and the equipment, and small producers in the hills around sell their own. The town holds a coffee festival in the spring. Below it, the Río Grande de Manatí runs through canyons in the limestone.

History

Ciales was separated from Manatí and founded on 24 June 1820 by Isidro Rodríguez, and a census of 1899 counted 18,115 people. The first truss bridge erected in Puerto Rico after 1898 crosses the Río Grande de Manatí here and is on the National Register of Historic Places (Wikipedia, Ciales, Puerto Rico).

What's there

• The coffee museum - displays on the crop, its history and processing.
• The hill farms - small producers in the mountains around the town.
• The karst canyons - limestone gorges below the town on the Río Grande de Manatí.
• The coffee festival - the town's spring event centred on the harvest.

When to go

December to April is the drier season. The coffee festival is usually in the spring. The museum keeps limited hours and is best checked ahead.

Things to know

The museum is small and often closed outside its stated hours. The town has little else for visitors. Mountain roads are narrow and winding.

Nearby

Manatí is north on the coast, and Utuado is west.

Key facts