Through reading some older caving articles, I was able to find the location of a flowing roadside cave. I also had a map of the cave, which showed that the cave is relatively simple and continues for quite a ways. The flood risk in this one is not as high as other river caves, but we still went early in the morning with plans to be out by midday.

 

We had heard stories about prior cavers being shot at near the cave entrance, presumably by the property owners. I was unable to verify the authenticity of this claim. We asked a man and his son at the property if it was OK to park there, and if the area was safe. We talked for several minutes, the man seemed trustworthy, and said we would be fine. He had never been inside the cave.
 

From the road, we climbed up a 30 foot waterfall and followed it into the cave. The entrance is large and barely 50 feet from the road, although it’s not immediately visible to passersby.
 

Once inside, we turned on our headlights and waded through warm flowing water to the first intersection, where we turned right, followed it for 150 feet, and then turned left. Down this large hallway we found an extensive range of highly decorated resurgence rooms. Mostly we were walking, but in some spots we had to stoop or crawl. We took care to not touch or break any of the fragile formations. The rock was sharp and provided excellent traction.
 

The small resurgences seemed to weave a braid through a field of stalactites and stalagmites in a space only a few feet from floor to ceiling. We crawled along until coming to a sump. The scenery was awesome here!

Then we returned to the initial intersection in the cave and made a right. From the map, I knew that this passage was significantly longer, and would bring us to a section labeled ‘Passage Continues’ with a ‘?’.

 

We followed this passage, at times chest deep, and at times army crawling in 6 inches of water with low air space, until coming to a breakdown pile. We traversed the pile, with bats fluttering around us, and came out again at the stream. This stream had a side passage which terminated at a sump.
 

The main passage continued. We walked it for another 15 minutes, until we were were off the map. At this point we had been in the cave for only three hours, but were at our turnaround time. When we got back to the entrance, I was a surprised to see a three-foot long snake that slithered off into the bushes.

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Being so close to the road, it would be easy to assume that this cave is at high risk for vandalism. But the jungle is thick in Puerto Rico, and is filled with huge spiderwebs. It is both very difficult to see the entrance, and a somewhat brave feat for any non-caver to risk the climb up to it. For these reasons, the cave remains pristine and unvandalized despite its relative accessibility.