We left the city of Ponce, and headed toward Coamo and the Thermal Baths.  President Franklin Roosevelt had been here well ahead of us.  The drive was not a long one and except for the nice countryside, there was nothing special about the drive.

We pulled into a resort where we expected to see the baths.  It sure looked like the resort had exclusive use of the thermal baths.   We went to the reception area and the woman said the fee was $5.00 but the pool would not open for around 4 hours.  That was not really what we had in mind, sitting there for 4 hours waiting for the pool to open.  After further questioning, she, in a very condescending facial expression and tone of voice, said "Well, there are the Public Baths just down the road".  Of course she did not say which road.  We went into the restaurant at the resort and had a very good lunch.  Good food, good atmosphere and well served.

We decided to walk down a path/road that was adjacent to the resort.  We walked 30 feet and then saw the bath straight ahead,  The public baths were nice and had the same mineral content as the resort, of course. since the water flows between them.  We went up to the bath and there wee several local people in and around the water.  It looked enticing and the water felt like about 103F.  Hmm, one problem, our bathing suits were in the car and the car was a whole 100 yards away.  Hey, that is  200 yard walk!!  We solved it by swimming fully dressed.  Easier than a 200 yard walk.  You will notice our clothing in the pictures that follow.  You may also notice that others were in street clothes also.  We talked to one local woman who said that she went there several times a week.
 
 

Approaching the Public Bath	See Richard's head sticking out of the pool?
Kay enjoying the sun and thinking about getting in the pool.	Kay sitting and Marlene wringing out her shorts after
	being in the pool

 We enjoyed the thermal bath, street clothes and all.  Of course after we left here, on our way to the rain forest area, we still had those same clothes on.  Yes, we could have stopped along the way and changed clothes, but we decided to spend the next 6 or so hours with wet clothes.  We did not drive near that long, but we had several things to do along the way.

Back to Puerto Rico Home page

To our home page

Last revised: 15 July 2002