On August 18, 2010 a group of 39 students and staff from Barranquitas Job Corps Academy (BJCA) went to a magnificent field trip to one of the biggest and more appreciated natural resources in the island of Puerto Rico, Las Cavernas del Río Camuy. It’s located on the southeast part of the town of Camuy, Puerto Rico and partially shared with its neighboring towns of Hatillo y Lares.   

This northwest region of Puerto Rico is part of a state protected area called “El Karso del Norte Reserve” and its importance in the hydrological geography of the island is vital. So vital it is, that it provides sufficient water supply for the northern and western regions of the island. At  Las Cavernas del Río Camuy the students  learned that the caverns held  the world’s third largest subterranean river and that is home of a vast number of animals (from 500,000 up to 1,000,000 bats live there) , insects, plants and even an unique micro organism (only in PR) determined by scientist as the smallest crustaceous in the world.

Also we learned about the importance of the conservation of our ecologic treasures like these Caverns that includes; not breaking of the many rock formation (it took from 200 to 2,000 years to form just one small stalactite), no touching is allowed since our body sweat, perfumes, body lotions could harm the micro organism that we already mentioned earlier.  The maintenance of the caverns park is provided by experts on nature conservation from the PR National Park Services.  The students enjoyed the trolley ride to the deeps of the caverns after a 20 minutes video about the 60 years caverns park and some safety tips to make a safe decent. Then we went thru the safety bunker to the entrance of the Clara Cave to see the amazing, huge, galleries chambers of rock formation and stalactites. Some of the galleries were as tall as 150 feet in a perfect dome shape.