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WE’RE GONNA GET GEOGRAPHICALLY GEEKY TODAY!
I wanna talk about Isla de Mona. Why? Because it’s part of Puerto Rico, not just physically or politically, but as I’ve come to learn, it’s full of history! It’s uninhabited now, but the Taino people used to live there, and Columbus and his cohort visited when they found the islands in 1493. There is evidence of settlement. Isla Mona is gorgeous and beloved by those in the scientific / biology / nature / history / education communities. I admit I knew nothing about Mona Island going into this but now I’m fascinated on so many levels. I have a feeling Mona Island isn’t really in the “general knowledge” category. And so I wanted to consolidate and share some of what I’ve learned.
Mona Island is actually somewhere you can visit, with careful planning and the proper permits and gear. ABut if you wanna unplug, get away from it all, be in nature, on an uninhabited island, camp under the stars, then a trip to Isla Mona may be for you!
Let’s start with geography.
Technically, Puerto Rico is an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, part of the Greater Antilles in the West Indies. It consists of 143 islands, most of them tiny and uninhabited. You have the mainland, Puerto Rico, then next in size are Vieques, Culebra, and Isla de Mona (or in English, Mona Island). It’s hard to imagine, but Mona Island rose up out of the ocean millions of years ago due to shifting of tectonic plates.
Where is Mona Island? It is 45 miles west of western Puerto Rico, halfway to the Dominican Republic. This protected nature reserve is 7 miles long and 4 miles wide. It’s shaped kinda like a lima bean. Or maybe a heart drawn by a three-year-old. It’s one big limestone plateau. So say you land on the beach, you look up and all around the perimeter and what you see is these vertical rock cliffs as high as 300 feet up. And the top is all flat (hence plateau).
Isla de Mona is uninhabited. The only people you’ll find there are authorized personnel from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, scientists, photographers, eco-travelers, and tourists who love nature so much they went through the trouble of getting there to camp out and enjoy. The rangers keep an eye on everything and everyone and do things like conduct research projects.
If you love plants and animals, this place is for you. Isla Mona is sometimes called the Galapagos of the Caribbean. There are a number of species endemic to Mona. Several are endangered or threatened, and authorities are working to remove invasive species (ahem, goats and pigs, which as we mentioned before you’re allowed to hunt). They are: the Ground Iguana, the Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, the Boa, the High Chumbo Cactus, and the Hawksbill Sea Turtle. Fun fact, the iguana has a length of 4 feet and is completely harmless. Hopefully these populations rise to a level where they will no longer be endangered.
History
It is believed that the Tainos were the first settlers on Mona Island, 5000 years before Columbus! In fact, some stone tools were found that dated to around 3000 BC. The original name of the island is “Amona,” which is the Taíno word meaning “that which is in the middle.” They grew food and lived in caves, where petroglyphs were found. These petroglyphs tell us about Taino beliefs. For example, some of them were of cemies, or deities, gods.
In 1493, Christopher Columbus and his crew discovered Mona Island.
In 1511, Christopher’s brother Bartolomé took charge of Mona Island.
But it seems there was no plan to settle the island on a permanent basis due to its location and size.
Next, we know what happened in the decades following the arrival of the Spaniards to the region in general. War ensued, slavery, almost-near decimation of the Tainos.
Mona Island also frequently saw pirate activity. For example, in the late 1600’s, Captain Kidd stopped by while on the run during a mission. And in the early 1800s, a pirate named Roberto Cofresi (referred to throughout Puerto Rico as “El Pirata Cofresí) made Mona Island his base of operations.
Methinks we should do a future episode about Cofresí!
From the mid-1800s until 1927, the caves on Mona Island were mined by the Spanish, the US, and others for bat guano. Guano was a valuable fertilizer and used to make gunpowder. Still used by developing nations, by the way. During that time there would be 300-400 workers mining for guano!
Spain lost control of Puerto Rico and therefore Mona Island to the US in 1898 during the Spanish American War. In 1962, Mona Island came under the control of the government of Puerto Rico. Since 1973, it’s been under the administration of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources. They actually take very good care of the island. It’s a paradise of biodiversity and they wanna keep it that way, so there are a lot of rules. For starters, no more than 100 people on the island at any given time. But if you wanna be one of those hundred, it’s worth it…listen on…
Visiting the Island
First, you have to be pretty adventurous and in general good shape. Die-hard nature lovers spend the day, or camp on the beach for a few days. You have to plan as far out in advance as possible because you need permits, camping gear, and provisions. There’s no cell service, no food, no establishments, no drinking water, nada. It’s hot as hell year-round, between 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit. The vegetation can be thorny and poisonous. It’s the tropics so you have insects, and there’s native wildlife everywhere, including the water. The terrain is craggy and uneven and there aren’t many signs around the island so it’s easy to get lost. As a blogger named Gwenn posted on puertoricodaytrips.com, Quote: “The island seems designed to fight back against human intrusion” end quote.
To get there you take a 3- or 4-hour boat ride across the Mona Passage. What is the Mona Passage? It is an 80-mile-long strait between DR and PR. It also connects the Atlantic and Caribbean and is an important maritime shipping route. It does have a reputation for being dangerous! Windy, stormy. So, take that into account if you get seasick or anxious traveling.
Your best bet – especially if you’re a tourist and don’t have access to a boat - is to hire a tour operator who can handle everything from a-z. There are a few online if you wanna check them out. We personally have not been to Mona so I can’t recommend anyone intelligently.
Exploration
Once you get there, there’s a lot to do on this tiny island. There are pristine beaches where you can swim in the clear, turquoise waters, lay out, watch the sunset. You can snorkel or scuba dive – there’s lots of coral reefs and fishies to see. There are hiking trails, camping areas, 200 caves, shipwreck sites, and a lighthouse built in 1900 by the US Government. You can also hunt non-indigenous pigs and goats (allowed for population control). You can fish, birdwatch or stargaze.
Something else you can do is explore tangible evidence of Taino history and culture. They’ve found artifacts, bottles, ceramics and other relics. They’ve found skeletons, graves and ruins of old Taino villages! There are petroglyphs and pictographs on cave walls. This stuff is fascinating. Some of the markings were actually Christian symbols and writing, suggesting that the Spaniards were there and interacted with the Tainos. For example, next to the Taino pictures, they found pictures of the cross plus biblical words and phrases in Spanish and Latin. A couple of those were “Dios te perdone” meaning “may God forgive you,” “verbum caro factum est,” Latin for “and the Word was made flesh” (referring, of course, to Jesus being born), and “Plura fecit deus,” meaning “God made more” or “God made many things.” They’ve done carbon dating and determined these writings were done in the mid 1500’s. They also found signatures, which of course weren’t going to be the natives’, because they didn’t write like that. One of them was of a dude named Francisco Alegre, a Spanish royal official who lived around that time and for a while was in charge of Mona Island.
This has caused a lot of discussion about how the Europeans and Natives interacted. The markings were made deep in the darkest parts of the caves, not by the entrances, so the Tainos would have had to literally walk with the Spaniards to guide them. The caves themselves weren’t even easy to find. The markings the Europeans made were next to the Tainos, not overlapping, and the Tainos marking weren’t crossed out or scratched off or defaced or anything like that. So maybe the Europeans and Taínos, who were a friendly tribe, actually got along and coexisted. Maybe – and these are the scientists theorizing – maybe the colonizers didn’t arrive on the island wielding swords, ready to kill every native they saw. Not saying there wasn’t a fight at all, of course there was. But maybe it didn’t happen the way we’ve been taught. Then again, on the other hand, Spain and the church were on a mission to convert everybody to Catholicism by force. In fact, back in the mother country they had discussions about whether or not the natives - in all the Americas, not just Tainos - had “rational souls” meaning the capacity to think and reason. It’s plausible that some of the markings were made by Tainos who had converted to Christianity. It’s just something to think about. It could be that the explorers, actually face to face with the native people, and having to depend on them because this land was completely unknown, had a kind of dialogue and relationship.
SOURCES:
AWESOME YOUTUBE VIDEO BY DISCOVER PUERTO RICO: https://youtu.be/btUE4Kxatwc
GORGEOUS INFORMATIVE SHORT FILM: Shttps://youtu.be/tnPBMs1jElo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_of_Puerto_Rico
https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/article/exploring-mona-island
https://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/mona.shtml#:~:text=Although%20located%20closer%20to%20the,Bartolom%C3%A9%20by%20Columbus's%20son%20Diego.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/87589/mona-island#:~:text=The%20island%20is%20a%20natural,as%20a%20National%20Natural%20Landmark.
https://www.puertoricodaytrips.com/mona-island-101/
https://www.islandconservation.org/mona-island-puerto-rico/#:~:text=Mona%20Island%2C%20a%205%2C000%20hectare,of%20Natural%20and%20Environmental%20Resources.
https://www.archaeology.org/issues/240-1701/features/5118-puerto-rico-cave-inscriptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Cofres%C3%AD
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cave-graffiti-shows-natives-and-europeans-had-early-dialogue-caribbean-180959857/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mona-chronicle-the-archaeology-of-early-religious-encounter-in-the-new-world/129AA73164AE95F31595C7BC3F51241A
https://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=1143