The overgrown coffee fields and quaint historical buildings of Hacienda Buena Vista make this one of Puerto Rico's best-preserved 19th-century coffee plantations. Wandering the grounds while listening to the screech of the coquí frogs makes a tranquil, historically themed half-day trip. Now, as in its heyday, the ingenuity of the irrigation and growing techniques is impressive – water is captured in a diverted waterway from the nearby Río Canas that still slowly powers the enormous water wheel and industrial-era kitchen.
Call ahead to make a reservation. There are several tours daily, including one in English, and a small gift shop where you can purchase locally grown beans, or slurp a Puerto Rican coffee. The hacienda does not produce sufficient quantities to sell its own beans.
Hacienda Buena Vista is 14km north of the city center off Rte 123. It's marked by brown signs very near Ponce city center but by almost no signs further out. The winding route through the countryside takes 45 minutes to drive. You will likely need to stop and ask for directions.
The tour offers an insight into life on a traditional coffee plantation, but there are relatively few coffee plants growing here now; for an overview of the realities of cultivating coffee today, you should head to a plantation further up in the Central Mountains.
