Bienvenidos a San Juan
Hola from Emily! Well, we have been in San Juan for two days now, and what a difference from El Yunque! First, the heat. It is HOT in San Juan. There’s a nice breeze from the Atlantic, but we are not in the mountains anymore and the sun beats down pretty hard. Second, there is plenty to do and we are very centrally located in Old San Juan. We are on the Plaza de Armas, which is the heart of the old city, so we can easily walk to everything we want to see. So far, we’re having a great time.
We got here Wednesday around lunchtime, dropped the car off at the airport, and took a taxi as close to our hotel as we could get – in a town of one way streets, he had to drop us off a block away. Our hotel is a Howard Johnson, but in an old building, which is cool. Our room doesn’t have a window, which is not so cool, but at least it’s nice and dark and quiet at night ☺ After we checked in, we took a self-guided walking tour around the city wall, saw a tiny museum dedicated to Doña Felisa Rincón de Gautier, the former mayor of San Juan and the first female mayor of a capital city in the western hemisphere, and checked out the Catedral de San Juan Bautista.
At 5:00, we met the bus to go kayaking in the bioluminescent bay in Fajardo. We were supposed to go on Tuesday and drive ourselves there, but because of San Juan Bautista night, the mayor of Fajardo prohibited all kayaking. We were the first people to get picked up, so it took us two hours to get to the bay. We had to kayak through a mangrove swamp in the dark and the rain, and we had to dodge other kayaking groups of people who had apparently never even seen a boat before, which resulted in us getting tipped out of our kayak. In the dark. When we finally got to the bay, it was really cool to see the glow-in-the-dark plankton – definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And then we had to kayak back in the dark, amongst the masses of kayaking novices. We were very happy to get back onto dry land, and even happier at 11:30 when we finally got back to our hotel and could take a shower. We agreed that we were happy to have had such a challenging experience together, but also that we don’t ever need to do it again.
Yesterday we spent the morning at El Morro, the giant fort guarding the entrance to San Juan Bay. It is similar in style to Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, except about 10 times bigger. It was very impressive, and we could see why, even though it was built in the 16th century, it took until the Spanish-American War in 1898 for it to fall. After El Morro, we had some yummy Mexican food for lunch, walked around the garden of the house built for Ponce de Leon (which he never actually lived in), and headed back to the hotel to nap during the heat of the day. We realized that this was a mistake when we left around 3:30 and discovered that most things close at 4:00. Today, we are going to save our nap for 5:00. We saw some small museums and came back to get ready for dinner. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant and then at 9:00 went to the Café Nuyorican to hear some live salsa. The show was supposed to start at 9:00, but this being Puerto Rico and these being musicians, they weren’t ready to go until 10:15ish. It was pretty crowded and loud, but no one was really dancing, so we just sat and listened and enjoyed until about 11:00, and then headed back. I love salsa, so I was really glad to have a chance to hear some live music. If the speakers hadn’t been turned up so loud, we definitely would have stayed longer… but I could feel myself going deaf, so we decided not to stick around.
Today we are going to the other fort, San Cristóbal, and seeing some more museums. Then tomorrow it’s back to the mainland. We have had a great time and are very glad we came to Puerto Rico. I think we’ll be glad to be back in our own house too. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you all soon!
We got here Wednesday around lunchtime, dropped the car off at the airport, and took a taxi as close to our hotel as we could get – in a town of one way streets, he had to drop us off a block away. Our hotel is a Howard Johnson, but in an old building, which is cool. Our room doesn’t have a window, which is not so cool, but at least it’s nice and dark and quiet at night ☺ After we checked in, we took a self-guided walking tour around the city wall, saw a tiny museum dedicated to Doña Felisa Rincón de Gautier, the former mayor of San Juan and the first female mayor of a capital city in the western hemisphere, and checked out the Catedral de San Juan Bautista.
At 5:00, we met the bus to go kayaking in the bioluminescent bay in Fajardo. We were supposed to go on Tuesday and drive ourselves there, but because of San Juan Bautista night, the mayor of Fajardo prohibited all kayaking. We were the first people to get picked up, so it took us two hours to get to the bay. We had to kayak through a mangrove swamp in the dark and the rain, and we had to dodge other kayaking groups of people who had apparently never even seen a boat before, which resulted in us getting tipped out of our kayak. In the dark. When we finally got to the bay, it was really cool to see the glow-in-the-dark plankton – definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And then we had to kayak back in the dark, amongst the masses of kayaking novices. We were very happy to get back onto dry land, and even happier at 11:30 when we finally got back to our hotel and could take a shower. We agreed that we were happy to have had such a challenging experience together, but also that we don’t ever need to do it again.
Yesterday we spent the morning at El Morro, the giant fort guarding the entrance to San Juan Bay. It is similar in style to Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, except about 10 times bigger. It was very impressive, and we could see why, even though it was built in the 16th century, it took until the Spanish-American War in 1898 for it to fall. After El Morro, we had some yummy Mexican food for lunch, walked around the garden of the house built for Ponce de Leon (which he never actually lived in), and headed back to the hotel to nap during the heat of the day. We realized that this was a mistake when we left around 3:30 and discovered that most things close at 4:00. Today, we are going to save our nap for 5:00. We saw some small museums and came back to get ready for dinner. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant and then at 9:00 went to the Café Nuyorican to hear some live salsa. The show was supposed to start at 9:00, but this being Puerto Rico and these being musicians, they weren’t ready to go until 10:15ish. It was pretty crowded and loud, but no one was really dancing, so we just sat and listened and enjoyed until about 11:00, and then headed back. I love salsa, so I was really glad to have a chance to hear some live music. If the speakers hadn’t been turned up so loud, we definitely would have stayed longer… but I could feel myself going deaf, so we decided not to stick around.
Today we are going to the other fort, San Cristóbal, and seeing some more museums. Then tomorrow it’s back to the mainland. We have had a great time and are very glad we came to Puerto Rico. I think we’ll be glad to be back in our own house too. Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you all soon!
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