Magic Dragon Blog

We went into San Juan about 930am, timing our arrival to avoid rush hour. The traffic wasn't that bad, and we found the parking lot in Old San Juan easily.

The walled city of Old San Juan was built by the Spanish over a few hundred year period during their golden age as a colonial power. A lot of the buildings date back to the 16th and 17th Century. The streets are mostly cobble stone, made of these cool looking blue glazed bricks. The whole area except for one short stretch is enclosed by a wall, constructed (and reconstructed) from brick and rock to protect it from attack from land or sea.

The main defense from the sea is the large fort at the point, called Del Morro. It was built in stages from the 1500's to the 1800's by the Spanish. It is truly remarkable, especially considering there was no heavy equipment available to build it; it was all done by hand. Also amazing to us is that the constant upkeep that is done to maintain it, otherwise it would be a big pile of rubble by now. It has been expertly maintained over the years by a small army of masons, and other construction workers that use materials and techniques not that much different than the original.

The oldest part of the fort was the original tower, built in the early 1500's. The new parts of the fort have been built around it, but it is still standing inside these walls, having survived 4 major attacks since it was built. The only visible damage of the original tower can be seen from inside and is a chunk of an American artillery shell that penetrated the very thick wall during the Spanish-American war.

After touring Del Morro, we walked through the huge grassy common area towards the city proper. There were probably 250 elementary school aged kids out on the green, most of them flying kites in the nice breeze; it was quite a sight. Of course, when kids fly kites, a lot of them get away and the trees and bushes down wind were littered with broken kites and string everywhere.

We walked through Old San Juan, had lunch, and then went over to the other fort, San Cristobol. It was built after the Dutch and then the English led attacks on the city from the land side. The Dutch were repelled, but the English managed to take control of the city, only to withdraw a few weeks later when the landing party all got dysentery and many died.

San Cristobol is larger than Del Morro, and was in better condition we both thought, probably because it's a little newer and doesn't get as much tourist traffic. The coolest part of this fort are the tunnels that connect the different parts of the fort. There is a dungeon off one of them where prisoners were kept; it lives up to its name, we wouldn't want to spend any time there. We walked around the open areas on the east side of the fort and saw more iguanas than anywhere else in the islands; they were everywhere. We walked back to the car, did a little shopping on the way, and went to our hotel, which was in the beach area of Condado just east of town.

The hotel was older, but nice and clean. We got a small room, not facing the beach for $65 a night; not bad. After getting settled in, we met Scott, Jen,(Safari Tu) and his parents at their nicer, more expensive hotel for drinks and a late supper. Scott's folks were really cool and we enjoyed meeting them and talking for awhile. We also got to say hi and bye to Anna and Matthew, Scott and Jens kids who came down to see us at dinner. After supper we said our good byes; they are heading back to USVI to pick back up their autopilot, then heading up through the Bahamas. We all insisted that we would visit somewhere sometime in the future. We hope so.