Deja Vu in San Juan, Puerto Rico

I have visited Puerto Rico at least a couple of times before, maybe 3, but it was years ago when we did several cruises that originated in San Juan. I won’t get out of the old port area this trip but on previous visits we rented a car and circumnavigated the island. There wasn’t too much damage to this area from Hurricane Fiona, but parts of the islands are still devastated and the infrastructure, which wasn’t the best to begin with, took a real hit.

Puerto Rico is actually not just one island, but rather it is an archipelago of one main island surround by smaller islands and cays. The majority of the population is rural, with the major city being San Juan. There are some beautiful beaches around the island, some of which are black sand and some pearly white and many of which are only visited by locals where family gatherings are frequent. Flamenco Beach on the island of Culebra is apparently one of the top ten in the world, according to The Guardian at least, for its white sands and turquoise waters.

Puerto Rico has an odd governance structure. It has been a territory of the United States since 1898 when the US invaded the islands during the Spanish American War. In 1917 Puerto Ricans received US citizenship for the first time, but they still can’t vote in the US Elections unless they’ve moved to one of the US States. Puerto Ricans can vote in the presidential primary elections and elect delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions, where their delegates can vote for their pledged delegate, but they don’t actually get to vote for the chosen presidential candidate in the presidential election. Nor can they vote for a representative to congress.

I’m staying for two nights in San Juan, the cultural, financial and tourism capital of the territory. It is on the north shore of the main island of Puerto Rico. Old San Juan is a charming area with Spanish colonial buildings dating from the 1500s, with cobble stone streets running up from the harbour to the cliffs where you’ll find Castillo San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro. Restaurants and shops abound. Many are just now coming back from the pandemic and happy to have visitors once again. They are experiencing the same challenges as we are finding staff for retail and restaurant jobs.

More specifically I’m staying in a charming boutique hotel called The Casablanca. When I was sitting in the lobby having breakfast this morning i was thinking I had returned to Morocco it is so dedicated to to the theme. I bet you can even guess the wifi password. It is kind of funky but it’s growing on me.

On the roof top deck there is a lounge area and there are several huge bathtubs and sun lounges. Taking some bubbly in an ice bucket and heading for the roof top to soak in the tub seems to be a popular thing. I don’t think I’ll be participating.

My late breakfast in the hotel restaurant this morning was fabulous. Maybe the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had, and I splurged and had bacon and toast as well. After all I needed fortification for my busy day.

I started off with a reconnoiter of some of the beautiful streets of Old San Juan with their colourfully painted buildings. I even encountered a park where children are encouraged to feed the pigeons called Parque de las Palomas. (Pigeons) The reasoning is that if they feed them there, that they’ll stay away from other areas. Seemed to be working as there was a swarm of day care aged kids in the park feeding them and no pigeons were to be found outside the park fences. It was hard to tell if the children were squealing from fear or delight. Maybe some of both.

Throughout the park were more than 20 little bronze shoe sculptures. They are placed strategically throughout the park where children might free themselves from them, and one set also included a parent sized pair. Guess that parent gave in to the feel of bare feet as well.

Parque de las Palomas has a fabulous view of the harbour and some of the remaining fortifications that once surrounded Old San Juan. If you’ve ever looked at promotional materials for Puerto Rico, you’ve no doubt seen pictures of the sentry posts of the two Castillos in Old San Juan. The forts are amazing structures built high overlooking the port of Old San Juan. What I didn’t realize until this trip is that the Castillos were just part of the largest fortification built in the Americas and which encircled the whole city. This impressive fort took more than 150 years to build and even the United States contributed to its structure during WWII.

I stopped for a nap around noon to get out of the sun and make up for some lost sleep from last night. Afterward, since I had visited Del Morro on a previous visit, I headed off to see Castillo San Cristobal. As I was walking up to the Castillo I felt like I was having deja vu. I realized just into the structure that I had visited a fort in St Augustine, Florida on my North American No Fixed Address Tour that was incredibly similar. Of course it was. The Spain explored and set up settlements in the same areas at near the same time. In fact from some of my reading, it seems there is some rivalry about who established a settlement first and who finished their fort first among the two locations. You’ll see three flags flying over the Castillo: the US Flag; the Puerto Rico Commonwealth flag and the Spanish Burgundy Cross.

It was only 4 pm but I’ve done over 12,000 steps today and I was getting hungry so I sought out an outdoor restaurant where I could enjoy the ambiance, work on this blog and fill my belly. I don’t usually chose fish but I decided since we were on an island and will be surrounded by the ocean for the next two weeks that I best get with the program. I had a couple of starters, fish tacos and chorizo croquettes which completely filled me up. On my way back to the hotel, I came across a Starbucks and so I grabbed a tea to try and help keep me awake to a reasonable hour tonight. I feel like I want to go to bed now! But I won’t.

Tomorrow will be Star Pride embarkation day, so fingers crossed all goes well. I won’t have great wifi for the next two weeks but will post when I can.

Fun facts:

⁃ One of the smaller islands is called Gilligan’s Island!

⁃ Puerto Rico uses a mixture of the metric and imperial systems of measurement. Distances are mostly measured in the metric system but speed gets measured in miles per hour. Gas gets measure in litters but other liquids like water get measured in gallons. (And I thought Canada was confusing on this front).

⁃ The largest distillery in the world is located in Cataño, Puerto Rico. Bacardí, the rum distiller originated in Cuba and established facilities in Puerto Rico in 1930. After the Cuban Revolution, Bacardí continued its operations in Cataño.

⁃ The elements of Puerto Rico’s flag: the triangle represent the government’s three branches (legislative, executive and judicial), the star represents the Commonwealth. The red strips represent blood nourishing the three branches, and the white stripes stand for liberty.

Below are some miscellaneous shots from today. Weather was perfect, BTW. Hate to rub it in but while Ottawa was getting – 27 I was in +27. Humid and sunny.