We were already docked in San Juan when I woke up the final morning of our cruise. There was a nice sunrise to enjoy:
The end of a cruise is always a bit of a melancholy thing; the ship becomes your home, and you get used to all the routines associated with cruises: the activities, visits to parts of the ship you like, the ocean, the buffets, the meals. It's never fun to leave, but you do and you move on with life. We were among the last of the passengers to leave the ship since we didn't have a plane to catch, so the disembarkation process was a bit slow for us. Once we got out of the terminal, however, it was a quick drive to our hotel. I liked the hotel; it was of pretty high quality, was in a decent location, had its own beach, and they gave us a pretty decent room. Here's the view from our balcony:
After putting our stuff down, we caught a taxi and went over to Fort San Cristobal, one of Puerto Rico's two famous forts in San Juan. It was here that we first saw one of the symbols of Puerto Rico (they're on license plates and other official things), the watchtowers on the forts:
As you'll soon see, it became my quest to get photos of these towers in different places and with different backgrounds, as they're all over the forts and are pretty cool.
We walked in and around the fort for a while, stopping to look at old cannons, drawings of ships that soldiers had made on the wall, or whatever history and memorabilia we could find.
The weather was perfect that day. It was partially cloudy, around 80 degrees, and breezy. I wish we could have had that kind of weather the entire trip.
The view from a notch in the wall where a cannon would once have been placed:
More watchtowers:
We waited a long time for a free trolley to the more famous of the forts, San Felipe del Morro, but that ended up not working out. The weather was pleasant enough and the walk wasn't terribly long, but I was still limping pretty badly from my fall the day before.
The area around Ft. San Felipe is a large, open, grassy space that's open to the public. The popular thing to do there appeared to be flying kites. We stopped at the edge of the grass for a hot dog. We got them with "everything", which in PR apparently means nacho cheese, shoestring potatoes, kraut, mustard and maybe onions, in I remember correctly. Sounds a bit weird, but it was actually pretty good.
We walked around the area for a while, stopping to take photos of the most crowded cemetery I've ever seen and just to enjoy the scenery.
The fort itself was a bit more restored than Ft. San Cristobal had been, but I don't really care about that sort of thing and was more concerned with nice views and watchtowers and the like.
Here's the view from that watchtower:
While it might be boring from time to time, I could definitely live with a job that requires me to stare at such a view all day long. Awesome.
Inside the fort:
More watchtowers:
We wandered around the fort for a while, even trying to climb to the top of the lighthouse on top, but it was closed.
Toward the end of the visit, I decided it was time for surveillance photos again. I started with Becca, who was thrilled.
We came across some skateboarders doing tricks in what looked like a town square:
We also found a fountain with lots of kids playing in it:
After that, it was time to find a taxi and head back to the hotel. My leg hurt pretty bad and we were both pretty beat. It took us forever to find a taxi, so we were fairly hot, tired and irritable by the time we got back to the hotel. Perfect setup for some time at the beach.
It was nice that the hotel was right on the beach, as we only had to walk a few minutes to get from our room to the shore. We took the underwater camera with us, which turned out to be a good idea as there were fish in the water, and the camera made it possible to get some cool photos of the shore from the water.
It was windy and thus a tad cold, but it was nice to hang out for a while and enjoy the water and views of wind-whipped palm trees everywhere. When I had originally conceived of this vacation, that was what it looked like in my mind. It's too bad that we didn't get to enjoy the beach until the very end of our vacation, but hey, I'll take it.
After Becca got cold, we decided to move to the hotel pool and then the spa. Again, it was great to just spend time hanging out and doing nothing.
We cleaned up and researched options for ordering a pizza, since we were feeling lazy. Ultimately, however, we decided to just walk outside the hotel and find a place to eat. We ultimately settled on a brightly colored restaurant just outside the hotel that looked like it primarily catered to tourists. We were surprised to find, however, that the food there was REALLY good. We shared mahi mahi fish tacos and a sandwich they called the "Latin tripleta threat", which consisted of chicken, ham, beef, melted cheese and shoestring potatoes (they were possibly plantains, but I'm not sure). The sandwich was served with this incredible (and incredibly spicy) hot sauce. We also shared some beans and rice. I really enjoyed that meal, and came away feeling really happy that we hadn't ordered a pizza.
We flew home the following morning, and thus ended our Caribbean vacation. I'd give Puerto Rico a B, and I think I'd go back again. The food was good, it was easy to get around, and it seems like there would be good beaches in various places around the island. The people weren't particularly friendly or anything, but that's OK.
All told, we visited six islands in four different countries. We ate new foods, experienced different cultures, spent time in full-on rainforests for the first time, and had an all-around good time, injuries aside. That said, I don't think I would do this vacation again, only because I wanted to relax on a beach for a good portion of the trip, and that never happened. I guess the important lesson here is that if you want a vacation on the beach, don't go on a cruise, because getting to a nice beach from the ship won't be easy. If you're OK just lounging on the ship and going to the pool, however, the cruise will be a nice way to see many different places in a short space of time, all while getting time in sun and warm weather.
The next time we need a vacation to get out of the winter cold, I think we'll be going to a resort and staying in one place. That's the only way to really get the beach experience.
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