Our Trip to Puerto Rico - We Go Places and Do Things

I’ve never understood the reluctance of people to identify as tourists, especially when they are, by any objective measure, tourists. I like exploring the little off the beaten track nooks and crannies of the cities we visit and I’m happy to do the things the locals do and discover the small things that make a place interesting that aren’t well known, far away from the madding crowds – especially when it comes to restaurants and other food-related things – but at the end of the day I am what I am and I’m also going to do some of the tourist things because they’re usually fun. That’s how they become tourist things in the first place.

So we spent some time exploring a bit, both in Old San Juan and further afield.

One of the first things we did was go visit the local fort, which was perhaps a ten minute walk from where we were staying. In addition to getting us out into the sunshine and visiting a World Heritage Site, it also meant leaving the apartment vacant so it could be cleaned without us hovering over the person tasked with that mission. Win all around.

El Castillo San Felipe del Morro sits on the headland guarding San Juan’s harbor and as such was a priority for the Spanish when they first colonized the area. The oldest part dates to 1539, and they continued to add to it until 1790. It’s an impressive pile of stone, with outer walls that are about ten feet (three meters) thick in places, and you can see how this would be a rather intimidating sight for an invader. That is the goal of forts, after all.

The fort was a pretty easy walk from where we were staying. You go through the Plaza de San Jose, past the guy selling water ice, down the steps to another plaza (because everything is on a hill of some kind), and along a road that winds alongside the sea for a few minutes until you get to a vast grassy field.

The thing I loved most about the field is that it is a place where people just hang out. It’s part of the neighborhood as well as part of the historical site and on a breezy day like the one we had it’s full of people picnicking and flying kites and you have to love the fact that this place that the tourists go to see because of its historical significance is just another place to hang out for the people who actually live there. I’m glad it’s part of a living community that way.

You walk up the long path toward the main entry, pay your admission (which also gets you into the Castillo San Cristobal, which we will have to go back to see sometime) and in you go. There are a lot of levels that you can climb up or down to see – if you go up you can look out over the harbor, and if you go down you can, eventually, find your way to the sea, and if you stay where you are there’s a gift shop and a chapel as well as a few other miscellaneous spaces that are all neatly labeled and accessible. It took me a while to figure out how to get down to the sea – you can’t get there directly from the fort, but rather you have to go into the grassy moat and down a small set of stairs and then along a rambling path full of tourists like yourself only with about 10% of them carrying the small yappy dogs that appeared to be standard equipment in that place and time. The dogs seemed to be enjoying themselves too.

Occasionally you will find a resident of a different variety hanging out in the fort. They do not care to associate with the visitors, but neither do they cede the field.

My favorite parts of the fort were the little guard pods that line the outside walls. They’re iconic enough that Puerto Rico put them on their most recent quarter design, and you can just walk right up to them and stand inside for as long as you want. They’re actually all over the city walls, not just at the fort, and every time you see one they’re just as fascinating as they were the first time. At least they were to me.

There’s an old cemetery just off to the side, but when Lauren and Sara tried to go visit (they were ahead of me and Kim, being younger and faster) it was already closed for the day. It was pretty impressive, though.

The next day we decided to venture a bit further afield and go to the beach.

The main draw as far as Kim and Lauren were concerned was the chance to go snorkeling with the sea turtles, which is like swimming with the fishes except less threatening. When we got there we found an SUV parked in the lot by the little enclosed area of water and the guys there got everyone who signed up for this trip kitted out and ready to go.

They had a lovely time. There were in fact many sea turtles swimming by – all of them quite used to people so they weren’t skittish. None of the sea life was, which meant that Kim and Lauren also got to hang out with the sea urchins, which they report feel rather like wooly bear caterpillars. At one point Kim noticed a very long fish swimming by and asked the tour leaders what that was. “That’s Lois,” one of them told her. “She’s a barracuda.” So, yeah, they’re pretty much used to people.

Sara and I sat under some nearby trees and had a lovely conversation while all this was going on, though eventually we decided to gather up our bags and walk the quarter mile or so over what appeared to be a bridge of some kind (though entirely over land) to the actual beach on the other side of where we were.

It was a gorgeous little beach, with plenty of coconut trees for shade – it surprised me how many coconuts each tree actually had on them, since for some reason I always thought there were just one or two per tree – and a thumping soundtrack coming from the folks in front of us. Behind us was a large crowd of people playing dominoes and passing around a small tiara to whomever won a hand. There were also vast numbers of absolutely fearless pigeons who would careen at top speed and eyebrow-level through the assembled people, though I never did see them hit anyone. The guy with the paddle in the first picture is actually wearing a Phillies hat, which as a native Philadelphian pleased me inordinately much.

Kim and Lauren caught up to us not long after we got there, and we hung out for a while. Kim, Lauren and Sara enjoyed going into the water, which was apparently pretty warm. One flaw in this plan is that we hadn’t thought to pack any food, thinking that there would be a place to purchase some (don’t all beaches in cities have such places?). This turned out not to be true, but fortunately a guy came by selling small cakes that were enough to tide us over for a while, particularly when combined with ice cream from a different guy pulling a little cart.

We figured we’d hit the hot dog stand by the snorkeling area on the way out, but that turned out not to be a food place either, so once we got back to the apartment and dropped off our stuff we headed back out immediately and found lunch because no matter how gorgeous the scenery is you still have to eat.

We split up again the next day, but only because the rules said we had to.

One of the places that Kim wanted to see while we were down there was Casa Bacardí, the distillery where they make the Puerto Rico’s most famous rum. Unfortunately the drinking age in Puerto Rico is 18 and Sara was a few months short of that and they absolutely will not let anyone in unless they’re of age. Not even with a bracelet that says “Do Not Serve,” which struck me as a bit harsh. I’m not much for rum, to be honest, so Kim and Lauren went while Sara and I visited the Plaza Las Americas, the largest mall in the Caribbean.

It was a very, very large mall. Really, surprisingly large, with no directories of any sort that we ever found so you just kind of wander aimlessly from place to place, never quite knowing where you are or how to get out or even what time it is so it does start to feel like a casino after a while. All of the Christmas shows were still running so every so often we’d stumble into an open area where a feverishly cheerful performer would be trying to entertain a large crowd of children in a space that had the echoing acoustics of a train station. The kids seemed enraptured, though.

We eventually found a place to have lunch, and after some further wandering we came to a store that sold nothing but chocolates, which was kind of fun to see. I have no idea how such a store could make enough to justify the rent on the space, but perhaps people buy more chocolate in San Juan than I think they do.

Meanwhile Kim and Lauren were touring Casa Bacardí.

From all accounts they had a lovely time, and even got to sample some of the exceedingly old rum that they only serve to people who visit the distillery.

When they left they walked for an hour or so to get to the ferry that took them back to our neighborhood. They said that it was an interesting walk that involved more than a few chickens and you just have to love that sort of thing.

Meanwhile Sara and I returned from the mall and ended up wandering around Old San Juan for a bit looking for pastries, which we never did find though we did locate some chocolate gelato that was out of the rain. It was tasty and a good replacement for the pastries.

That night we decided to go to an escape room.

If you’ve never tried one of these, you’re missing out. You go into a small room or set of rooms where there are clues to a mystery of some kind, and you figure out the clues within a set period of time so you can unlock the door and get back out. Or you don’t and they come get you, one or the other. They’re a lot of fun.

We walked down to the place and on the way we found an entryway to something that had great neon signs.

I’m not sure what it means that the next sign over was this one:

Maybe we should be afraid of the drinks? Seems like mixed messaging here, though perhaps after the rum distillery I shouldn’t question it.

We found our escape room, waited for our appointment time, and eventually went in.

We had a good time, but we didn’t actually solve the mystery. In our defense a) the lighting was very low which meant that we were unable to tell the difference between the dark green banner and the dark blue banner – a difference that turned out to be important for getting from phase one of the mystery to phase two, and b) there was an important clue on top of something that very clearly said “Do Not Touch” so we figured we should ignore that something. Oh well. It was a fun way to spend time and we got to walk around Old San Juan for a bit as well so an evening well spent.

Our final excursion was perhaps our most ambitious, and the one that got us furthest afield. Not too far from San Juan is El Yunque National Forest, which is the only tropical rainforest in the United States and has been designated as preserved land since 1876 when the Spanish ruled the place. And since we’d already spent a fair amount of time in the city, it seemed appropriate to head out to see some nature.

We signed up for a tour group, and early one morning Isaac pulled up to Plaza de San Jose in a big white passenger van to pick us up. We gathered an older couple a few blocks away, and then drove out toward the forest, stopping at a resort not that far from the forest to pick up a younger couple as well. They were all from California, as I recall, though I never did get their names. They seemed nice enough.

It’s a pretty good ride from San Juan to El Yunque, and the first thing we did was stop at the observation tower to get a view of the place. It’s really very impressive.

We spent some time up at the top of the tower, where it was both windy and significantly cooler than it was at the bottom, and then we headed back down to see the place close up. The guy in the blue shirt is Isaac, for those of you keeping score at home.

Lauren’s Botany and Small Animal Biology classes came in handy during the trip and she spent a fair amount of time explaining things – the structures on the plants we were looking at, for example, and the symptoms and progression of rabies (a problem in Yunque due to the mongoose population there). Isaac was impressed.

 

 

From there Isaac took us to El Baño Grande, which is exactly what it sounds like: a large pool of water with a path you can walk around. It’s pretty.

Our next stop was Coco Falls. Kim and I stayed down at the bottom but Lauren and Sara climbed the rocky path to the side and got close to the actual falls.

You find a lot of flowers in the rainforest.

Our final stop in El Yunque was the Rio Mameyes at the bottom of the Angelito trail. Isaac somehow managed to park the van out of the flow of traffic on the road and we set off on a 20-minute hike down toward the river – down, down, down, past breadfruit trees and candlewood trees and bamboo, until you finally reach the water. There is a stretch there where the water is pretty calm and all the tour guides take their charges down to it so you can go swim in a rain forest. It’s a lovely spot.

We were also visited by a cat, who spent a fair amount of time just wandering around being admired as cats will. There really are cats just everywhere there.

I was the last one to head back up to the van and it was about two-thirds of the way to the top when the true meaning of “rainforest” became clear. It rains there, pretty much every day, at regular intervals. It does that in San Juan too, from my experience. And most of the time it’s just a shower that lasts a few minutes and then you move on. This was not that. It started to sprinkle as I climbed, and by the time I got to the two-thirds mark it was a deluge. Fortunately I had a plastic bag for my camera and the rest of me is not water soluble, but it was a very soggy me who emerged out of the trail – ironically so, given that I didn’t swim in the river. The weather gods are ironical beasts.

By this time we were all hungry, and Isaac took us to a wonderful little roadside stand – he clearly does this with everyone, as they not only knew him on sight but he also pitched in behind the counter – where we found empanadas and, according to Kim, the world’s best smoothies. We ate like kings and played with yet another cat out in the parking lot, and I bought a half gallon of lemonade and drank it all because it had been a thirsty sort of day.

It was quite possibly the best meal we had in Puerto Rico, though we did our best to test that while we were there. And that is another post entirely.