Puerto Rico Part 2 (Condado, Old San Juan)

Hey, into my forth day (forth night really) here in Puerto Rico. Time is really flying by pretty quickly. The weather here is hot and wonderful. Scorching hot. A welcome change from the snow and ice. Onto the events over the past 2 days.

Saturday, 22 December 2007
Shot out of bed in the morning to go rush to return the car to Avis and barely made it on time to avoid the penalty. We went to grab brunch at a nearby Puerto Rican 24 hour diner. Rice and beans (a Puerto Rican staple) and some roast chicken, as well as excellent thick Puerto Rican coffee. We waited for a super long time (almost an hour) for the bus into Old San Juan.

View from the window of our hotel room

Finally made it in and went to visit one of the greatest pieces or architecture in the Carribean, the Castillo San Felipe del Morro. It was built hundreds of years ago strategically by the Spanish as a fortress to protect their intests in the Carribean. Ingenuious architecture and a wonderful view. Truly worthy of it's title as a World Heritage Site designated by the UN. Took a ton of photos of the fort and the surrounding area. Completely wowed.

Castillo San Filipe del Morro

Just look at that fort...

Path to the grand fort

View of Old San Juan from the canon placement

We took a walk around Old San Juan, passing by the "White House" Museum, the Church of San Juan (closed for renovation/restoration since 2005, the second oldest religous structure in the New World), numerous plazas and the old town. Love the feel of the town and it's architecture. We also visited this plaza, Parque Las Palomas, which was an old canon emplacement, turned into a park where hundreds of pigeons now reside. Took some awesome photos of the sunset and also kids having fun feeding the pigeons. Absolute classics.

Old San Juan

San Jose Church: Second oldest religious structure in the New World

Parque Las Palomas

Dad and daughter feeding the pigeons

Picture-perfect

A nice poem I chanced across

Dinner was at a small restaurant down the road, over-priced and kinda crappy. Rice with seafood and some lousy red wine. Not exactly a very memorable meal. We headed back to our hotel after dinner.

Dinner at a small restaurant

The Governor's house

Jianwei and I got changed and headed back into Old San Juan again, deciding to check out the party / nightlife in the city. The place was definitely transformed into another creature at night, with throngs of trendily dressed Puerto Ricans all ready to party the night away. Feeling a little underdressed, we settled into a small pub tended by a old amiable guy and a friendly girl who gave us directions to a club (which we didn't enter) earlier in the night. Bacardi Green Apple with Raspberry tastes pretty good. Headed back to the hotel and grabbed another drink (since it was still kind of early) at the beach bar, yet again. Had a green apple martini, which was decidedly better than the mojito I had the night before.

Sunday, 23 December 2007
Slept in pretty late today, waking up around 10am. We went into Old San Juan for good old (cheap) MacDonalds breakfast. After breakfast, we headed back to the San Juan Cathedral, checking out the amazing stained glass and set up in the Cathedral. Arrived there just before the morning mass ended so it was a good time to visit. We actually passed by the Cathedral on Saturday but didn't realize it was the one because there were a couple of weddings going on (I even took pictures of that without knowing the place was San Juan Cathedral).

The Altar

Entrance with Stained Glass

Walking past a nice Puerto Rican pastry shop / cafe, I decided to go in and grab some pastry. It was pretty cheap, a dollar a piece. Didn't realize until I saw the newspaper clippings on the wall that this was the famous La Bombonera, which had been around since 1907! Nice pastries, pity we didn't stay there to have their reputedly best coffee in the world.

Pastries at La Bombonera

In early afternoon, we visited the other fortress, which was built for land defense to complement the del Morro, Fort San Cristobal. This was in fact, a bigger fort compared to the del Morro but was significantly less crowded. Amazing architecture and engineering ingenuinty, from the defensive structural designs, to the utility functions (ventilation ducts, underground cisterns which held more than 700 thousand gallons of rain water, underground tunnel networks).

Fort San Cristobal
Elaborate tunnel networks

Inscriptions on the walls in a jail call by mutinous Spanish Captain, who was later excecuted in del Morro
On the top-wall of Fort San Cristobal

Fine architecture within the Fort

With the heat getting to us, we headed into the heart of Old San Juan once again, taking a much-needed break in Starbucks. Ice latte from Starbucks on a hot day just rocks totally!

Ice cold cafe latte

Continuing on our exploration, we went to San Juan Gate, which was a symbolic entrance to the city in the 18th and 19th century. Note that almost the entire Old San Juan is walled up / fortified with high, thick walls. It was a beautiful stroll along the shore, along the base of the walls of del Morro. As we were there in late afternoon, we managed to catch the sunset when we reached the end ofthe path. It was stunning. I probably took almost 100 photos on that walk. Jianwei went to Hard Rock Cafe to grab his shirt before we headed off for dinner.

San Juan Gate

Walls surrounding Old San Juan

San Juan Gate and the City Walls

From the base of the walls of Castillo San Felipe del Morro

Sentry post looking out into the sea

Series of sunset photos





Night view of San Juan Gate and the city

Trusting the travel guide, we decided to go off elsewhere to Piñones. We realized something was amiss when we got on and he quoted us 25 bucks for the ride to Piñones, but we went along with it. Ended up in a pretty local dining area, Reef Bar and Grill, located by the sea. The place was filled with locals and a pretty shady crowd. Ate our dinner and left soon after. Misadventure I would say. Will probably put more thought into planning such stuff on the fly going forward.

Reef Bar and Grill

After dinner at Reef Bar and Grill


Jianwei and I went to try to grab groceries after we got back but the shop was already closed, so we strolled around and wound up our trip (once again) at the beach bar, having a light drink. I must say, Puerto Rico's local beer, Medalla is really good.

Phew, that was a pretty long blog. Will probably go into less detail going forward. Some trivia for those who are interested, this is the 200th post on this blog.

For my friends/family who are in Singapore / Asia, here's wishing you guys an early Merry Christmas. Best wishes for the festive season. To the people who are important to me, and I hope you know who you are, I extend to you my very best wishes...