Cruise 2011 - Day 1 San Juan

After a good nights sleep we were up and at it fairly early. We went off down the street in search of Starbucks and Walgreen's, they are conveniently located next to each other. It was a beautiful hot muggy day, we sat outside of Starbucks and had our coffee waiting for Walgreen's to open. It never did so we decided to go back down the other end of the street to the one that was open... sheesh. On our way we decided to detour to the beach, there was a geocache that we wanted to get as well as walk on the beach. Of course we couldn't find the cache but we had a lovely time walking on the sand and paddling our feet in the warm water. We got our supplies then back to the hotel to drop them off.


Hopped in a taxi then off to Old San Juan. This is a very historic old town, some of the Forts date back to the 1500's. The forts were extremely important to protect the "New World" from the Pirates and other bad guys! It is absolutely gorgeous. There are two large Forts one at the Western end the other at the Eastern portion of Old San Juan. We roamed the narrow streets site seeing and geocaching. At noon we realized we hadn't had any breakfast and should eat. We had "Mango Tango's" for breakfast followed by a Mojito for lunch!(all at the same Tapas Bar) There was a little food in there someplace! Off to roam more of the Forts and to see the "Ferrel Cat's of San Juan" These are wild but friendly cats that hang around the streets and one particular park that we saw.





At the square across from the main large Fort there is a large water fountain that looks somewhat like a water park... well of course the kid in Mark came out and he wanted to play in the fountain. He stood in the middle of the fountain for about 10 minutes waiting for the water to turn on..... I sat inconspicuously on a bench almost pretending not to know him! It was rather entertaining when the water did turn on. Dave has it all on video and I do believe it will end up on "You Tube!" After Mark's shower we headed to the Eastern Fort for a look. The views are spectacular. By this time we were getting tired and of course thirsty. There was a terrible traffic jam with the cars not going very far and a lot of horns honking. We decided to walk a little way out of this part of town before getting a taxi to try and avoid the traffic. There were still a few geocaches we wanted to get as well. As we walked along the street there were vehicles from the local radio stations as well as satellite trucks from the TV stations, there was also lots of Police milling about. We wandered over to see what was going on and there was a demonstration from one of the local University's. The police were in full riot gear with tear gas and all. Time to get out of here guys! We got one more cache and hailed a cab to get back to our end of town.


Back to the hotel hungry and thirsty again, had a few drinks and appy's in the hotel restaurant. Went for a wander down the street to decide where dinner would be, we decided on a little Caribbean restaurant after a brief stop at the Marriott Casino. Back to the hotel for showers and an early night.


A few observations of San Juan so far, in no particular order.


Huge police presence, they do not appear to bother anyone but you feel very safe


Not many motor cycles or scooters, lots of very nice cars.


It reminds us very much of Santa Fe Argentina but on a higher end scale.


The people are extremely nice and helpful.


The weather is wonderful, we were talking to a couple of locals today and this is the cool season... It was 80 degrees today, that's just fine for us!


Tomorrow we are off to the Rain forest and then the beach to swim.