Wednesday September 22-San Juan, Puerto Rico

Got up this morning planning to bring the blog up to date but found no connectivity with internet. I am beginning to see that this is a pattern. They advertise that they have wireless but the server fails on a regular basis or the router needs to be reset and there is no one there who can do it. (“What happens will happen, when it happens and if it happens”)

We took off on the A5 bus to Old San Juan for a day of exploration. In spite of Puerto Rico being an American Territory, the Puerto Ricans are not quite as easy to communicate with as are other Latinos. Sort of like Vermonters, they tend to answer complicated questions with one word answers or they answer a simple question with a long and very fast answer. I do not feel they are as tolerant of my attempts to use Spanish. We had a hard time trying to understand exactly where to catch the bus and how to get to downtown. In reality, from where we were staying it turned out to be very simple. One warning: the required 75¢fare must be in coins-no dollar bills.

We arrived at the main Old San Juan terminal and discovered, to our delight, that they have a free, hop-on, hop-off trolley that runs by all the major attractions. Old San Juan is another of those old colonial cities with beautiful old buildings set in an idyllic setting along the Caribbean Sea. At least part of it is a walled city and there are two primary and several secondary forts and/or “castles.” There are several Plazas, the main plaza with a beautiful Cathedral, a convent and various museums. We also walked through several smaller but no less beautiful plazas around the city. Most have statues of various heroes of the country and many have fountains. We spent a great deal of time in the two major fortresses, Morrow on the west and San Cristobal on the east. They are fascinating places with tunnels and small rooms and large cavernous rooms, all protected by stone walls 150 feet thick. The view from the top of the walls is breathtaking. On the south side of San Juan is the protected harbor, which is currently used for cruise ships, and a ferry across the bay to the Bacardi Rum factory.

Although we used the trolley to get around the old city, it required a fair amount of walking to see the forts. San Juan is like many of the cities, cool and breezy in the morning and late afternoon but very hot and humid from about noon to 3:30 or 4pm. We tried to schedule our visits to indoor museums as well as lunch during that time. We ate a pork, onion and mashed green plaintain dish, served in a tall, round wooden goblet- shaped bowl with lots of butter that was delicious, at a cute little place where the waitresses were dressed in sparkling white linen dresses and turbans. What ethnicity does that represent? We’ve seen variations of this dish several other times in other places.

When we finally headed back to the hotel-the trip was fairly simple but with twice as many stops as coming in. Ate supper of lamb shanks with rice/or beans at a surprisingly wonderful deli type of restaurant, ”La Espana.” Very good!

When we got back to the hotel, we found the internet was still down. Since we needed to plan the rest of our Puerto Rico trip, this was a major issue. However, with the assistance of the manager, other guests and our Lonely Planet guide we came up with a plan for a visit to Vieques, an island off the east end of Puerto Rico. You may of heard of it: the Puerto Ricans protested so much that that the US Navy had to stop using it’s eastern end for a gunnery range.

Although there is an active metropolitan bus system for San Juan, there is no countrywide bus system for the rest of the territory. Taxis have taken advantage of this and are very expensive ($80 for two people for a 45 min drive to the Vieques ferry). There are also Publicos, which are 15 person vans operated privately as busses, but it is difficult to get information on how to find them. This makes travel in Puerto Rico, very difficult for tourists. In addition, my opinion is that although Puerto Ricans are not rude or unpleasant to tourists, they are not as welcoming or willing to spend time figuring out what we are trying to ask for.