What’s up everybody?
Well our year of cruising is not off to a very good start. At the time of me writing this I should have been sitting on a beach in St. Lucia sipping on a margarita or a mai tai. Thanks to our new friend Covid-19 our cruise was canceled the day before we were to disembark. You might have guessed it already but we had already flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico to get on the ship before we received word of the cancellation.
Needless to say, we were a little shocked when we first heard of the cancellation. One of the members of our group had receive a message from a friends saying that Royal Caribbean had cancelled all of their outgoing cruises. We hadn’t heard anything official from Royal ourselves so we didn’t want to make any rash decision until we were 100 percent sure of what was going on. After several phone calls to various people, we received our confirmation of the cancellation. Now we had to figure out what our next step would be. Stay and play in Puerto Rico? Do we fly somewhere else and spend the rest of our vacation there? A lot of things we had to consider. In the end we thought it best for us to head home.
Before all this madness happened there was one good thing to come out of this misadventure. Earlier in the day we did get a chance to explore a little bit of San Juan.
After a very loooooooong red eye flight we finally touched down in San Juan. The airport was a lot smaller than I had anticipated. Not sure why I thought it would be bigger. It make sense now that I think about it, a small island doesn’t really need a large airport. Anyway, after grabbing our bags we found a taxi to take us to our hotel for the night. Uber is also available on Puerto Rico. Depending on the size of your group and where you are going it can be significantly cheaper to use than a taxi.
We stayed at the Embassy Suites. The Embassy is a good sized hotel with at least 5 floors and a large gathering place near the lobby, where they serve breakfast in the morning and host happy hour in the evening. The hotel has other amenities as well: a pool, casino, a little shop and an Outback Steakhouse, where we partook of a well deserved meal that night. I’m going to say that it is relatively close to the beach. We never made it there so I can’t say exactly how close it was. From my understanding it is within walking distance, but it might be just far enough to make people choose to catch a ride. There are two Embassy suites on the island. The one that we stayed at happened to be about five minutes from the airport. Not too bad of a deal if you ask me.
After finally settling into our room we had a decision to make: whether we wanted to stay in the room and take a nap or to meet up with the rest of our group and see what San Juan had to offer. I don’t know about you but I can’t sleep on an airplane so was running on about 30 minutes of sleep. A nap was sounding really good at this point. Ultimately, we decide to catch up with our group and see the town. That way we would be able to fall asleep when the appropriate time came and we would be refreshed for the next day when we boarded the boat. It was a good decision especially after the fact.
San Juan is Puerto Rico’s capital and, no surprise, its largest city. San Juan is the third largest European built capital city found in the Americas. It was founded by Spanish colonist in 1512. It quickly became an important seaport for trade in the Caribbean and the Americas. It was especially important to the Spanish as their treasure ships, laden gold and silver, stopped here before making their long journey back to Spain. To protect their new found riches it became a military stronghold with heavy fortifications and warships.
Through the years many Nations tried to claim San Juan as their own but failed. Britain was able to take it once but could only hold it for 3 months before the Spanish took it back. It wasn’t until the wiry U.S. took control of the island after signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 bringing an end to the Spanish-American War. Signing of the treaty solidified Puerto Rico as a territory of the United States. The treaty also gave the ownership of Guam and the Philippines to the U.S.
A lot of the Spanish influence still remains in San Juan today. Not only in language and culture but in architecture too, this is especially true in Old San Juan. Old San Juan is located in the historical district and is the oldest settlement on the island. It has buildings that date all the way back to the 1500s.
We didn’t get a chance to spend a lot of time in Old San Juan. By the time we met up with the rest of our group they had walk through the majority of it. We did take a quick moment to look and some of the streets and alleyways before heading to the next stop. The buildings that we saw where awesome though. The old Spanish style building painted in every bright color of the rainbow. Its too bad that we didn’t get more time. I know there was more to be discovered. Hopefully the next time we go back we’ll have more time to explore.
We spent most of our time exploring Castillo San Felipe de Morro and Castillo San Cristobal. Two Spanish forts that once protected the seaport of San Juan. Both forts are recognized as National Historical Sites and since Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory they fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S National Park System. If you have a park pass, like us, you can use them here.
San Felipe was part of the initial phase of the citadel to be built starting in 1539. It was built to control entry and to defend San Juan Harbor. San Cristobal main building period started around 1766 and was completed by 1783. It was the largest fortification built by the Spanish in the New World. San Cristobal and its wall enclosed the city of San Juan and was built to repel land based invasions. Both of then served their purpose well, as I mentioned above, many nation attacked and all were unsuccessful. In between the two forts was one of the coolest cemeteries I have ever encountered. I’m not sure of it name. The tombs and above ground graves had some of the most ornate tombstones. Big statues and many other decoration. Really, really cool.
If I was a Spanish solider during the 16th or 17th century this would be an awesome place to be stationed. Even though you would be constantly under threat of enemy attack. You’re on an island in the Caribbean surrounded by beautiful blue water and amazing views of the island. You can’t really complain about that.
This wasn’t the vacation that we where planning on but sometimes you have to make the best out of a bad situation. We had a lot of fun exploring the history of Old San Juan. I would love to come back later on and explore more and see what else Puerto Rico has to offer.
As always thanks for stopping by. Until next time.
Josh
