Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Puerto Rico, part 2

 We LOVE LOVE Puerto Rico.  Our hotel was amazing, with the ocean out our door, basically.  Hammocks, swimming pools, and a beach, and some pretty retro decorating.  Our ship got into San Juan early in the morning, so we had time to drop our bags off at the hotel, and explore.  Aspen and I wandered around the hotel, and relaxed by the ocean and went swimming while Hayden took a nap. 
At the top of the waterslide @ the hotel
 The ONE thing I really wanted to do while we had time was to go into Old San Juan.  We took the city bus for 75¢ and it dropped us off right on the corner of our destination.  What an amazing place.  I probably walked around with my jaw on the ground for the first 15 minutes.  It felt like we were walking on a movie set.  Everything seemed too beautiful, too unique to be part of an actual city.  The colors of buildings were amazing, the doors of the buildings were amazing, the cobblestone streets were cool, and the shops were very unique. 
Waiting for the bus
Aspen and her "glass slipper" chair
 We walked around a bit, in awe, then hunger got the best of us.  We found a nice little place and had some great food.  Aspen loved sitting on her "glass slipper" chair.  There is so much cool stuff to say about this town, I don't even know how to say it all.  The fort walls were huge and amazing.  The old cemetery was picturesque (if that is possible for a cemetery).  The weather was perfect.  The people were fun to watch and very friendly.  There was an amazing hotel that used to be an old convent for nuns.  Cats roamed the street all over town, and it appeared that people would just leave food around and collectively feed them all.  On Sunday's (the day we happened to be there) there is a whole section of town down by the water that has merchants out selling their goods... from food to jewelry to treats.  We had a frozen coconut ice freeze (like ice cream).  Delicious. 
 At the fountain in Old San Juan, people would feed the birds, and this was HEAVEN for Aspen.  She feels lucky when she has one or two birds to chase... but 50???  And... 50 birds that kept coming back after she ran after them.  When it was time to move on she said "Mom, just 4 more minutes".  Yeah... we stayed.  I'm a sucker for a little girl having fun.
 The church was closed on the day we were there, but I managed (in my very bad broken Spanish) to tell the guy we were leaving the next day and wouldn't be able to come back, so he let us in for a peak. 
 One of the highlights of the day was coming up over the ridge to see the fort and noticing something dotting the sky.  As we came over the top of the hill, there were people EVERYWHERE flying kites, having lunch, playing soccer and such with their families and friends.  It was like a scene from the movie Kite Runner.  What a perfect backdrop for it too.

We would love love to come back this island.  We missed going to the rain forest and Phosphorescent Bay.  We would love to make it to some other beaches.  I would love to make it back to Old San Juan.  What a perfect ending to a great trip!
Cemetery @ the old fort
Aspen looking into one of the old holding cells

1 comment:

going gordon said...

Wow! Your photos make me want to go SO bad! Very fun!

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