Hot again, but not as bad as Grand Turk. We weren't scheduled to dock until 1:00PM this day so we got up at 6:30 and took our time going to the Rembrandt for a good breakfast. Mike had oatmeal and I had a yummy Southwest style omelet. It was going to be another beautiful day, not a rain cloud in the sky.
Unlike at Grand Turk where everybody crowded around the gangplank trying to get off the ship right away after docking, in San Juan we had to wait until U.S. Customs cleared the ship for disembarking. It was interesting watching that enourmous ship move itself into position at the dock without the help of any pilot boats. Regardless of the size of the cruise ships, they all manage to move themselves into and out of the docks by themselves. But before we knew it, we were off and ready for an interesting day in Old San Juan. Hauling Mike's netbook and too much other stuff we headed for a free trolley to get us to the El Morro fort to try to save a little time. Yeah right, 100 other people had the same idea. We did get on one of the trolleys but was informed that it was broken and could only take us part way to El Morro. We ended up at the Castillo San Cristobal, a second fort in Old San Juan. After making the obligatory trip to the gift shop and buying a t-shirt, we spent some time looking around this old fort and then made our way towards our initial goal, El Morro.
We walked through the old town streets and came across a little open market where I later wished I had bought a few trinkets. Some of the areas between Castillo San Cristobal and El Morro are pretty 'shady' and we were warned on ship that we shouldn't be in those areas at night. Luckily we had no intention in being around there at night but it was interesting during the day time. We finally got to El Morro where we took a bunch of pictures and visited as much of the fort as we could before we needed to get going to see the rest of Old San Juan.
While we were walking to the center of Old San Juan from El Morro, we had a frozen icy pineapple drink of some kind. Very refreshing. Old San Juan is very walkable but it is also quite hilly so in the heat of the day it can take longer than you expect to walk just a half dozen blocks in any direction.
On to shopping. We went to another Pirana Joe's store and Mike bought another shirt. We bought a bunch of cheap touristo stuff which will become keepsakes for sure. We finally found a real grocery store and bought some potato chips and plantain chips and Puertican coffee and other odds and ends to take back to the ship. I had read that Puertican coffee was really good so I was anxious to get it back home where I could try it for myself. We stopped by a bakery where Mike had a local powdered sugar topped something or other. I had a cup of local coffee and indeed it was pretty good. Mike said his treat was good too.
After we wore out our feet seeing all the stores in the heart of Old San Juan, we headed back toward the pier. It was dark but probably only 7:30 or so. We had a lot of time before we had to get back to the ship so we stopped by the Don Q rum distillery. To our amazement they have a bar where they give out free concoctions made from their rums. Just tell them what you want, mojito, mai tai, margarita, etc. and they'll make a 1/2 glass for you for free. Just what we needed at that point. But we couldn't make up our minds what we wanted so we asked the person to make us something with all their rums in it. He happily obliged, picking up 4 bottles of rum and pouring all 4 into each of our glasses. He then added a small amount of mixer and topped it off with a bit of Coke. Don't know what you'd call it but it was the best rum drink we'd had on the trip so far. Before we left there, Mike bought a bottle of 12 year old rum to take back home. The sipping kind, not the mixing kind.
While we were at Don Q, we ran into the Tour Director from the ship. She recommended that we go to a hole in the wall place down the street for dinner. Supposedly her favorite. I had some crazy burrito with beans. Mike had a Mofungo (roasted plantain bowl with rice and beans). Both were very good.
After dinner we were basically tired from a long day and headed back to the ship. Along the waterfront there were a couple different vendors that each had about 10 very colorful parrots. They would put the parrots on people's arms and heads and then take their pictures. They were busy but I kind of wish we had waited and joined in on the fun.
There were several ships docked in Old San Juan so we made our way back to our cabin and sat on the balcony watching the night away until we pulled out of port. We were tired and went right to sleep after having a very long day onshore.
Please click on this link to see a slide show of some of the pictures we took today
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