At the moment, Puerto Rico is a US territory (though they've recently voted to pursue becoming a state), which means that it's incredibly easy to travel there if you're from the US - English and Spanish are both official languages, they use the US dollar and no passport is required. The high season for tourism there runs from late November to around April, and during that time several cruise ships are based out of San Juan, with a number of additional ships stopping there each week. For a moderate sized island (the smallest of the islands in the Greater Antilles), there is quite a lot to do, but since we ladies only had 2 days or so, we decided to stay in Old San Juan.
Why choose Old San Juan instead of a beach resort? Primarily because it offers the most variety in the smallest area on the island. You can get to the beach easily (and cheaply, $0.50 each way by bus), but if you aren't in a beach sort of mood, you can go to a variety of historic monuments, or museums, or art galleries, or take some retail therapy in the shops which range from tourist traps to nice boutiques.
We stayed at the Sheraton Old San Juan. This property is on the waterfront, just across the street from several of the cruise ship piers. The location of the hotel is unbeatable, as you are easy walking distance to restaurants, bars and many historic buildings and museums. Or, if your foot is broken and you're not up to that much walking, mere steps away from the (totally free) tourist tram, which stops by both of the forts and numerous other sites around old San Juan. On the down side, we were staying on a consolidator rate. Some hotels don't count that against you, but this Sheraton put us in just about the worst rooms imaginable - right over their function room where loud music kept us up two nights out of three. By loud music, I don't mean I faintly heard the bass line, I mean I could clearly hear Psy chanting "Heeeeeeyyyyyyy, sexy lady" while I brushed my teeth and the bass was so loud it was rattling the lid on the ice bucket. Major thumbs down also to the disinterested and unhelpful staff, but, location, location, location, right?
Some highlights of our trip were the fortresses, San Cristobal and El Morro, as well as the old city center. We first went to San Cristobal, which was built to defend the land approach to San Juan and is all about defense in depth. Its fun, it's historic, it's wonderfully located, with great views of San Juan and El Morro. Oh, and in December they allow local craftspeople to sell their wares in the main parade ground of the fortress.
We sat out an afternoon rain shower and then went out to dinner at Raices. We had heard that this place, while touristy, was fun and had great food, which was entirely correct. It does cater to tourists, it is a theme restaurant, and there is a floor show. The food was very tasty, but the real standouts were the drinks. A lot of tropical rum-based drinks are made with mixers and are so overly sweet that you lose any sort of distinctive flavor in the drink - these drinks were clearly freshly mixed and quite tasty.
The next day, we went to El Morro. This fortress guards the entrance to the harbor and, when protected from land attack by San Cristobal, was nearly impregnable. It has six levels, each defended by multiple cannons, plus a dry moat. There is a smaller fort across the harbor entry, which helped create a crossfire to destroy hostile ships. It's not at all as intimidating as the main fortresses, but anyone who wanted to seize it either had to brave the crossfire to attack by sea, or traverse the leper colony on the land approach. Probably a hard sell for any commander.
Post fortress, we toured the Bacardi Rum distillery and strolled through the old city downtown. We got to see (and managed not to stumble over) the old blue cobblestone streets, saw the old cathedral and did a little shopping. There is a beautiful old convent, among other more colorful things, that has been turned into a beautiful boutique hotel that is well worth a visit even if only to gawk at the lobby. Once we finished wandering around, we went out to dinner at Punto de Vista. Unlike Raices, this place has a definite hole-in-the wall vibe, and the food is authentic and tasty. The mojitos are a little weak, but inexpensive and plentiful. I developed quite a taste for mofongo on this trip. I was a little concerned at first, as plantains are in the same family as bananas, which occasionally disagree with me, but no issues. We also had fried plantains, which I loved.
On the way back, I was interested to learn that, although Puerto Rico is in almost all respects a domestic destination, people flying back to the mainland are allowed to shop duty free. Hooray for tax free rum! I will also say that the Miami airport has significantly improved, at least aesthetically, since the last time I flew through. The Admirals Club at the upper D gates is huge, and has multiple showers. San Juan is only a short flight away, but for longer trips, say from Peru if I can convince the girls to go to Maccu Picchu next year, they could come in handy.
Oh, and while we were prepared to greet the end of the world in warm style, it appears that unlike some internet prophets, the Maya actually understood how wheels work and instead of the world ending on the 21st December, we instead started a new Long Count. Score: Maya 1, Doomsday Prophets 0.
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