December 30, 2016. 18 minutes to San Juan!

LOCATION:  San Juan, Puerto Rico

WEATHER:  Sunny and hot. High about 90  

We said good-bye to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.  This is our view from our downtown hotel.  

Our homeowner kindly picked us up, bought us some breakfast at a great deli, and dropped us off at the airport.  We had to be there at least 2 hours before the flight, for customs and security. Since it is a small airport (but with lots of flights), the lines get long.  When we took off, we could see the house where we have been staying. Just a few minutes later, we landed in San Juan. These islands are all quite close together.

San Juan is a big city, of about 2 million people.  When we got into our taxi and told the driver our hotel address, he asked "Why would you be staying there? Uh-oh!!  What did he mean?  We found out later that he meant that we were not in the tourist area.  That is fine with us, actually preferable.  We are next to the University of Puerto Rico, but since it is the Christmas holiday, the students are not around.   

We are staying in a modest, but clean and seemingly-safe, mom and pop hotel.  The owner was manning the desk and was super helpful.  She gave us directions to get to Old San Juan, and we were off.  We took the metro to a bus station, and then a bus to OLd San Juan.  We traveled through areas that I'm sure most torusists don't see.  We were the only gringos on the public transportation.  

 

The fortified city of Old San Juan was built in the 1500s.  We were surprised to learn that it is a national park.

We hiked around the fort, under the burning sun. 

 

It is a huge fort.  It was restored and used in World War II.  We checked out some of the tunnels used for security...

And saw the bare-bones barracks where the troops slept.  

By then, I was about to faint with heat stroke.  We walked around Old San Juan, full of interesting shops and restaurants.  We looked for a micro-brewery that the tourist office had told us about, but found out 1) it was closed and 2) it was actually a cocktail lounge.  We did find an authentic  "taberna" and cooled down.  It was not air-conditioned, but had good ceiling fans.  I gulped pitchers of water and felt better.

We returned to our hotel, using the bus and train again.  A lady started talking with us in Spanish/English on the bus.  She was intrigued that gringos would be riding the bus and would be staying outside of the tourist area.  She talked and talked, amazed that we like things like beans and rice (she thought only Puerto Rican's would eat that).  She shepherded us through the train station for our transfer, amazed that we could figure it out.  She was so kind!   After cooling off in our blessedly air-conditioned room, we went out for dinner.  We are in kind of a gritty area.  The hotel owner recommended the paella at a nearby restaurant, so we thought we would check that out.  It really reminded us of the  Cuban section of Miami.  Unpretentious from outside, it was quite formal inside.  A whole army of waiters served us.  There seemed to be a pecking order where one would serve, another would watch, and another would check things off in a notebook.  We had "pulpo a la gallega" which is a Galician (Spain) style octopus appetizer.  Everything was in Spanish..  I was delighted.  The waiter warned us that the paella would take 40 minutes to cook (a good sign), and I said that was fine.  We ordered the Valencia style one, which was with fish, seafood, chorizo anc chicken.  The waiter formally served it.

Even though it was supposedly a single serving, we had leftovers after both eating it.  It was a delightful evening.