We spent May 29 walking around the old part of San Juan, Puerto Rico. We explored old forts, ate good food, and sweated out all of the water we drank in the heat and humidity. We started with a hike up the hill to one of the two main forts in the city, Castillo San Cristóbal. The view of San Juan from the top was amazing, and the fort made all the Patrick O’Brian stories we’ve read about early 19th century British navy battles with the French and Spanish come alive. It was easy to imagine Ol’ Goldilocks leading a secretive marine assault on the fort in the middle of the night.
Sam and Shannon at Castillo San Cristóbal
View of Old San Juan from Castillo San Cristóbal
After the fort, we checked out a couple museums and walked down to have lunch at a great local restaurant. Deliciously cold local beer was served in enormous frosty tin mugs…mmmmmm.
A huge mug of local Puerto Rican beer. 1.5 bottles only filled it halfway.
We closed out the day with a beautiful little coastal park that was chock full of over-exuberant pigeons fighting over food from locals and tourists alike. It was wild chaos and flapping of wings. Most of the kids (and many of the adults) in the park were a little freaked out by what felt like a Hitchcock-esque flock of attack pigeons. The video below gives you a sense of the mania.
Pigeons from Sam and Shannon Bloomquist on Vimeo.
Puerto Ricans feeding/being attacked by a mob of pigeons.
