Day 3 -- San Juan, Puerto Rico

Fort San Cristobal, sporting flags for the US,
Puerto Rico, and former Spanish military.

Started the day with "baby lamb" chops.

Today started much like yesterday, except that we slept with the curtains open, so we awoke at 7:15am.  I think tomorrow we’ll close the curtain again!  We had a nice leisurely breakfast, but, we did abysmally at Trivia.  Arriving in Puerto Rico (which means rich port) just after lunch, we went out on our three part tour.

Fort San Cristobal as we arrived.

Our ship having a Napoleon Complex?  (no, it isn't farther back!)

These are NOT the "little barrels".

Part 1 – Trip to the Ron del Barallito distillery.  Ever wonder why all these rums are named after some guy Ron?  (Ron Rico, Ron Bacardi, etc?)  Well, Ron is Rum in at least Puerto Rico (maybe Spanish?).  This is, apparently, the oldest Rum distillery in Puerto Rico. It was founded by an engineer, who studied how the French did their distillation, and imported the equipment to Puerto Rico.  He would go around with a little barrel (Barallito), and offer tastes to people.  Then, when they wanted more, they would come to his house and ask for the Rum in the Little Barrel.  Thus, the name for the Rum.  It was interesting, and came with a free drink.  Unfortunately, the drink was mixed, so we have no idea what the rum tasted like, so chose to not purchase any.  (The preparation was really something, so video on that later.)

Part 2 – Trip to the Fort San Cristobal, which was one of the original forts around the island.  At one point, San Juan had a wall all the way around the city, which is on an island just off of the main island Puerto Rico.  The fort was much like other old forts we have seen, but it was an interesting viewpoint.

Dungeon in Fort San Cristobal

Drawings on the walls of the dungeon.

Looking out into the Atlantic

One of several roads built with ballast stones, 
from empty ships coming to haul away the gold.

Part 3 – Driving tour of “Old” San Juan, then drop off at a shopping area where the driver would be back in an hour and 15 minutes to pick us up, or we could stay on the bus to go back to the ship, or we could walk back.  Since we could see the ship from the drop off point, we chose to depart the bus and walk back to the boat. 

It was a nice day, but it was really hot.  I cannot imagine how this would be in the summer!

Back on the ship, we found a cool beverage in a cool bar and cooled down!  Then we "stole" some deviled eggs (the pool buffet wasn't open but neither was it guarded) and scampered back to our room to get showered for dinner.

We enjoyed a really nice dinner in the Italian restaurant, but ate WAY too much!  Since the sea is a little rocky, we'll try to go see the show, but it might be a short night.