Puerto Rico's Old San Juan - Perfecto!

Christopher Columbus, who first sighted Puerto Rico on his second trip in 1493, is well recognised in Old San Juan.

Prior to planning for this trip, all we knew about Puerto Rico was from watching West Side Story maybe 40 years ago! Now we've stayed on Vieques and in San Juan, we think this American outpost may well be the unexpected highlight of our whole Caribbean journey. San Juan is not only the oldest European settlement in the USA, the little peninsula known as Old (Veijo) San Juan must be one of the most photogenic cities in the world. We didn't even leave it to look at new San Juan!

The modest San Juan Bautista Cathedral, just up a short hill from the San Juan gate. 17C arrivals would visit this church to give thanks for a safe journey. Devotees come to the cathedral to see the tomb of Ponce de Leon and the body of martyr St. Pio.

This design and colour scheme is typical of many chapels in Old San Juan.

The narrow streets of Old San Juan are packed with colorful old buildings and parked cars.

Our hotel was El Convento, originally a Carmelite convent dating back to the 1600's. This hotel is fantastic! It's on the 100m long hill up from the San Juan Gate where VIPs used to enter the city through its fortified walls and climb up to the San Juan Bautista Cathedral to give thanks for a safe journey. The hotel is full of character, as you would expect. It has been renovated, of course, but in period style so as not to lose any of its magnificent ambience. Our "superior" room was in the same vein, with all the required mod-cons including that feature missing from every other Caribbean hotel, genuine hot water a decent flow and pressure. El Convento has no beach, and has no view, but as an inner-city hotel with charm, it delivers the full package! It even has tiny pool and a hot tub on the roof, and a guest laundry. It provides a turn-down service in the evening, with chocolates on the pillow. What a hotel!

Our digs, the Gran Hotel, El Convento, dates to 1651 and was the world's first Carmelite Convent.

The view from our hotel window down the Escalinata de las Monjas.

Cool and breezy inside the courtyard at El Convento Hotel.

Three distinct features give Old San Juan its fabulous appeal, the incredible fortifications, the magnificent buildings and the narrow cobblestoned streets.

Newer dwellings outside the Old San Juan fortifications don't match the excellence of those inside.

Under Ponce de Leon, the Spanish established a colony in San Juan in 1508, and 25 years later, they commenced building incredible fortifications which eventually completely ringed the city and effectively protected the entrance to a great deep water harbour. It would take 250 years to complete. San Juan withstood multiple attacks by the English and Dutch, but finally fell into American hands after its war with Spain in 1898.

The symbol of Puerto Rico, which appears on car registration plates, is the sentry box which helped the Spanish protect its most strategic asset in the Caribbean.

Old San Juan is famous for the sentry boxes at dozens of locations on the Spanish fortifications. This one, seen from the Santa Maria Magdalina de Pazzis cemetery, enjoys divine protection.

For our part, we have never seen more complete and better preserved fortifications anywhere. The many sentry boxes are the iconic emblems of all of Puerto Rico, but also, you can clearly observe maybe hundreds of embrasures (wedge shaped slots cut in the tops of walls to give shooters access while protecting them at the same time), casemates (storage and quarters), bastions (protrusions in the walls to give defenders a better view of attackers). There are well preserved loopholes (for protected shooting), wells (holding a year's supply of water) and moats (for trapping the enemy). Collectively, these add up to an amzing historical site, now in the hands of te US National Parks Service, which, by our observations over many trips, always does a magnificent job at conservation, education and managed access.

Roughly, Old San Juan is a grid of about 9 streets running east-west, and 9 running north-south. Every one of these blocks is packed with buildings so magnificent they dare the camera to capture them, but but in itself is a great challenge because the streets are so narrow. Many of the buildings are as old as the fortifications, most are in good order and condition, freshly painted in rich pastels, but others are in various stages of dereliction. The run down places have often been the target of revolutionary graffiti and attractive in a different way.

The entire precinct of Old San Juan is packed with gloriously decorated, centuries old buildings, all impossible to photograph with good perpective due to very narrow streets.

Residence in Calle del Christo at dusk.

Many houses feature fine ceramic artworks near their front doors.

Night time in Calle del Cristo, with the Cristo Chapel showing at the bottom of the hill.

Art Deco is strong in Old San Juan. This lovely example is the Banco Popular seen from the waterfront.

We saw many groups of school children resting in shady places, this one in the plaza between our hotel and the Cathedral.

The grand but stark courtyard of the Ballaja which houses the Museo de las Americas and also our favourite coffee shop, the Cafe Don Ruiz.

Just another magnificent Old San Juan building, impossible to photograph with good perspective due to the narrow streets.

The surface of almost every street is paved with blue oxidised cobblestones. These are rich with character and the intensity of the blue colour is sometimes quite remarkable. Vehicles travelling over the cobblestones make a delightful rumble and give pedestrians good warning of their approach. The city officers who must have chosen to maintain the cobblestones made a very good decision!

Brightly coloured buildings and cobblestoned streets provide our lasting memories of Old San Juan.

Old San Juan is a busy hub for cruise ships. We couldn't work out whether ships were calling in here as part of an itinerary, or if the city was the terminus for Caribbean cruises. But the effect was the same - the presence of a cruise ship brings a new buzz to Old San Juan as passengers (or soon-to-be passsengers, or ex-passengers) take tours and roam the streets and fortifications.

The fortiifications which originally defended Puerto Rico from English, Dutch and maybe American invaders now welcomes them in the form of gigantic floating apartment blocks.

Old San Juan is rich with bars, cafes and restaurants, and we had no trouble finding meals outside the hotel. The only problem was making the decision! Our great hotel spoiled our appetite somewhat by turning on free wine and cheese every evening. How many hotels do that these days? This function was very well attended by hotel guests as you can imagine - we even met a couple of Aussies (from the Gold Coast) there. We don't think many Australians come to the Caribbean, but when you say that to someone, it turns out that maybe there are more than we think!

This property is uniquely decorated with colorful puppets.

This ceiling fan in a cemetery mason's workshop is done cooling!

Old San Juan is very Spanish, but also very American, just like Miami. All the familiar fast food stores are here, CVS and Walgreens drug-stores are in town, and we could get Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Unlike most of the rest of the Caribbean, San Juan operates with American efficiency, but boils with Spanish culture and charm - a thoroughly delightful city to visit, and a highlight of our Caribbean holiday.

San Juan has a thriving arts culture, with numerous galleries and exhibitions.

Not all buildings in Old San Juan are in good order and condition. Like many derelicts, this one has lost its roof.

Luxury on the Isla de Vieques...

Getting from Tortola to the Isla de Vieques (Puerto Rico) required flying to San Juan (on Seaborne Airlines) and then connecting to Vieques (on Cape Air). Both these Caribbean airlines did everything required of them, but the transit through San Juan was so inefficient that despite a 2 hour allowance, we went within 10 minutes of missing the connection. We were over 60 minutes in the US immigration queue, and another 30 minutes in the security queue to access the departure gates. The flights were interesting: Seaborne's aircraft was a brand new Saab turbo-prop, and Cape Air's was a 10 seater Cessna. Mike got to be co-pilot, and sat in the front seat! The pilot's name was Jim Beams so Mike bored him with a joke about whiskey that he has no doubt heard a million times.

In all our planning for this trip, we have been pronouncing Vieques as if it were French, but now we have heard the Spanish say it, we know it to be pronounced "Vee-eck-ess", the syllables very close together but distinct. Vieques is 20km east of the "big island" of Puerto Rico - there's not much water between them, and each island is easily seen from the other.

We didn't have a rental car planned or booked on Vieques, but we then decided to explore the pretty small island, so we rented a brand new fire-engine red Jeep for two days. In that time, we covered just about every road on the island, and swam at every beach. The hardest thing with this particular rental was topping up the gas at the end of it. It took three times queued up at the only service station before getting lucky. The first time the gas station closed after we had queued for 30 minutes, to allow a tanker in. The second time, we joined the queue only to discover the station was actually closed. The arrival of the tanker was in fact a cause for jubilation in Vieques - shortages and runouts are apparently common. It looks like the tanker comes over by ferry from the big island. Just to confuse the tourists, it's not purely USA here. Speeds are in km/hr and petrol is $/litre.

Our rented Jeep Wranger parked at a southern beach on Vieques. How much are these cars in Australia?

Vieques' roads were twisty and narrow like those on all other Caribbean islands, but they were in much better condition, and well painted with kerb strips. The main roads were identified with route numbers which appeared on the the map, and main road intersections were clearly signposted - what a change from St. Lucia and Antigua!

Horses roam free on Vieques. (So do cows, apparently, although we didn't see any.) They eat the grass on the side of the road, so you have to be careful of them when driving. The horses pay absolutely no attention to cars. We had to stop in one location while a couple of cowboys (gauchos?) attempted to muster a herd of horses who weren't being very cooperative.

Vieques' resident team of lawn-mowers are smarter than the tourists and stay out of the sun.

Our hotel was the luxurious W Retreat and Spa, about 5 minutes from the airport. This is a stunning (but expensive) hotel. The design and interior decor of the "great house" is just stunning. Our room was much the same, being described as a "neo-bohemian retreat" whatever that means. Regardless, it was a fantastic hotel room, complete with a galvanised steel bath tub. Like many resorts, most of the rooms form a horseshoe around a central pool and beach area. Throughout the day and evening, this area vibrates with lively music emanating from speakers hidden in the gardens, and a busy trade in bar sales, pool-side snacks as well as an activities tent managing kayaks and snorkelling equipment. No hobie cats though. We were intrigued with the wet cabanas which, for $200, entitles you to a day in a shaded cabana equipped with poolside mattresses, cushions, a flat screen TV, lots of alcohol and a little fruit. Some groups indulged in this decadent luxury, and spent all day there.

The lounge area of the Great House at the W Retreat and Spa, Isla de Vieques. The mural is actually painted onto a wall of expanded metal.

Sunbaking appears to be the main objective of many residents at W. Some never leave the hotel "compound" during their stay. The couple on the right reserved their lounges early in the morning, and spent the entire day there, every day.

The main beach at W Hotel on Vieques. Another beach was reserved for adults - it was called "Whisper Beach" so we think the restriction was for peace and quiet, rather than any mature entertainment.

Vieques has two small towns, Isabel Segunda and Esperanza. The former is the business centre (and the ferry runs to here) and the latter seems there to cater for tourists. We had several meals in Esperanza to escape the high cost of eating at W. All the cafes and bars at Esperanza face the Caribbean Sea and have fabulous views. In Isabel II, we found a laundromat, the first such in the whole Caribbean sector of this trip, so we invested an hour and a few dollars there to give our clothing a well deserved freshening up.

The ferry to Puerto Rico's "big island" departing the tiny harbour at Isabel II on Vieques.

We were intrigued to observe that almost all the businesses on Vieques that we interacted with were being run by American ladies "of a certain age" rather than "real" Peurto Ricand of any age or gender. Their staff were in the same demographic. This applied to cafes, dress shops, a delicatessen, craft stores etc (notably, not the laundry, nor the service station). We pondered what this meant, but in case we have it wrong, we don't include our conclusions in this blog.

Vieques is famous for its bioluminescent bays where world class displays of phosphorescent dinoflaggelates are available, except at the full moon. Sadly, the dinoflaggelates have headed for the bottom after heavy rain and cooler weather. It seems the polar vortex has gotten this far south! So, we didn't take the evening kayak tour we planned.

The beach at W looks great, but it's a bit rocky underfoot. Some of the beaches we found in our Jeep are much better, in fact, maybe the best we've seen in the Caribbean. There's a whole string of them on the south side, but our favourite was Caracas, a beach similar in size and shape to Cane Garden in Tortola, but totally without the commercialisation. If you want a chair, bring it yourself. If you want a drink, put it in your Esky. Nevertheless, these southern beaches are pretty popular with tourists and locals alike. Apart from the fine white sand and clear blue water, Caracas Beach also offers a swell and a tiny surf, making it a very nice place to have a swim. We took to visiting Caracas before breakfast at Belly Buttons in Esperanza.

Caracas was our favourite beach on Vieques. The beach was well equipped with shade and facilities, but was devoid of commercial vendors common on other Caribbean islands.

Having dinner at Tradewinds, a popular restaurant and boutique hotel in Esperanza. The view is of Cayo Afuera and the Caribbean Sea.

The whole western quarter of Vieques is a restricted area and a national wildlife refuge. We think the main reason for this is not conservation but because of the danger from lots of unexploded ordinance left over after the US Navy controversially used the island for target practice in the past. Signs on the beaches warn you not to stray too far!

Our flight out of Vieques back to San Juan was in another puddle-jumping Cape Air Cessna, but was interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, the only security at the tiny airport was a lady guarding the door to the airstrip. We also noted that waiting passengers had live chickens clucking away in cloth bags as hand luggage, another had a dog. Luckily, this cargo was not intended for our flight. What did accompany us was a blonde bombshell, deeply tanned, wearing nothing but green thongs and a string bikini with a transparent mesh coverall which covered nothing. Such a passenger was apparently unusual enough for staff at both airports to be distracted, and she was personally selected to sit with the pilot, so Mike missed out this time!

Our Cape Air Cessna just before we boarded it at Vieques Airport. For some reason, the bikini clad passenger got offered the seat beside the pilot.