aka hottest place on earth.
I know that you won't be able to tell in these pictures (thank heavens), but we are sweating almost through and through. So before we left my mom said that she and my dad had visited Puerto Rico awhile back on one of their cruises. She said the only thing she remember was being so dang hot that it wasn't even enjoyable. She said nothing about anything that they had gone to see. I wasn't prepared for as hot as it ended up being. We were lucky that we had decided to do a guided tour because we were bused up to the first fort. It was mostly up hill. Once we got off the tour guide said that we better have enjoyed the ride because it was walking from here on out. You will see in the later pictures that from the first fort we could see the second fort we were going to way in the distance. I was not looking forward to the walk. Not because of the exercise part, that is just fine, but the fact that I would be sweating thoroughly the entire time. When we had just headed off to the second fort we were really lucky to have a trolley stop right next to us. The tour guide said we could hop on and he seemed to know the driver and we didn't end up having to pay anything. It was much appreciated, even though it wasn't air conditioned!
In both of the forts, there were many tunnels that were really cool.
Where the soldiers would sleep. Doesn't look very comfortable at all. They told us that this was used back in the 1600's, but they had also used it during WWII.
The large round things are water tanks. One cool thing we learned is that they built all of the things on the fort around the water collecting system. When it rained over the castle, the water would collect and they would store it. That is how they got their drinking water. There were waterways everyone and they did a lot of special little tunnels and maneuvering to ensure they collected all the precious rain that poured onto the fort.
The fort was once surrounded complete by the wall you see in the distance. As the old city of San Juan grew, they opened it up for more development area.
It is hard to tell just how big these forts were, but they were huge. Look at the wall compared to the people.
These were some original paintings that were in the prison cell. They are of ships. They turned off the lights while we were in the prison cell and it was basically pitch black with a little tiny hole way up above letting in the littlest amount of light. I can't imagine how horrible that would have been. I couldn't believe how well these drawings were preserved. It was really cool to see them up close.
The architecture of these forts was incredible. I absolutely loved all of the archways.
This is the one of the lookouts that is famous in San Juan. The shape of these lookout cubbies is what San Juan is known for.
In the picture above, you can see the other fort way out in the distance with the tiny white thing coming out the middle.
I will tell you to look in the back drop where you will see the second fort.
This was at the entrance of the second fort. You will notice a lot of children behind me. I think we were here on "San Juan Elementary School Field Trip Day to the Fort". Seriously! There were a gazillion kids.
The picture with the orange cones in it is a tunnel that we walked down on stairs. If you look hard enough you can tell that it is really long and super steep. They said that they had to wheel the cannons up and down the middle smooth part. I can't imagine how hard that would have been.
This was a new technology of its time. Before they came up with this circle that the cannons could rotate on to get the enemy at different angles, they had to have different openings all along the castle where in each opening was a cannon. With this new technology they could have one cannon that would rotate.
I felt like I was standing in a life size rook chess piece.
We had to get a picture of Trav in front of the Puerto Rico Drug store.
This was part of the Ice Show on the cruise ship. It actually was really great! I wish I would have got a picture of the act that went on while all of the ice skaters were changing costumes. This guy was in a metal ring that had poky things on the outside that stuck to the ice. He would roll around the ice in it. You know when you spin a quarter on its end and as it slows down it starts to go in a more horizontal circular motion. Well this guy did that in this ring. It was so cool. This is the best I can describe it, but I hope it will spark my memory every time I read this to how cool it really was.
I loved the towel lobster!
This was our dining group. Jason and Melanie (Florida, on their honeymoon), Sarah and I can't remember his name (Canada, they were dating), and me and Trav. We loved our table. Jason was absolutely hilarious and kept us laughing our heads off all dinner long. I definitely looked forward to our table discussion at dinner. Usually for dinner you go, you eat, you small chat, you leave asap. Well with our group being so much fun, we turned dinner into a 2 hour ordeal every night! I'm really glad we got put with such awesome people!!!
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