San Juan, Puerto Rico

Day 4 of our cruise adventure brought us to San Juan, Puerto Rico!  On every cruise, the travelers are offered the option to sign up for a "shore excursion" at ever port of call. {Like our para-sail adventure in St. Thomas}  Normally there are close to 100 excursions of all different varieties and "athletic levels."  The excursion list for San Juan, however, was quite disappointing.  I believe there were only 5 excursions offered, most of which included scenic tours of Old San Juan.  Wah wah wah.

BF and I had our hearts set on one of the excursions, but weren't sure we were willing to pay $125 each for it.  However, with our refund from the Para-sail, we jumped at the opportunity to sign up.  The excursion was a "Canopy Tour of the El Yunque."  Basically it was a rain forest tour, but not in a car or bus.  The tour was given through a series of Zip Lines!  I think it was like 3 miles total of zip-lining!

Unfortunately, out of over 3,000 cruisers, and only 15 spots on the tour, there was only 1 spot available.  So BF and I decided to do our own thing.  When we ported we were dropped off right in Old San Juan.  The architecture was gorgeous, every building was colonial style and painted in the most beautiful colors.  We picked a direction and started walking, enjoying the scenery.  Most of the downtown area was undergoing renovation, so that was neat to see everything being restored.

After about 35 minutes of walking, we had finished our water (1 L each) and were completely parched and overheated.  We live in a desert with summer temperatures pushing the 120's, but there is no humidity, which is nice.  It was only about 85 in San Juan, but the humidity was so high, it was miserable to be outside.  While walking, we came to the Castillo de San Cristóbal, a Spanish Fort built in the 1700's!  We decided to stop in for some history, culture and shade!  The fort's huge stone walls basically wrap around the entire city of San Juan, it was really neat to see.

After a quick look around, we decided to find a beach.  While deciding what beach to visit, we found a Starbucks {in all its colonial glory}, grabbed some Passion Shaken Lemonades, grabbed a taxi, and headed to the beach.  We spent the rest of the day playing at the beach, the waves were humongous and a few kicked our butts.  It was awesome!  We also made sure to leave plenty of time before the ship left this time.