San Juan Airport, Puerto Rico
We were pretty sad to pack up and leave yesterday. We have been here for so long that we were starting to develop a real 'Swiss Family Robinson' mentality as well as campsite(!), especially with the shower stall the boys had assembled. The showers were so hit-and-miss (and cold!) that we began filling old gallon milk-jugs with water, and setting them in the sun to warm first thing in the morning. We'd then lean over our basin and use the warm water to wash first our hair, and then sponge bath the rest... but the only draw-back for me was that people would often walk up from the beach and past our campsite as I was trying to wash out the sand stuck in my bikini! My indomitable Boy Scouts solved this problem by rigging up a little shower stall, enclosed on two sides with palm fronds woven between trees, and on the other two with hanging towels or blankets. It even had a plywood floor to keep our feet clean as we "showered", and a driftwood soap holder! I was so delighted with this that I realised it was time to leave -- I was starting to lose all perspective!
And as happy as our time here has been, we had been starting to get restless and realised that it was time to be moving on. Part of our delay in Puerto Rico has sprung from troubles happening with our work at home, and it's hard to make plans when things are in limbo and we may have to go back to rescue our studios sooner that we had planned or hoped. But we could only delay for so long -- we've decided to push on and be proactive in making plans.
Although San Juan and Puerto Rico's mainland weren't highly appealing for us, we booked a nice hotel in old San Juan last night, and had a few hours this morning to explore the old city. We took a tram ride around "Old San Juan", which is like a storybook city with pastel-coloured buildings and cobbled streets. It is dominated by a couple of big defensive forts and castles. I had not realised that Puerto Rico was actually Columbus' destination when he came to the New World for the second time. On his first trip he had landed in the Domincan Republic and returned to Spain with a native princess, who told him that the real riches were to be found on the next island: what is now Puerto Rico. He may not have found abundant riches, but Puerto Rico became the gateway to the Caribbean, and essentially whoever controlled San Juan's harbour wielded much power. Spain quickly realised the importance of this, and built El Morro, a huge castle-style fortification on the edge of the harbour, and then smaller forts all around. With the cross-fire between El Morro and the other forts, it was impossible to enter the harbour without permission. The Spanish held control for centuries, except for a small victory by the English who won the battle but then all succumbed to dysentery. Eventually the Americans bought control of Puerto Rico, and El Morro was still in use by them as a watch-post during WWII.
The kids were happy to be in a castle once more, and enthralled by the hands-on displays of cannons (the cannons in Europe were nowhere near as accessible), and now really understand the idea of "being caught in the cross-fire". We could have spent more time wandering Old San Juan... but on the taxi ride to the airport the other parts of the city that we saw were distinctly unappealing! Finding Culebra was definitely an unexpected treasure -- it is the pearl of Peurto Rico, and all the more precious because it is so unknown!
And "America", from the musical West-Side Story, has become our family theme song!
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