Mid Autumn Day at San Juan

Carribean days

It seems I don't have a jet lag problem, at least for this journey, so I got up early and plan for a day tour around the city.

Oct. 3 is the traditional Mid Autumn Day (中秋节) for Chinese people. Since there is 12-hour timezone difference from Puerto Rico to China, short messages from friends flood in to remind me for a moon-seeing. Quite interesting.

Nevertheless, I chatted with parents and friends in the morning, and then went out at noon. The target today is Old San Juan, the oldest district has a history of 500 years. The friendly hotel assistant (I'd wish to stay at YHA but there are no YHA hostel at San Juan, and I'm not sure if it's safe to find a hostel) informed me I could take B-21 bus to Old San Juan terminal. However I got attracted by the beautiful scenery of Condado beach, so I decide to walk to Old San Juan (~6km to go).

Capitolio de Puerto Rico

It took me about an hour to reach Old San Juan. Holding a GPS device (installed on my Nokia N79) in hand felt great, I located a McDonald's by it and made straight in. It might be a little bit nonsense to search for a McDonald's after flying around the globe, but the most important thing is get myself fed so I don't care about it.

After having a BigMac at the McDonald's I walk to Fort San Felipe del Morro, or "El Morro" in short. Unfortunately it began to rain, but oddly it was mostly clear, except a small convective cloud overhead. But the cloud kept growing and poured down the rain despite the clear sky and sunshine, quite freaky, so I was held at the stores along the street. My biggest fault should be forgetting to bring an umbrella.

Panorama of El Morro entrance

Panorama on the top of El Morro

Panorama at the top of El Morro, looking to San Juan port

Panorama of El Morro rainbow, looking east

I finally arrived at El Morro, unfortunately when I was on the top of the fort it poured again. But the fort is great, a very fine historic place, although without much introduction around the park, the old fort speak itself. Another famous castle, Fort San Cristobal, is nearby and the ticket is only $5 for both forts, so I decided to walk to San Cristobal's.

There are much more introduction at San Cristobal about the history and construction of the fort. San Cristobal is much smaller than El Morro, but it preserved several original "garitas", i.e. a lookout tower, which is the symbol of Puerto Rico. A small poster presentation informed the visitors about the history of San Juan forts and Puerto Rico. Interestingly, it doesn't contain any information about the American victory against Spain in 1898, which Puerto Rico was transfered after ruled by Spanish for about 400 years. Deep under the fort, there is some ship paintings on the wall, which is remarked as "opus of a to-be-execute Spanish captain". Poor captain, but his doodles kept himself alive after so many years.

Panorama - El Morro fortifying San Juan port

Panorama - Front side of El Morro

Entrance of Fort San Cristobal

Observation deck built by the U.S. Navy at Fort San Cristobal during WWII

In front of a garita

It was about sunset after I walked out from Fort San Cristobal. I didn't want to walk for another hour to back to Condado so I decided to take a bus. The public transportation system in San Juan is not quite visitor-friendly, I spent quite some effort at the bus terminal to figure out how it works. The buses are also rare (maybe I got used to frequent bus service in Guangzhou or Beijing...), I did wait for nearly an hour to get on a C-53 to Condado. There are no site-reminding boardcast on the bus, and the driver would not stop without a stop request -- very inconvenient, but I finally figure out the right stop to get off. The moon had rised when I back at Condado, it's now my time to do Mid Autumn Day moon-seeing -- but without mooncakes.

So here ends the day. Tomorrow I'd met Dr. Harris et al at the airport and we are heading to Fajardo -- the meeting place. Real oral-speaking challenge here!