Richards Cruise - San Juan

On Wednesday we landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. JB and I were there years ago on another cruise and I love it. I love the forts, the history, and the feel of the old city.

We walked around the city first.

When we got to the first fort, the Castillo Columbia I think it's called, we ran into other members of the family also exploring, and Suzanne took this photo of us peering through the walls. Max held on tight to Andrew and I didn't climb up, even though there's a long space in front of those openings to prevent any falls.

This is the view of Benny and Max in those openings, from the other side of the picture above.

Inside we found cannon balls. "BALL!!" Squealed James and he wouldn't turn around for a picture.

And we found this iguana sunning himself.

And we ended up in jail. By the way, wearing a KSL or BYU or UofU shirt or a Jazz hat is a good idea on vacation. We ran into Utahns everywhere on the ship and at ports, including the niece of a very good friend of ours, on a different cruise ship docked in San Juan that day.

From that fort, we walked to the other one. It was uphill and hot, and the boys thought they were going to die, but what a view, and what an experience. Goldfish from my backpack and a shared passion fruit smoothie and Sprite from street vendors cheered them up.

Notice again, Andrew asleep on my back, James asleep in the stroller. And I was constantly re-applying sunscreen the whole week by the way. Ain't no quicker vacation-killer than a sunburn.

On the way back to the ship, we followed the calles along the old city wall to the Parque de las Palomas (famous pigeon park) but they all flew away before Benny could sneak in there for a picture.

JB went out looking for more rice to try and dry out his drowned phone, or even a TMobile store to get a new phone, but no tenia suerte (I had random Spanish phrases in my head all day in San Juan).

He got a new phone back in SLC when we came home, and it was a big upgrade from what he had. I kept my phone off most of the trip and tucked away because I was afraid of big charges and afraid of losing the thing. But it also meant I never knew what time it was, because my watch battery died before the trip. I just about went crazy.