I'm currently on the balcony of our hotel overlooking the lagoon in Puerto Rico enjoying a Sprite and lemonade mixed with Bacardi dragonberry rum. After the day we had, this is what we needed...
We started today with a delicious quiche breakfast at our hotel (seriously stay at Arawack Bay Inn if you come to St. Croix!) then headed over to the airport to fly to San Juan. We purposely aren't staying in PR long because neither of us had the desire to stay here longer than it takes to see the only National Park site that is here. I will admit, I had a lot of assumptions of Puerto Rico and I was trying to come into this place with an open mind and try to find the beauty in it. But, it's just not here in my opinion. A lot of people kept hyping up Old San Juan as this beautiful area, but we saw a couple pretty buildings in what is really a giant construction zone and run-down city buildings. I'm sorry San Juan, but this isn't what I think of when I think of the Carribbean. I realize the construction is temporary and it seems like they are trying to make the waterfront prettier with it, but I just can't get past the congested city feeling either.
We went right from the airport to San Juan National Historic Site. This is comprised of two forts about a 20-minute walk away from each other. We went to Fort San Cristobal first and just driving in we were initially impressed with how massive it is! We also went to Fort San Felipe del Morro which is big as well, but also a little more scenic. If you can only do one, I recommend El Morro. Both forts are big and like a maze! I understand why these are National Park sites - they are actually really neat to see. But here's my problem...we saw so many people smoking on the property and not a single ranger asking people not to do that. We also ran into a crowd of locals who were blasting a radio that played 90's Cranberries and Jewel. Again, no ranger asked them to lower the volume of the music. There were also two cruise ships in town which means these forts were packed. The smoking and the music really bothered me, especially since locals were doing it and that rangers really didn't seem to mind. It really did kind of ruin the experience for me. I've come to expect a certain level of respect to the park and the people in it at a National Park, and that just wasn't there today.
After the forts, we had reservations for the Bacardi historical tour. This is a $15 tour that really only walks you through the visitor center and, of course, ends at the gift shop. Honestly, we thought the Cruzan tour and rum were better. Here's the other thing that bothered me today...as we were entering the Bacardi facility, we heard a racial slur from one of the Bacardi security guards that checks us into the tour. Not sure if it was towards us, regardless, it certainly made me uncomfortable, which again gave me reason not to enjoy our time in Puerto Rico.
Sorry this post is so full of complaints, but I really don't think we'll be coming back here anytime soon now that the park is done. The silver lining though would be that I do recommend the forts because they are really pretty to see, and hopefully you have a more pleasant experience than we did.
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