Forts in Old San Juan

Today is our last full fun day of vacation before we leave Puerto Rico and enter back into the real world.
We had a whole day planned out including a nice picnic at one of the old forts in San Juan where we noticed everyone was flying kites the day before. The one fort was a short walk from our hotel and we left early enough it wasn't scorching hot. The first fort we went to seemed to be more of a historical background and it was so interesting.
Christopher Columbus landed on the island during his second journey and the Spanish were the first to settle. It was a very well known island quite quickly after they had settled because of its perfect location and natural port. Only 20 years after San Juan had been founded they already had a University, library and hospital (in the 1530's). With it's location and resources the island became coveted by the other European countries. The Island only lost an attack once to the English who only have a very short period were driven off by illness and resistance and the Spanish reclaimed the island.
Over time the Spanish built this amazing fort with huge walls, tunnels and secret passageways. They also built up resistance on either side of the port so if any foreign ship were to try to gain entry if it survived the jagged rocks it would be attacked by cannons on either side. You could also see anyone coming because of the location and because of this they were able to win even when the British invaded with 60 ships.
During the Spanish-American war the Americans outsmarted the Spanish by landing on the opposite end of the island and because the Puerto Ricans were not happy with their current administration they surrendered without much of a fight. The end to this war was with the Treaty of Paris in which Spain surrendered Cuba and ceding Peurto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and parts of the West Indies to the United States in 1898.

Well ... with all that war you're going to need weapons, no?

You obviously need a place to put the pirates and enemy soldiers and your dead loved ones. I'm sure that only the best got burial by the sea! Just a heads up I want ocean front burial when I go:

The view from these forts was incredible with the waves crashing into the rocks the sea spray adding a misty look to it, a very beautiful city.

After we had walked through the two different forts we got onto the trolley and made our way to the Capital Building. Sometimes its hard to remember you are in the U.S.A. with all the Spanish colours and culture but then you see a building like the capital building and you're reminded. It just screamed "AMERICA" and looked a little out of place but it was a very pretty building. From there we took the stairs down to the beach and went for a little walk before turning around and heading back to the hotel.

It was a good day but I have to admit I was excited packing up to leave because it means I get to go home and see those kids of mine I've been missing!

Disembarkment Day

This morning we woke up to our last veranda sitting before breakfast and it was like the sky new it as it showed off a rainbow over San Juan. While we were standing looking down into the water we saw this blog swimming by. It was the strangest thing and we couldn't figure out what it was. It was sort of the colour of a dolphin with that same shiny skin but there was no dorsal fin. I quickly ran inside to get the camera and took a couple of lame pictures and that was that. We left our room for the last time and headed to the buffet for breakfast.
After laying in the lounge chairs until our turn to leave the ship I started to get a knot in my stomach. What am I going to do now? I have to worry about preparing food again, I was leaving my comfort zone and I still had a couple of days in Puerto Rico to go before I got home to see my kids. How quickly I had grown comfortable in our cruise boat bubble. We now had a full day ahead of us and nothing to do with it.
We dropped our luggage off at the hotel, checked in with the kids and walked around Old San Juan. We hopped on one of the free trolleys to see where it would take us and we watched as the beautiful scenery flew by. We got off at a ferry port and walked inside. Along one of the walls were a list of animals found around the area where the salt water mixes with the fresh water run off from the island and we were looking at all the different species and there it was! The animal we had seen early this morning from our room ... a MANATEE. Yes, we have seen a real live manatee. Had I know what it was I would have tried harder to get a picture of the blob in the water.

Later in the evening when the sun started to go down Ryan and I made our way to a little courtyard area where there had been some street fenders set up earlier. We grabbed some food and sat down to watch people when we noticed there was a huge group of people setting up their lawn chairs by a stage. We were curious so we walked over and noticed a band setting up and an empty bench so we sat down to watch the show. After a while we noticed that the crowd was all quite old and a lot of them had brought their own instruments. There were sticks, tambourines, and maracas. A couple came to sit down beside us and explained that every Saturday night they play Spanish music and have an open mic where people can get up and sing. In fact our new friend had serenaded her husband just last week. They introduced us to teh crowd as celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary and they pulled us up and made us dance before letting us sit back down.
It was a fun night and the music was good. There was an older gentleman dressed up in his slacks, a nice button-up shirt and hat like my Papa used to wear and he had some great moves.

Dinner Mates

Every single night on our cruise we ate at 6:00pm at the same table with the same people. Best idea ever. We had the best table mates ever. They were funny, kind, and happy. Each night we would sit down and get to hear about with they did on the island that day and what they thought about it. We got to hear little bits about their families and lives back home and we got to see how some couples match so perfectly. We loved going to dinner. One night we were tired but really wanted to make sure we made it to the Illusionist show. They would have one show each night but at 2 different times to accommodate everyone. Since we were at the early dinner service we would have to go to the late shows but the night of the Illusionist we decided we'd do the early show instead and just eat later at the buffet. We had a late lunch and weren't really hungry anyway but we still had to go to our dining room to meet up with our dinner mates if even just for appetizers to hear about their days. These people were all wonderful!

Our Dinner Mates

Our Little Buddies

Aren't these guys so cute. This is what we have been finding on our bed when we get back into our room at night. I love how the dog is wearing Ryan's shades. He's a cool dude.

Hello St. Thomas

I can't believe that we are running out of days, this is our last port of call before disembarkment. Our stop for the day is St. Thomas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and we had absolutely nothing planned. We relaxed in the morning enjoying our breakfast outside on the ship deck before making our way out to explore.
We decided we'd walk into the town and see what they had to offer. We had been hearing that there was a carnival going on that day and that most things would be closed but we decided to try anyway. We chatted along the way with a nice Texan couple which made the walk seem faster then it was and we split up when we ran into a little out door market selling trinkets and souvenirs.
From there we walked a little farther along some shops and watched as people were readying themselves for a parade. One local shop owner came up to us and looked down at my feet asking "Do you know what Oprah said about those shoes you're wearing?"
I looked down at my old, very well worn sketcher sandals and thought the only thing Oprah could say about these old things is that they need to be replaced. I looked back at the man and told him I had absolutely no idea what Oprah could have to say about my sandals.
"That they would go perfectly with some of my jewellery!" Well, we had a good laugh and the guy got an A+ for effort but we explained we were not in the market for jewellery and he very politely let us on our way.

After a few blocks we found ourselves at the starting point of the parade and were told that today was the Children's Parade and so it would only be about 4 hours long with lots of majorettes (baton twirlers), apparently they specialize in majorettes. I wasn't so sure I could last 4 hours in the heat but that didn't seem so bad after they went on to tell us that tomorrows parade would be 12 hours long! Um, wow. Carnival is quite the reason to parade I guess.

After we watched as much as we could watch we started our walk back towards the ship. We crossed and walked along the water looking out over the water. Suddenly there were all the police cars with their lights flashing stopping traffic. I'm wondering to myself if it's the President or something with all the dramatics going on. No, just a parade float ... a double decker drum float! I was tempted to turn back around and walk back to the parade just to hear the drums and see it filled with all the drummers but we just stopped and stared as it passed us by and traffic resumed.
It was a pretty walk back through the marina. There were a lot of sail boats and yachts anchored. We saw a couple of ladies coming from a sailboat pull up in a little pump boat, tie it down and hop out. Ryan would love to live in a sail boat, he's still working on convincing me. Some of the sailboats reminded me of pirates and I wished Brayden was with us so he could see them.

We ate lunch at a Filipino buffet and took some back for our cruise ship security. They were all Filipino and after seeing Ryan's shirts and learning we lived in the Philippines for 5 years they were so friendly and always recognized us and remembered our names. I LOVE the Filipino people and I love that when they learn we lived there we have instant friends. I guess it makes it half Pinoy.
For the afternoon we took a taxi up the mountain and through the island to a little beach named Magen's Bay. It was really pretty and its claim to fame is that it was in National Geographic. Ryan did a little snorkelling but didn't find all that much and I just layed down and relaxed on the beach for the first time since we started our vacation.

Riding The Hog in St. Martin

What a fun day. I loved St. Martin. I have enjoyed all our ports so far but mostly because of the fun excursions while we've been on the islands, I loved the island of St. Martin because it was something I haven't seen before. The other islands have been beautiful, green with nice clean waters but that's what we lived for 5 years. St. Martin was filled with cactus, it was more brown but still green, huge iguanas and countless sailboats. It was a new beauty and the perfect weather only added to it all.
We decided that we would rent a little scooter for the day and explore the island on our own. It was small enough that the rental company claimed you could tour the perimeter without any stops in just 1 1/2 hours so we figured we would have plenty of time to stop and play whenever we wanted.

We started in Philipsburg and headed in a counterclockwise direction. We knew that there were a few spots that we had to stop at but other then that we just drove. The roads were pretty good and other then the iguanas running out in front of us we didn't run into any problems. We did however witness another fellow scooter renter wipe out on his bike which was a little scary because he just laid there and wouldn't move. Finally I got off my bike because his friends weren't doing anything and asked if I could lift the bike off of his body for him. Finally while I was trying to lift this heavy bike off some dude his friends snapped out of it and came to help and we took off for the beach.

Our first beach stop was Orient Beach. It was long, with good waves and lots of people. People in clothes, people in swimsuits, people in half a swimsuit and people with nothing. I know you're not supposed to take pictures but that has never stopped me before so I snapped this cute couple all matchy matchy. I love them and I don't even know them.

After our stop at the beach we continued on our way stopping a couple times so I could take a few pictures with my camera. At one stop I walked up onto a platform to get a better view of a cove filled with sail boats and the trees started shaking like crazy. I was startled and confused wondering what I had stumbled across. I found a couple of huge iguanas running down the tree trunk and felt a flicker of satisfaction that at least I'm scary to something because my kids sure don't find my scary 'get to bed now or else' face all that scary.
One of our must see stops is that airport landing strip that borders the beach. I had personally never heard of it but Ryan had seen a couple different clips of it on YouTube so just had to see for ourselves how low these planes actually are when they pass the beach. Thankfully there was a warning sign because it's always nice to know when I might be endangering my life!

While we were driving through one of the little towns we noticed this big old rusted boat just off the beach. I have no idea why or how but it sure looked really cool.
We also stopped for a little bit when Ryans face got stung by a mystery bug. No fun at all, but the pit stop was really pretty. It was this massive white beach with our cruise ship sitting in the background. If it wasn't so smoking hot and my bum wasn't so numb from our drive I might have been in more of a swimming mood. Instead we just lingered a while before finding our way back to the ship to fill up on that wonderful buffet!

The Stingrays in Antigua

Every morning when we wake up we step outside onto our veranda and look at the island come into focus as we get closer to port. They have all had that pristine clear water contrasting with the green vegetation on the interior of the island and then these colourful houses lining their way up the hill. This morning everything seemed to be cleaner or more untouched. I'm not sure if it's because the other mornings have been over cast and today the sun was already hot and brightening everything up but I could not get over the colours of the water.
There is something really great to waking up in the morning and going to sit down on your own little balcony to experience something new in the warming sun with no where to rush off to... except the breakfast buffet. We eat breakfast looking outside onto the water and the new city we are about to explore.
Every day it seems we meet a few new couples and they are always really nice and have great stories to share. Maybe it's because we are all on vacation so who could be rude and cranky while on vacation or maybe it's just that nice people have been cruising all this time leaving the cranky people behind but either way it's been a lot of fun getting to know the people we've been travelling and enjoying the ride along with us.

What a fun day! This morning as we were coming into port we saw another ship following us and went up to our pool deck to take a good look at the competition. After we were finished sizing up the other ship we got off the boat and walked around the town for a little bit before our excursion was set to leave. It seemed that the taxi drivers were less pushy then normal and we figured it was because there was twice as many people to heckle and I welcomed the nice change.
We walked up towards to an old church and cemetery and explored the grounds. Unfortunately they were doing some renovations to the church so we couldn't go inside. It looked really amazing though with all the old tombs, stone walls and church towers.

I was so excited for our excursion today; swimming with stingrays. How fun does that sound? We took a shuttle through the island to this pretty little beach. It really looked better then a picture because it's impossible for a camera to capture it. While we were there waiting for direction on where to go we ran into our British friends who came over to tell us that the stingrays "were just brilliant." They loved it which made me even more excited to get out into the water and touch them! We divided up into boats and set off through super clear water in search of a sandbar.

After a short ride you could see this floating dock in the water. The boat pulled up and off we got with our snorkelling gear. We had been told that once you get into the water you shuffle through the sand so that your feet don't leave the ground because stepping on the stingrays tails would not be a good thing. They also said that if you want to get a picture you need to do it before you handle the squid because the stingray will be able to smell it on you and won't relax enough for you to handle it in your arms. Also we were to keep our thumbs tucked into our fist while holding the squid because they have huge suction power when sucking the squid out of your hands, hmmm, maybe I should be a little more nervous? Nah! The water was cold, of course, but it wasn't too deep at all. We first headed over to get a chance to hold the stingray. I guess Ryan wasn't too sure about having it in his arms so he played the role of camera man perfectly while I got my first touch of a stingray. Yea, it was pretty slimy and it was so relaxed it was like a dead weight in my arms.
From there we went to the guy handing out squid where he taught us how to old it in our hands and reminded me to tuck in my thumb. With squid in hand I went to meet Ryan and stuck that hand in the water and just stood there. Da da, da da, da da aaaaahhhhhhh. They just swim up from behind and brush past you with their slimy bodies and then all of a sudden this huge suction comes out of no where and the squid is gone. Seriously, if my thumb had not been tucked in, it may be inside it's tummy.

It took Ryan a little while to warm up to the idea of this Steve Irwin killer to eat from his hand but he did and it was awesome. If you ever get the chance to swim with stingrays, you need to do it.

After dinner tonight we went to the show in the ships theatre. It was an illusionist and he was fantastic and hilarious. I loved it and could have sat for a whole other hour watching him no problem. It was such a great ending to our fun day! His name was Jason Bishop and I would highly recommend clicking on his name and checking out his website.

St. Lucia and Zip Lines

Today we planned on going zip lining through the rain forests but it wasn't until the afternoon so that left us the morning to explore a little bit. We started walking into the city to find a little market and see what there was to offer. Thankfully it was overcast and looking like rain so I didn't have to worry about my poor burn. We soon found a little market with a bunch of shops and walked around for a while. After the market we found a taxi driver that was willing to take us up the mountain a bit and show us a little of the interior of the island. Off we went up the mountain until we reached a little wood carving shop where we had a tour and learned a little bit about the islands traditions. Unlike the market that seemed to have all the same things you find no matter where in the world you are, this little shop had unique carvings and trinkets I hadn't seen before. We left with a small stick off cocoa we can grate into some heated milk with cinnamon and nutmeg on a cold day.

Our taxi driver took us back into the city and let us out but not before telling us that if we ever needed any kind of smoke he was the one that could get it to us. I guess he has himself a little side line.
We made our way back to the boat and gorged ourselves again at the buffet. I would like to know why it is that when someone else makes me a sandwich it always tastes better then when I make it for myself. I am addicted to the deli sandwiches they make for you.
After lunch we headed by boat south to the town Soufriere. It was established by the french and they still have the little square in the town where the guillotine used to be. The boat ride was pretty with the view from the water and the rain clouds hanging out on the tops of the mountains.

From the boat we took vans up the mountain to where we would be zip lining. We all got hooked up with our cords, helmets and gloves before a quick safety pep talk and away we went. It was a series of about 8 lines which took us through the forest. I was amazed at the amount of bamboo I was seeing because I hadn't really noticed it being used anywhere unlike the Philippines where it seemed like almost anything was made out of Bamboo, the houses, fences, furniture, boats and more. My mouth was also watering at the amount of mangos that were hanging in the trees. If they weren't green I would have been tempted to do some crazy tarzan moves to swing up and grab a few, that and the fact that we aren't allowed to bring any food on or off the boat. Anyway, I'm not too sure how long it took us to get through all the zip lines because I was loving the views; the Piton Mountains, the ocean and the forest.

After we made our way back down the mountain to Soufriere where we waited for the boat to come and take us back to the ship. We walked a little while we waited meeting some little school kids walking home. I was actually able to use my very small retained french education to my advantage when I understood one of the cute little boys ask us how we were. I responded in french and got a big grin in return.

Ryan of course had to make friends with one of the locals who had become the town crazy. He told Ryan a little of the history of the town before Ryan asked if he could give Ryan his best Snoop Dogg impression.
Finally the boat came for us and we took off back towards Castries where our ship was at port. It seemed that Ryan and I were the only ones on this little boat who weren't there for the free rum and so we passed on the crazy dancing that was going on and just enjoyed the free show while watching the famous Piton Mountains escape our view.