San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2009

I choose to begin with an entry on San Juan for two reasons. First, there are some spectacular examples of Spanish colonial architecture there that are well maintained by the National Park Service. Second, these were the first pictures I came to when I started looking through old albums.

I was in San Juan last fall for the annual convention of the American Society for Theatre Research. I was part of a working group to promote the study and performance of Spanish Golden Age plays. The convention was held in an extremely expensive hotel on the beach, so I stayed at the Comfort Inn down the road. It was still easy walking distance to the beach, and this is one my first views:

It's a little hard to see, but that is the Fortín de San Gerónimo del Boquerón jutting out beneath the Hilton. I naturally needed a closer look, so I dragged my roommate along for a walk.

Unfortunately the fort was closed that day. I managed to get my camera through the bars and snap a few pictures, but it was already getting dark. Here is a close-up from the side:

I was of course sorely disappointed that I wasn't able to go in and explore the fort, but my tour of Old San Juan a few days later more than made up for it. Our session at the convention was on Friday afternoon, so I was free to spend all of Saturday exploring. There is a city bus that runs regularly from Condado to Old San Juan, so my roommate and I jumped on it first thing that morning. It was easy to know when to get off; all we had to do was follow the rest of the tourists. From the bus stop it is a short walk to the entrance of Old San Juan, which is abundantly marked.

I had the the not-so-bright idea of walking down the path that runs around the base of Fort San Felipe del Morro. It's not that it wasn't a pleasant place to walk, it's just that it wasn't a pleasant place to walk at 10:00-11:00 in the morning. That's when the Caribbean sun beats down upon it mercilessly. What's more, the path comes to a dead end, so you have to do it all again in reverse. It was not the best day to forget water.

As you can see, though, the views were pretty spectacular, as long as you don't mind all the cats.

The most frustrating thing about starting the day on the pathway was that there was no way to get into the fort itself to explore.

We did eventually make it back to the entrance to Old San Juan, located at the beginning of the pathway. It is a charming and touristy area, but I preferred to head straight to the fort entrance. I was not disappointed. It was the kind of place that made me feel like a ten-year-old boy again. After all, there were cannons.

El Morro is full of stairs. The views are fantastic in every direction, although it is a little crowded. There is an air conditioned theater that shows a 15-minute documentary on the fort's history. It sort of glosses over the part about the American conquest of the island during the Spanish American War, but was otherwise informative. One of the most exciting parts of El Morro is that it gives such a sense of every-day life for the soldiers stationed there throughout its long colonial history. It's a little hard to see, but there are laundry basins inside of the tunnels pictured below.

Near El Morro can be found the San José Church, which dates back to the sixteenth century. I guess we sort of stumbled upon it by accident, because it is not particularly imposing from the outside.

Exploring the inside of this church was both exciting and heart-wrenching at the same time. There are marvelous works of art from the Renaissance and Baroque, such as this sculpture from 14th-century Aragón.

But, on the other hand, the church is in the middle of undergoing a restoration process that seems to be moving at a snail's pace.

All of the scaffolding and lack of lighting makes the church a little unattractive for now. I hope to go back when it is finished. Perhaps there would be more impetus to complete the work if Ponce de León were still buried here, but apparently his remains have been moved, leaving only this monument:

El Morro is actually just one part in a system of San Juan's colonial defenses. On the other side of Old San Juan is Fort San Cristóbal. While El Morro protected the entrance to the harbor from pirate ships, San Cristóbal protected El Morro from land attacks. The Park Service leads a fascinating tour in which they explain the never-penetrated Spanish defense systems. Here is what land invaders would have seen (if they had somehow gotten past Fort San Gerónimo back at Condado and the fan of cannons immediately behind the camera).

As you can see, any poor fool running across this open plain would have been an easy target for the fort's defenders. Even if they did manage to get across, the only entrance from this side would have been through underground tunnels, which were pre-rigged with explosives so that the defenders could collapse individual sections.

The Spaniards were not the only ones who used San Cristóbal for defense. Here is a picture of a lookout tower built onto the original fortifications by the U.S. Army during World War II.

The inside of San Cristóbal has lots of museum exhibits showing typical uniforms and weapons used by soldiers from various time periods:

I suppose another reason to start my blog with an entry on Puerto Rico is that it was very much the gateway to all of the other Spanish colonies. Charles V considered it the key to the New World's treasure chest. I consider its historic sites to be the true treasure.