El Castillo de
San Cristobal
This fort was completed in 1678 to
stave off land attacks on San Juan. Two Irishmen Alejandro O'Reilly and
Tomas O'Daly, employed by the Spanish Army, designed the system of battlements
and sub-forts. The first shot of the Spanish-American War was fired from
San Cristobal's walls.
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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A sentry box overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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A tourist exploring a sentry box. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Looking toward Old San Juan from El Castillo de San Cristobal. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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High walls protecting the path to a sentry box. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Top level of San Cristobal. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Early day prison graffitti in San Cristobal. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Detail on cannon. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Looking towards Old San Juan. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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The Devil's sentry box. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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Cannons from the fort. The first four show the dangers of using cannons - they have exploded before firing. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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A quiet moment after climbing the ramps. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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A cannon overlooking the inner harbor of San Juan. |
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El Castillo de San Cristobal |
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An iguana scaring tourists on their way out of the fort. |
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Old San Juan
The oldest of American cities has
iron streets, cobbled from adoquines, or blocks of slag from the lowland
smelting mills of Spain's 16th century empire. The stones were brought
over as ballast for their ships. It has two of the most invulnerable forts
ever constructed, which are connected by walls that circle a peninsula.
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Old San Juan Building |
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Building along the walk from San Cristobal to El Morro. |
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Old San Juan Building |
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Building along the walk from San Cristobal to El Morro. |
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Old San Juan |
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Walking along Calle de Cristo from El Morro to Plaza Colon. |
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Old San Juan |
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San Juan Cathedral. |
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Old San Juan |
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Detail of builing on Calle Luna |
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Castillo de San Felipe
del Morro
This, the larger of the city's two
forts, commands San Juan Bay with six levels of gun emplacements and walls that
tower 140 feet over the Atlantic. It's guns were capable of aiming at any
ship with El Morro's field of vision, no matter the distance, and the walls
themselves, connected with the system that encircles Old San Juan, are 20 feet
thick. The fort's first battery was begun in the 1540s and the fort completed
in 1589. When Sir Francis Drake attacked in 1595 he was roundly repulsed.
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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A look up Calle del Morro towards the fort at the end of the penisula. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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Main battery. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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Sentry box. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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Isolated duty for the sentry. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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The main courtyard of the fort. The flags are from left to right, the flag of the Spanish Army, Puerto Rico, and USA. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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The field between the fort and Old San Juan. |
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Castillo de San Felipe Del Morro |
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Another sentry box. |
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Bacardi Rum Plant
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Bacardi Rum Plant |
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This distillery has a capacity of 100,000 gallons a day and is the largest rum distillery in the world. |
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Neighborhoods
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Rincon, Puerto Rico |
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Rincon is on the West coast of Puerto Rico. Typical street. Always very crowded. |
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Entrance of El Yunque |
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Tried to get a picture of the guy trotting his horse across a major intersection. Instead I got a Puerto Rico new and old. |
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El Yunque Rainforest
The only tropical administered by the
U.S. Forest Service. There is 28,000 acres of mountain at the highest part
of Sierra de Luquillo. El Yunque gets about 240 inches of rain each year.
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El Yunque Rainforest |
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A local gets a shower from La Cocoa Falls. |
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El Yunque Rainforest |
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La Cocoa Falls. |
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Hotel Room Views
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Isla Verde Courtyard Marriott |
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View from our room looking East along the beach. |
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Isla Verde Courtyard Marriott |
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Isla Verde Courtyard Marriott |
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