Caribbean

March 29 – April 7, 2013

 

Map


Ying and I flew from Atlanta Georgia to San Juan, Puerto Rico a few days after our tennis finals in Chattanooga.  We traveled from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Spirit Airways and discovered at the last moment that if we paid for our baggage online, they would only charge us $140 in fees ($40 for checked bags and $35 for carry-on bags) instead of $400 at the gate.  It will be a long time before I fly Spirit again.

 

In Ft. Lauderdale we changed planes to JetBlue and arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico at 5:30PM.  We had made reservations at the Embassy Suites which was only 2.4 miles from the airport, but for some reason cost $15 by taxi to get there.  This is Spring Break so the hotel is crowded with kids and the atrium style building where the free happy hour is held every night amplifies the noise considerably.  We got a pizza and took it back to our room for dinner.

 

It was raining Saturday, but cleared up somewhat in the afternoon so we walked down to the beach for a while.  The beach was very nice, but it was windy so we returned to our hotel pool and relaxed in the hot tub.  We ate dinner at the Outback Steakhouse within our hotel and watched a movie in the evening.

 

On Easter Sunday, we went to Old San Juan for a historical tour.   After the tour operator realized they had forgotten to pick us up at our hotel, they sent a car to pick us up and we joined the tour a half-hour late at the Capital Building.  The Capital was closed for the holiday, but we saw it from the outside and heard about the enormous amount of marble which was imported to construct the building.  There was also a row statues depicting every US President who has visited Puerto Rico, including Obama.

 

Next we spent a couple of hours visiting the San Cristobal Castle,  one of two forts in San Juan which was originally built by the Spanish and has been periodically updated, most recently by the US military in WWII.  The fort offered some excellent views of San Juan.  The bus then dropped us off at the eastern side of Old Town San Juan and we were free to spend the next several hours shopping and exploring the streets.   There were two cruise ships in port, so although it continued to rain on and off, most of the restaurants and shops were packed.  We ate at Silo XX which purportedly has the best paella in town.  At 3:30PM we dashed through the pouring rain to the bus which took us back to our hotel.

 

Monday the rain cleared.  We walked over to the beach and had lunch on the patio of the InterContinental Hotel.  Ying made an appointment to return tomorrow to spend some time at their spa.  In the afternoon, I went to the casino at the Embassy Suites and won $1600 on a nickel slot machine, most of which I gave back before dinner.

 

Tuesday was another nice day and the forecast has improved for the balance of the week.  We spent the day at the beach, pool and casino.  Wednesday we checked-out and then took a 17-minute JetBlue flight to St. John USVI where we checked into the Windward Passage Hotel at Charlotte Amalie for the next three nights.  This hotel is average at best, but after we upgraded to a room overlooking the water, it improved substantially.  We walked through the town as the shops were closing.  The town clearly caters to ships and there are anywhere from 2-7 cruise ships in port every day.  When the ships depart in the late afternoon and the tourists are gone, most shops close.   We ate dinner at a place called the Hook, Line & Sinker at the marina and enjoyed an excellent meal.

 

On our second day in St. Thomas, we planned to take the free hotel shuttle across the island to Magens Bay Beach.   Since we were the only two people scheduled for the shuttle this day, the shuttle cancelled and we had to take a taxi…for which the hotel paid.  The trip took us up over the mountain range in the middle of the island where we had great views of the harbors.  Magens Bay is a beautiful beach with white sand and calm water.  We rented beach chairs and snorkeling equipment and staked out an area about mid-way on the beach.  Probably ninety percent of the several hundred people at the beach are from various cruise ships, in port for the day.  Although I used plenty of sun block, I got quite a burn during our four hour stay.  Every so often, about 50 years offshore, schools of fish would start jumping out of the water, attracting pelicans that would swoop in and eat their fill.  The snorkeling was not too good as the bottom was pure sand.

 

We took a group taxi back to our hotel where I went to our fresh water pool and Ying went shopping.  For dinner, we met at The Greenhouse, an open air restaurant on the main street, overlooking the bay.  We had a very nice meal and then walked back to our hotel.

 

Our room overlooks the bay and every hour a commercial seaplane either lands or takes off for one of the neighboring islands.  The sound of the propeller engines is very loud.  On Friday we decided we would take the seaplane over to St. Croix for the day.  We left at 9:00AM on the 20 minute flight.  With 15 passengers the plane is full.  We took-off into the harbor and quickly rose up and over the cruise ships leveling off at only about 500 feet.  Our landing, or more aptly splash-down, was in the harbor of Christiansted and we quickly departed the plane right into the main downtown area.  Although now a tourist destination, the US Virgin Islands were originally known as the Danish West Indies with principal products of sugar and cotton.  It is still early when we arrive and there are not too many people on the streets.  We see several tour groups, however, and I think they are all speaking Danish.  After walking around the town for a while, we took a ferry over to Protestant Cay, an island in the harbor where we at lunch at the Harbormaster Beach Club and spent a few hours on the beach.  At 3:00PM we returned to the town, shopped for souvenirs, had a drink at a local bar overlooking the harbor, then flew back to St. Thomas at 5:00PM.  For dinner we returned to The Greenhouse where Ying had local lobster.

 

Saturday morning we left St. Thomas, flying back to San Juan where we connected to a flight to Ft. Lauderdale.  We spent the night in Ft. Lauderdale at a Comfort Inn near the airport and will leave Sunday morning.  Ying will return home to California and I will fly up to Washington, DC, take the train to Harper’s Ferry, WV and then on Monday continue south on The Appalachian Trail.

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