Day two dawns bright and beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky when we awake. But we know better than to trust the skies, the forecast is calling for storms on and off all day, so we know to be prepared. We’re up too early – as usual – and have to cool our heels before we can go down to breakfast at 7. We’ve got a microwave in the room, and instant coffee, but sadly no mugs – so we are trying to patiently wait for breakfast to get our caffeine fix.
Finally downstairs, we hand in our breakfast order (boiled eggs and wheat toast) and fill up our mugs with….clear water and a few coffee grounds? Houston, we have a problem. After successfully pointing and using my pathetic Spanish with the breakfast lady, she figures out there is an issue and takes the coffee urn away. We still have a carafe of hot water though, so I run up and get the instant coffee. Success. We share our spoils with another guest, who actually was on the Jewel with us as well, and the three of us sip our java in companionable silence.
Since we don’t know El Morro will be open today, we have opted to visit the other huge fortification, Castillo San Cristobal, at the edge of Old San Juan. It’s an easy walk of maybe 20 minutes, through the quiet old city streets. Relatively quiet that is – with all the sounds of construction around us. But that is the sound of progress, and any progress made here is a reason to celebrate and ignore the noise.
Arriving in the courtyard of the Castille, the view couldn’t be lovelier. The crystal blue waters, the old Garita jutting out over the coastline and the weather beaten outer walls of the fortress.
You really have to keep reminding yourself this fortress was built to protect El Morro and the city from land attack – which sounds strange since we are surrounded by water – but troops could come in from the east and attack the city.
After reading the incredibly informative signage, we walk up the long sloped entryway to the Castille. As we approach the top, we hear lots of hollering and laughing, and just general whooping it up. Sounds like a fun bunch! Turns out, this is the first day the Castille has opened since the hurricane. And we are the very first visitors! How exciting! We meet Milagros, the National Park Ranger at the front gate, who gives us a run down of all the activities planned for the day. She’s so excited to be back working and open today – it’s totally infectious. We met the social media manager, Pamela, who takes our picture and tells us she’s going to post it on their Facebook page (PS, she hasn’t yet!). We chat with her for a long time, talking about the hurricane, its aftermath and the preparations to reopen the historic site, what they all have been doing for the last 2 months (lots of training and cross training). Finally parting ways, we start to explore the Castille, which we have all to ourselves.
We start in the courtyard area, which contains the chapel where they held religious services, and then move up to the main firing battery area. This place is huge. And we end up wandering up top to all the view points and artillery lookouts for at least an hour. We’ll let the pictures do the talking here…
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