Time for an update by now. I guess you guys haven't seen a lot of pictures of Puerto Rico so there we go for another joyful ride. 

San Juan is actually a really beautiful colonial city. San Juan is the second city that has been founded by the Spanish colonists after, right, Santo Domingo. It's really nice walking around in the colonial zone as it's very well preserved and the houses are all lively coloured. The colonial zone in Santo Domingo is nice as well but you can definitely see the difference in the countries' welfares. (ok, might get mugged now when I head back to Santo Domingo)

The fountain is not colonial but it's just the best idea a city with an average temperature of about 30 degrees can have. I almost joined the children. 

Two of the main attractions are the city's former defensive fortalezas (squeeking in some spanish lessons here). I visited both fortaleza San Cristobal and fortaleza San Felipe del Morro with a couchsurfing friend and my colleague/roommate. I forgot that ervery now and then a camera's batteries, no matter how good they are, actually need to be recharged so all pictures are taken with manuel's cell... You'll have to take my word for it that they're woth the visit. This beautiful shot I found online but don't tell them.  

The Spanish conquistadores (Spanish lesson #2) started building el Morro in 1539 to defend San Juan. In 1595 Francis Drake attacked El Morro but, as simple as effective, the Spanish shot a cannon ball through the ship's main cabin. 

A few years later, the English attacked again and they succeeded. This time they were smart enough to go over land but then again not smart enough to not let all of their troops be weakened by dysenterie so they had to leave Puerto Rico again after 6 weeks. Quite an embarassing event for the English, I guess. 

30 years laters our lovely friends, the Dutch, gave it a go. El Morro didn't fall but the Dutch did burn down the city. The Spanish remained master of the island untill in 1898 the Americans kicked them out, making Puerto Rico US Commonwealth. The US used the fort as a military base untill 1961 and that's when it became a Historic site. 

I'm also getting remarks that I'm never in my own pictures so there we go. The proof that I actually do visit these places. 

We parked our car in the first fort we visited and walked (once again,this is seen as an unnatural act in the carribean) to the other one where they threw us out at closing time. Walking back to our parking we found this.... Yep, that's our car way back there... Luckily there was still someone there and a "we're sorry, we're stupid tourists but we love your city so much" made everything ok.