The flights back from Houston didn’t work out sequentially so we had to overnight in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  It turned into a happy little city break in a fab little hotel, El Convento,  that we had “bought” with Natwest Points so that it felt like “free”.  It was indeed a charming, converted convent opposite the Cathedral in old Saint Juan with impeccable service and super friendly staff. 

We stepped out of the front door and could be at any of the many sights within a sun baked stroll.  The sights seemed mainly to be the two forts where we diligently read all the notices and received a very broad history of the last 500 years.  We could not believe that poor old English Cumberland had seized the place from the Spanish, in the territorial fighting that seems to form that period of history in the New World, only to have to give it up 10 days later because they all had dysentery.  He must have been sick as a parrot! 

The “should have been fascinating” museum that took the history back to 3000 BC was disappointing but clearly demonstrated the European clean sweep of the Caribbean and all its indigenous inhabitants, after years of peaceful cohabitation with nature, into the complex over population, unemployment and drug culture that now racks this area.  And the poor old Spanish just lost the whole lot to the US over the last `hundred or so years.

We tried the Puerto Rico speciality foods of mofongo and empanidillas that had developed from native plants, Spanish influence and slave cooking and seemed to include a lot of hot spices, garlic and frying in corn oil which weighed exceptionally heavily in the heat.  I tasted the home made pepper sauce provided by a Puerto Rican restaurant and it blew my mind – even hotter than Houston’s Vietnamese experience!

What we will remember most of Old San Juan is: the blue brick roads and yellow and blue kerbs, the gaily painted Spanish style houses, giant plant pots everywhere instead of gardens and the absolute invasion of pussy cats.

A lovely, if brief, visit.