just trippin'

Thought I'd try to add a new post with pictures of our trip. I wish I had better pictures, but , oh well....
This first one is a picture of the old Fort in Old San Juan-Puerto Rico. We were there only in the evening and had a walking tour which was really interesting. Lots of buildings dated to the 16 and 1700's. Interesting too was that almost every island we visited on this trip claimed that Christopher Columbus first stopped there so almost every one of them has a statue of him somewhere.

We were sad not to have more time in San Juan because it looked like a cool city, lots of interesting architecture.
This was the site of the last gate through the wall surrounding the old city. The wall was literally over 30 feet thick at the bottom, had lookout perches every so often around the perimeter and the door through here was huge and thick, and is inscribed 1742. Cool nails/bolts.


The streets were all cobblestones and quite rambling and hilly- we got a ride to the top of the one of the hills and then our tour walked down the streets to Columbus Square and from there we could walk to our ship.








This is the harbor in St Thomas. It was very beautiful , lots of sailboats and yachts in the harbor as well as 3 cruise ships that day. this was taken at sunset as we were about to leave.
On this island we took a cab to Coki Beach and Coral Gardens. Coral Gardens is a SeaWorld Wannabe. It has a shark,stingray, coral exhibit as well as a mini sea-lion show. Everything is pretty small and not in very good shape. There was an underwater observatory, but it only went down about 10 feet and there really wasn't much to see. I was glad we didn't pay for that excursion. ( it was one where they put the underwater helmets on you and then let you walk on the bottom.- rip-off)
If you can zoom in on this, this is the beach where we spent the afternoon. The picture is taken from the Coral Gardens side. With our admission to the Coral Gardens we could go in and out all day, and that's where the showers and restrooms were. The water was so warm and clear, the beach awesome, but lots of people, and it was a hot day. Some of us got sunburned-I did on the backs of my legs from snorkeling. The snorkeling wasn't fabulous- as in not lots to see, but there were fish and the water was clear and so warm. There were more fish near that rocky point. St Thomas was a nice island- not too poor, some good shopping it seemed- we didn't do any- and a nice port.
These were our waiters- Henry from the Philipines, if you need anything, call 1-800-Henry. and Armando from San Salvador. They were awesome and really took good care of us. Each night the waiters either sang or danced on top of the waiting tables. Henry was a pretty good dancer.




The next stop was the island of Antigua- pronounced "antiga" We took a tour here that took us to Lord Nelson's Marina- shown in the harbor of this picture ( bluish gray buildings) and Shirley Heights which was the high point of the island and had barracks, etc as these were defense and look out points to defend the harbor. The marina was where Lord Nelson repaired and housed his fleet. there was a little museum there and the original mooring "posts" or whatever they're called. From the lookout they could see in almost every direction so it was easy to defend the port. Just down below on the other side is Eric Clapton's house ( read sprawling estate on it's own point out over the water, no visible road in,) This island is much poorer and the tourism industry, even though their major income, is still pretty undeveloped. It didn't seem like there were very many resort hotels altho' they boast 362 beaches.