Puerto Rico

Jan 11-13, 2019
UA704 IAH-EWR, UA1523 EWR-SJC, UA668 SJC-IAH

For 2019 I had decided that I was going to complete visiting our 100th country and the Caribbean is rife with relatively accessible opportunities. Although Puerto Rico is an American territory, the country tracker that I use counts it and other territories as separate countries, which is good enough for me. Puerto Rico was ravaged by Hurricane Irma and then Maria in 2017, and sadly was still recovering a year and a half later. We just had two days and one night on the island, which was enough to explore San Juan and take a ride out of the city.

Jan 12

After meeting and staying overnight by Newark Airport, we had an early morning flight to San Juan that gave us enough time to pick up a rental car, check into the hotel and spend the afternoon exploring the capital.

Some of the remaining hurricane damage along the San Juan waterfront

Walking along the beach to Old San Juan in the distance

Checking out the well camouflaged local creatures

Another gecko not quite so hidden

San Juan School of Tropical Medicine founded in 1926 under auspices of Columbia University

Puerto Rico Capital building

Statue of John the Baptist in Plaza San Juan Bautista across from the Capital

Another perspective on the impressive Capitol building

Exploring 1783 Castillo de San Cristobal

Carvings in the fort walls

Looking back on the Capitol and the modern city from the fortress

Colourful old San Jaun and looking out to Castillo San Felipe del Morro

Looking across the old town to the Port and Cruise Terminal… thankfully without cruise ships.

Cannon Balls in the fortress

One of the many turrets on Castillo San Critobal

Even more impressive Castillo San Felipe del Mooro citadel protecting San Juan Bay

Looking back up the coast to the old town and San Cristobal

Totem Telurico square in old San Juan

Statue of Juan Ponce de Leon, the first governor of PR, before discovering Florida in a search for the fountain of youth

Colourful houses of Old San Juan

Local signage

After completing our exploration of the old town, we grabbed an Uber back to our hotel and dinner nearby, capping off a nice first day in Puerto Rico.

Jan 13

With an afternoon flight back home, we headed out early in our rental car to explore some of the area around the island. Although Puerto Rico is a relatively small island, we definitely didn’t have time to explore the whole island, so focused on the area around the very impressive Arecibo Observatory, a very significant radio telescope, the largest in the world, featured in a number of movies.

The 362’ tallest statue in NA and the highest structure in Puerto Rico is the 2017 Birth of the New World (Christopher Columbus) Statue. Built with an expectation of further development, it is mostly just standing alone today

Checking out one of the north coast beaches SW of San Juan

Arecibo observatory tower, holding up the main receivers above the massive dish. Arecibo is most famous for being featured in the 1997 Jodie Foster movie, Contact

Some of the electronics of the observatory don’t appear to have had significant upgrades since the opening in 1963

More of the computer room

Control console

The modern control room where the experiments are executed and controlled from after being created often remotely

Decent perspective of giant 20 acre Gregorian Dome that concentrates signals in the receiver

Close up on the electronics. Unfortunately some of the main antennas were damaged during the recent hurricanes. The gang planks were featured in the James Bond film, GoldenEye

One last perspective on the dish

One of the original antennas now on display at the museum

After grabbing lunch, we made our way to the airport for our afternoon flight back to Houston where Tom stayed overnight before making his own way back to Toronto. Officially capping off our visit to Country #91 on our way to 100.