This morning we went on a walking tour of the old city, or San Jose, as Becky just can't seem to stop calling it. I'd always heard that Quebec city was the oldest walled city in north America, but San Juan is even older, dating from the 1500s. Perhaps San Juan doesn't count as North America even though it's a US territory.
The walls surround the old city and there are plenty of these sentry boxes which are sort of unofficial symbol of Puerto Rico
Despite the fact that we started our walking tour at 7.45am (and believe me, it was hard to get up that early after being in the road for 36 hours without sleeping to get here) it was already 28C. (83F) by the time we finished the short tour and got back to the ship.
Right now the festival of St Sebastián is going on, which is the final celebration of the Puerto Rican Christmas. Yes you heard me right - it's the third weekend of January and it's only now that Christmas is over for them. They used to say they had the longest Christmas in the world but had to stop because the Philippines has a longer one. The Philippines Christmas covers all the months that end in ber. So they start celebrating at the beginning of September and don't finish until the end of December.
San juan also boasts 4 castles. We saw 2 from outside and then took a tour around a third before heading back to the ship.
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