First stop...Old San Juan

Nina cartwheeling outside El Morro/San Felipe Fort

Alex, Arwen, Rachel, Nina and Toby

 

We arrived in San Juan Christmas Eve at around 9p.m..  Stepping out of the airport into the humid air was delicious.  The highways leading from the airport to our hostel were as well-maintained as any roads you would drive on the mainland U.S. and edged in manicured landscape of lawn and palm trees.  Posado San Francisco, in one of Old San Juan’s oldest buildings, was the girls’ first hostel experience.  Because we had two rooms with double beds at either end of a hallway, I bunked with Toby and Justin with Nina.  Being Toby’s bedmate was sweet.  She would scootch over to me in the night and snuggle up, then lie quietly in the morning until I woke up, at which time she would kiss me on the lips over and over.  The hostel itself was clean and ideally-located, if a little dismal. 

The next day, having celebrated a Cauntay Christmas on December 22, I kept commenting, sincerely, “what’s the deal with all the Christmas stuff?  Christmas is over.”  (It had been remarkably easy to designate a random day for celebration and actually feel it was authentic.)  There were Christmas lights wrapped around trees and statues in the town squares, carolers and musicians parading through the streets.  We even saw a man on a motorcycle covered from hat to wheel-well in multi-colored lights.

We met up with Arwen, a colleague of Justin from his days doing massage in Rockridge, and her husband, Alex, who had traveled from New Orleans to vacation.  The architecture and colors of Old San Juan were lovely, as was wandering the city with Nina, our arms around each other.  The old city was completely surrounded by stone walls, forts and sprawling lawns (which prevented attacks by marauders but made for ample cartwheeling space) with stunning views over the ocean.  Toby rode Alex’s shoulders as much as possible. 

By the time we left the city for Grenada after two full days, I was ready to leave behind the hot, grimy, city where it was difficult to make any progress down sidewalks overrun by cruise-ship-tourists.  Justin and I were exhausted from travel and sightseeing and sitting in restaurants for long meals with our kids (south of Florida, an hour and a half minimum from the time you sit down to the time you manage to get someone to bring you a check).  Boarding our plane to Grenada was when our real adventure felt like it had begun.