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2/19/2015 Thursday

San Juan PR
Arrive 1pm Depart 11pm

Owen visited here in 1960 on the submarine Seadragon on her shakedown cruise. The place will certainly have changed. We’ve signed up to take the Rain Forest trip to El Junque (4.5 hrs). After our return and dinner we may stroll the waterfront.

20150219 San Juan PR PhotoLink

Up late again so we rose late and had a light breakfast and watched as we cruised along the island. The pilot boat came out and put him aboard, then we entered the harbor and tied up at Pier 4 West, across from Carnival Splendor.

After the ship had cleared, we went onto the pier and joined our tour group. The driver/director came along and loaded us into a 20-person mini-bus and away we went through the San Juan traffic. I didn’t particularly like the way she drove (get in the fast lane and stay there while others passed us on the right). But perhaps she had a reason. We started climbing and after a bit entered the El Yunque Rainforest, a National Forest. We stopped for 45 minutes at the visitors center to look around, then went up the hill to a “cascada” she called a waterfall. We took a bunch of pictures and got a little rain on us, but this is the dry season so it’s not as bad as the days they get five inches of it.

We turned around and went off on a side road to look at a river. She described what the river looks like in the wet season; sometimes a flash flood. D took many flower pictures. As we left the park we saw evidence of road washout and flooding, so it must happen.

We got back to the ship rather more quickly than I thought we would give it was rush hour. But all the traffic was going out and we were going in. She dropped us at the pier. The other two ships had left already.

Informal dining struck us as the thing to do, so we did the Lido Restaurant. The chateaubriand was good with roast potatoes and I splurged with chocolate cake.

It’s now 7pm and there are things to do. More later.