Puerto Rico Day 3 Salsa dancing Old San Juan

PUERTO RICO

DAY 3 - OLD SAN JUAN

Old San Juan is just about 15 minutes away from Isla Verde. Today we drove to El Morro, that amazing structure that I think most people have seen at least in a picture, and the emblem on the current Puerto Rican license plate. El Morro is solid and massive, but even though in a larger scale, it still has obvious similarities to the Catholic Missions in Southern California - the same Spaniard handwork. The view of the ocean from the top is gorgeous.

The streets of Old San Juan are right outside El Morro. Old San Juan is absolutely the tourist area. This is where the cruise ships dock and let their hundreds of passengers out to shop and walk about. Here is where one sees folks wearing the tourist stereotypical uniform: flower shirts, khaki pants and huge cameras hanging from their necks. This is also a very good place to buy trinkets - maracas, t-shirts, shot glasses, cigars, you name it, they have it all. Old San Juan is not as authentic as the places we went to yesterday, but it still has its charms... the shops by the water edge, the guys playing chess at the park, and faithful Puerto Rico: another beautiful rain shower in the afternoon.

We returned to El Morro around 6 pm after walking around Old San Juan. The Puerto Rican Department of Tourism has a show at El Morro's plaza every Monday at 6 pm called Festival Le Lo Lai. The ballet group 'Areito' performs a series of dances, with the intention of explaining the origin of the music of Puerto Rico. The program turned out to be quite informative and, at the end, funny, since David was picked by one of the dancers to go up on stage to participate.

For purposes of remembering, and in the simplest of ways, this is how they said it goes: the Spaniards brought their dances to Puerto Rico, and those dances evolved a bit when combined with the local population. When the Blacks arrived, they did their own dancing outside of the sugar plantations. Their dances are known today as Bomba. In bomba, the drummer plays as the dancer requests. The women indicate to the drummer the beat they want using the movement of their skirts. The men do the same by the movement of their arms and feet. One develops a respect for the drummer while watching this go on! Following the requests of a bomba dancer is hard work. From the fusion of bomba and the dances of the Spaniards, came Plena, a softer type of dance. I have a video of the performance of each of these types of dance.

Night time: There seems to be no club open for Salsa on Mondays in Puerto Rico. El Gran Combo was supposed to be at Hotel El San Juan, but it was a private event, a prom in fact. I was THIS close from going in, pretending I was somebody's mom or something, but nah.... we settled for a couple beers at a bar, facing the ocean, just two blocks away from our hotel. How cool it is to find a jukebox with all Salsa choices!

Random thoughts: Bugs 1 - Dena 0. It got ridiculous. We went for insect repellent and itch stopping gel today. :( It's having such sweet blood so wrong? ? ? / I'm disappointed on YouTube - sooo slow to load my videos!

INSIDE EL MORRO

this is a wall in the dungeon of El Morro. Someone awaiting death drew on the wall centuries ago.

THE STREETS OF OLD SAN JUAN

CAT

CALLE LUNA, CALLE SOL :)

FESTIVAL LE LO LAI INSIDE EL MORRO

BOMBA

PLENA

FREAKY LIZARDS

ALL THE MEDALLAS WE'VE DRANK