Day 9 - The Best of San Juan

Day nine was spent exploring and experiencing the best San Juan has to offer – a bit of culture, a bit of shopping, some local cuisine, and a night of dancing, dancing, and dancing!

We started with some culture in Old San Juan at the Castillo de San Cristobal.  The massive castle, built between 1634 and 1783, sits atop a cliff in Old San Juan with gorgeous 360 degree ocean and city views.  The castle has amazing history as you can imagine and it’s in terrific condition for how old it is and for the amount of wear and tear it has been through.

Mo outside San Cristobal.  Mo likes flags

The main entry walk to the castle

Castle corridors

Mo pondering life while overlooking Old San Juan

Open sesame!

The view looking east from the roof of the castle

The view looking west from the roof of the castle

There were lots of tunnels and hidden passages throughout the castle

Lauren making one of her six daily bathroom breaks... 

Lauren made one too many bathroom stops so we locked her up in the dungeon

Next, we walked the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan and bounced in and out of souvenir, clothing, and arts & crafts stores.  We stopped at Barrachina, the restaurant that claims to have invented the pina colada.  

The architecture and design of Old San Juan is filled with color

Mas color en Old San Juan

Garrett outside Barrachina, the home of the original pina colada

"If you like pina coladas..."

Slowly our shopping turned into a hunt for a new pair of shoes for Lauren, which as you can imagine was not a simple or concise excursion.  The search eventually led us to the most American of all traditions, a massive shopping mall called Plaza Americas.  We figured “When in Rome” so for lunch, we raided the mall’s food court and had Taco Bell, Sbarro, and Subway.

Lauren leading the shoe-hunt expedition

Shopping malls in San Juan are just as large and confusing as they are back home

After we completed our shoe search, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our big night out.  For dinner, we went to Plaza del Mercado de Sancturce, aka, La Placita.  It was a short walk from the hotel (that was made longer by our street choices) and you could hear the lively bars and people from blocks away.  There were numerous restaurants to choose from and we settled into Café de la Plaza because it was centralized, had lots of people, and it was serving local Puerto Rican cuisine.  Speaking of local food, Garrett and I each ordered mofongo, a plantain mash with olive oil and garlic that is topped with some sort of meat, in our case we had chicken in creole sauce. 

Dining at Cafe de la Plaza in La Placita

Mofongo topped with chicken in creole sauce

We finished up dinner and hopped into a cab to CLUB BRAVA inside the luxurious El San Juan Hotel.  We knew the dress code at Brava was strict but we only had our tennis shoes so we had our fingers crossed that they’d let us in…not so much!  We got stone cold denied.  We were about to change our plans when we were directed to a local boutique inside the hotel where we were able to buy reasonably priced dress shoes.  The club and the boutique had a racket going because along with us, there were several other guys buying collared shirts in order to get into the club...they were in cahoots!  None the less, our plans were back on track.

Me gusta tus zapatos

Shiny shiny shoes!

Brava was slow at first which was concerning considering the extent of what we had just gone through to get in.  Fortunately, it started to pack up around midnight and lots of dancing, mingling, and boozing followed.  We headed out around 4:30am, stopped for a bite to eat, did some last minute dancing in the cab home, and wrapped the night up around 5:30am. 

Garrett got things going with his air accordion rendition

The club started to pack up around midnight and it didn't stop until 5am

Matt made a couple new friends - Yari and Janid...

Apparently, Matt's new friends were taken so he got bullied by this gentleman who was twice the size of a normal human

Garrett fist pumping all night long

With the late night (or early morning), day 10 is going to be a lazy beach day…can’t wait!