Our Grand Adventure

11th-13th February 2026 | Puerto Rico

We needed a really good break from the marina and boat work – so we booked ourselves a couple of nights in Old San Juan. This is a beautiful area of the San Juan city with gorgeous old buildings set amongst cobbled streets. Two enormous forts and old fortifications surround the peninsula giving it the feeling of having stepped back in time.

The drive to Old San Juan took us a couple of hours from the marina, and on the way we finally got the chance to buy some wing foiling gear for Ryan! We have been trying to buy this since Grenada so it was so satisfying to finally find a shop which had all we needed! Fabio – you can stop nagging us now!!!

Heading into Old San Juan itself was pretty hectic – the traffic is crazy and there are people everywhere! There were four cruise ships in the port and the tourists burst forth in a torrent of people, selfies, and wandering into traffic. It’s like disembarking a cruise ship means your brain has melted and you have no idea what a road is any more. So many people with near misses wandering onto the street for a photo of a pretty building haha. Thankfully all the streets in the Old Town proper are one way! After battling through the crowds, we finally parked the car and were relieved we could just walk the rest of the way to the hotel!

After checking in, we wandered around the area a bit before meeting up with a food tasting walking tour I had booked for that evening. The tour guide was great, giving us loads of info about the area; but mostly we enjoyed trying a heap of different foods and flavours. Some of the favourites were more mofongo, a ceviche and a delicious croissant and coffee. No regrets on this tour except that it rained intermittently the whole time – meaning our ice cream on the lookout was more like a shivery cold ice cream under a balcony overhang getting cold haha.

The architecture is so very colonial Spanish, with beautiful townhouses abutting one another; painted in a variety of colours. Old, poorly maintained buildings are situated right next to beautiful, bright facades, draped in greenery and life. I love cosy little streets like these and probably took way too many photos of the houses and the area. Some streets have enormous trees which shade the whole area delightfully and we stumbled across a tiny little town park which felt like a true green paradise in the center.

The cobbled streets lend an air of antiquity to the place, but beware, the silvery topped ones are super slippery! The silvery ones were originally swarf metal blocks used as ships’ ballast when they transited from England empty, then unloaded here as cobblestones. The ships then filled up on goods like sugar, coffee and chocolate and headed back the other way.

There were strange statues of cats crossed with giraffes all over the city which Ryan took an instant liking to. Apparently they represent all the cats which came on the ships, and how they absorbed what they saw as they traversed the world – supposedly having seen giraffes in Africa is why they have long necks haha.

Puerto Rico literally means Rich Port, and you can see the historical impact of the shipping industry all over the area, and primarily in the two massive forts, and surrouding fortifications all over the city. The naval importance of this island for many centuries can’t be overstated.

We explored both forts, but unfortunately with the constant rain and showers it was pretty cold and wet for most of it. When we finally went and changed into warmer things, the sun came out and baked us. Oh well, that’s the way it goes!

The forts themselves are awesome. Having been built, maintained and upgraded over several centuries the architecture is super interesting. Lower levels nearer the sea are old school, with very archaic styles of lookouts and wall crenellations. Then, as the centuries march on, the newer styles sit higher up the cliffs creating dramatic, steep walled edges and giving amazing views in all directions.

In early February, the ship “Defiant” was being towed into the port when the tow lines snapped and the ship was washed up on the rocks at the base of the fort. We had been hearing many updates about this on the VHF from the US Coast Guard as we had been navigating the waters around Puerto Rico, but seeing the ship on the rocks really brought home how dangerous the seas can get on the windward side of the island. We were very glad to have been safely in the marina when that storm had blown through! Even a week or two after, the swells were massive and seeing that enormous barge rolling as the waves crested the surrounding breakwater was mesmerising.

Thankfully no one was hurt when it happened and they have been able to slowly extract the fuel out of the ship to ensure it won’t spill into the ocean. There are plans to eventually re-float and remove the ship so hopefully it’s not left as a lingering wreck for years to come.

One of the unexpected highlights of Old San Juan for me was coming across the house of Felisa Rincon de Gautier. I knew nothing about her, but we enjoyed a pleasant hour or so walking through the museum about her – what an impressive lady! A businesswoman who launched clothing factories and several other retail ventures, she fought for raising living standards of impoverished Puerto Ricans. She was a well known suffragist, and was the fifth woman to officially register to vote, later becoming the first woman to be elected as mayor of a capital city in the Americas. I could write pages about this lady – she was so interesting, an ambassador who travelled the world, and a real trailblazer for women in industry.

After a day of exploring we stopped for sundowners at a gorgeous rooftop bar and watched the little nippers learn to sail wayyyy out in the ocean. That is some brave kids I think! No way would you get me out there in those tiny little boats amongst the massive swells.

After two nights in San Juan, we were well and truly touristed out and headed into the countryside to explore. Once you are off the main motorways you find yourself amongst verdant greenery – with humanity barely seeming to hold back the thick, jungle canopy along the roads we travelled, winding up through the mountains.

We made our way to Charco Los Morones to see some petroglyphs there, but found ourselves enamoured of the beautiful river, and gorgeous cascades. The rocks have been worn smooth and into strange shapes as the water tumbles down a narrow gorge. It was a bit of a challenging scramble down from the roadside, hanging onto roots and rocks to navigate our way down to the water quite a ways below, but well worth it once we were there.

Our next stop was a Coffee Hacienda to see the traditional methods of processing the coffee and cocoa beans grown on the farm. The best part of this was the water driven mill and grinding equipment were all kept in working order, with sluice gates used throughout to direct the water diverted from a nearby waterfall through the various pieces of machinery. This was such a cool spot and we spent quite a lot of time tracking all the different water routes through the system.

Eventually, it was time to head back to the boat, and feeling pretty tired after all our exploring navigated our way along the southern coastline of Puerto Rico and back to the Palmas Del Mar marina.