El Morro

The first stop on our walking tour of Old San Juan was El Morro, one of the forts built by the Spanish to guard the port of San Juan. It sits on a promontory on the north side of the bay, at the end of the islet separating the bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Starting in the 1500s, the construction was spread out over 250 years in fits and starts, mostly spurred by assaults by the English or Dutch that highlighted shortcomings in the existing design. Nowadays it is a museum, with exhibits showing what life was like in the fort, its construction, and its place in history.

When you approach the fort from the city you see a long esplanade (the walkway is something like 400 yards long) with the citadel at the edge of the bluff:

I don't know how well you can tell from the photo, but it was extremely windy here along the ocean (it's pretty windy pretty much every day on the north side of Puerto Rico, at least this time of year). You can see that a bit better in this picture of the three of us just outside the fort looking east along the coast:

As we were walking from the parking garage to El Morro Steph noticed that something in the diaper bag (which has become her purse/backpack/all-purpose carryall) was making everything around it sticky. It turns out she'd put a lollipop from the last visit to the pediatrician (almost 2 months ago) in one of the outside pockets, and when we got soaked on our rain forest hike yesterday the wrapper had dissolved. Now the lollipop was melting through the fabric, which necessitated our first stop in the fort be at the bathroom to do some cleanup. It turns out this was not so bad, though, as the El Morro bathrooms have possibly the best bathroom view ever:

We walked as much of the self-guided tour of the fort as we could without taking any stairs, which fortunately was a good bit owing to ramps connecting most of the upper levels. These ramps were built so the garrison could move cannon from place to place easily, but they also worked quite well for a stroller. After risking losing our hats to the wind on the top level and working our way through the historical exhibits ringing the main plaza it was time for Evan's first lunch (now that he's eating solid food as well as breast milk Evan doubles up on all meals, plus an afternoon snack), so Steph found a quiet bench where she could breastfeed him. The main plaza may not be the best breastfeeding view ever, but it's not too shabby: