Traveling Home

Well, all good things must come to an end as did this wonderful experience in the Spanish Virgin Islands. The first ferry off the island was at 6:30am. We wanted to have as much time as possible to visit Old San Juan and we wanted a good parking place to leave the Suzuki so we were there just before 6 o'clock. The ride back to the big island was much smoother and thankfully, nobody got sick.

Once in Fajardo, we had a short wait for a car to pick us up. The place was a mad-house with hundreds of Puerto Ricans headed to a long weekend on either Culebra or Vieques so the show was quite enough to entertain. Once we were on our own, we headed straight for food. I had seen a Duncan Donuts a few miles back so we headed there and finished off a dozen donuts in no time. I only add this mundane detail because while there, we ran into soccer friends from back home. Isn't it a small world.

The drive to Old San Juan from Fajardo was easy. I didn't even break out the GPS. I had spent most of the evening beforehand, looking into the layout of the town so I was able to drive straight to parking which I had heard was a problem.

Our parking place put us at the start of the Paseo de la Princesa. This picture was taken looking north along the wall toward El Morro. One of the famous garitos is in the background. It was definitely a hot day in Old San Juan. We wanted to explore it but time didn't permit. We caught a quick lunch at Cafe Mallorca, a restaurant famous for sprinkling powdered sugar on just about everything, including the burgers we had.

Getting through customs at SJU was an experience. Everything in this area moves at a slow pace. Then, Miami, probably the ugliest, worst laid-out airport ever, was way backed up due to weather and we sat on a taxiway for an hour and a half. Unfortunately, our connecting flight was delayed and we didn't reduce our 2 and 1/2 hour layover in MIA. Did I mention it's the nastiest major airport I've seen? The delays also meant we got home over an hour later than planned. Thanks again to Katie who went by the house, picked up the van and met us at the airport.