Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Old San Juan is the town on a small islet that’s connected to the north mainland or Puerto Rico and guards the port of San Juan. It was of great strategic importance to the Spanish because it was the doorway for the gold, silver, jewels and treasures they brought to Spain from Central and South America. Naturally it was attractive to English, French and Dutch governments as well as pirates, so the Spanish built some fortifications. We visited Castillo de San Felipe del Morro or El Morro. Morro means promontory In Spanish.

The fortifications were started in 1539, 20 years after the first Spanish settlements, and were used by various militaries until the US Army handed over the forts of Old San Juan to the National Park Service in 1961.

Drake attacked El Morro in 1595 but was unsuccessful and lost his friend Hawkins in the encounter, and the only time the fort was ever taken was in 1598 by the Duke of Cumberland who held it for about 6 weeks until dysentery beat him.

The entrance to the harbour is really quite narrow and looks absolutely treacherous in the force 5/6 we had the day we visited. There’s a small island opposite El Morro which was also fortified and ships just didn’t have a prayer of avoiding the cannon cross fire made possible by the two forts. It was a very effective fort and very impressive. Six levels taking it from sea level to 44 metres high; immensely thick walls – 6 metres thick and apparently constructed in the early years with a “soft” interior to absorb cannon impact; narrow walkways to impossibly suspended sentry boxes called garitas and huge cannons covering over 180o round.

We had a great time exploring this site and you can see the pics in the slideshow called Old San Juan.