What a beautiful place Puerto Rico is. Puerto Rico is our very favorite Caribbean island bar none.  We really enjoyed Puerto Rico the first time we visited so we went back a year later and spent a week traveling all around and through Puerto Rico.  The people were friendly, warm and eager to help in any way they could. 

We stayed at a five star hotel right on the pier where the cruise ships come and go.  The hotel was within walking distance to Old San Juan so we navigated the cobblestone streets and ate rice and red beans for breakfast, lunch and supper, and visited the ubiquitous plazas  that seem to pop-up in the strangest of places.  It was great. We rented a car and drove the wheels off of it. 

I used to come to Puerto Rico when I was in the United States Air Force.  Ramey Air Force Base is a former United States Air Force base near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Now it's used as a small on-site Air Force detachment, and occasional operations by the Puerto Rico Air National Guard, a portion of the former Air Force Base is operated by the United States Coast Guard as Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen. There is also civilian general aviation use of the airfield, now known as Rafael Hernandez International Airport) . 

Roosevelt Roads Naval Station is a former United States military air base in the town of Ceiba, Puerto Rico. The site is run today as José Aponte de la Torre Airport, a public use airport. these were the two most often visited site's we flew into.  Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station is where we landed during the Dominican Republic pro-Bosch revolt that broke out in April, 1965.  Our aircraft (left) brought the Army's 82d Airborne Division and other elements of the XVIIIth Airborne Corps in Operation Powerpack into Roosevelt Roads and then onto the Dominican Republic where we put an end to the uprising.  Good times!

Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") is composed of an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area of the Greater Antilles. It, however, ranks third in population among that group of four islands, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica.

The first thing you see when steaming into San Juan Harbor is the Castillo de San Cristóbal, (left) a Spanish fort. It was built by Spain to protect against land based attacks on the city of San Juan. It is part of San Juan National Historic Site.

Castillo de San Cristóbal is the largest fortification built by the Spanish in the New World. When it was finished in 1783, it covered about 27 acres of land and basically wrapped around the city of San Juan. Entry to the city was sealed by San Cristóbal's double gates. After close to one hundred years of relative peace in the area, part of the fortification (about a third) was demolished in 1897 to help ease the flow of traffic in and out of the walled city.

This fortress was built on a hill originally known as the Cerro de la Horca or the Cerro del Quemadero, which was changed to Cerro de San Cristóbal in celebration of the Spanish victories ejecting English and Dutch interlopers from the island of this name in the Lesser Antilles, then forming part of the insular territorial glacis of Puerto Rico.

This view is from the top of the fort looking back at El Moro (right). Looking directly down you can observe the point which is called the Devil's Guerite.  Its called that for good reason as many a ship has run aground on the point. When we last were there, there was a freighter that had run aground during a violent storm.  I have no clue as to how they were going to remove that ship (it was large).