Paseo Del Morro, A Beautiful Walk In Old San Juan But…

It all starts here, at the entrance to San Juan Gate.

Yes­ter­day morn­ing I went for a walk in Old San Juan with my wife and a friend. I had received a press release from the Nation­al Park Ser­vice announc­ing the inau­gu­ra­tion of the first stretch of the “‘The Paseo Del Mor­ro’, a Nation­al­ly Des­ig­nat­ed Trail, des­ig­nat­ed in 2001 and inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized, which aims to con­nect nat­ur­al, cul­tur­al and his­toric areas of the com­mu­ni­ties of Old San Juan, La Per­la and Puer­ta de Tier­ra”.

Thou­sands of mas­sive boul­ders pro­tect the wall foun­da­tion and serve as the base for the walk­way. Click on image to see it larger.

At 10:00am there was an inau­gur­al cer­e­mo­ny with the Major of San Juan Car­men Yulín Cruz, Nation­al Park Ser­vice Super­in­ten­dent Wal­ter J. Chavez and oth­er state dig­ni­taries. Of course, we weren’t invit­ed to that cer­e­mo­ny, and frankly I did­n’t care. All I want­ed was to walk the stretch, make some pic­tures and draw my own con­clu­sions like any reg­u­lar tourist would.

The “Paseo Del Mor­ro” starts at San Juan Gate and extends to the base of Fort San Felipe Del Mor­ro. Accord­ing to the Nation­al Park Ser­vice’s press release the walk­way will even­tu­al­ly go all around the old city and end at ‘“La Prince­sa Bas­tion at Castil­lo San Cristo­bal’ across from the Capi­tol build­ing’. In its present state the walk­way is a lit­tle under a mile long. So, accord­ing to my cal­cu­la­tions, the fin­ished ver­sion should be some­where around 3 miles long.

The “Paseo del Mor­ro” is beau­ti­ful and baron. Click on image to see it larger.

So what is exact­ly the “Paseo Del Mor­ro” and why is it there? Well, when the Span­ish colo­nial gov­ern­ment built the city walls their objec­tive was strict­ly mil­i­tary. The main con­cern was keep­ing the ene­my out. To that end the walls end­ed at the water line. How­ev­er, if they would have remained that way ero­sion would have destroyed them a long time ago.

To pro­tect the walls the U.S Nation­al Park Ser­vice has slow­ly but steadi­ly been deposit­ing thou­sands of black vol­canic boul­ders adja­cent to the wall base that serve both as a break­wa­ter that pro­tects the foun­da­tion of the walls from ero­sion and as the base for the “Paseo Del Mor­ro”. The result has been an ample and beau­ti­ful walk­way that also assures that the San Juan Walls will actu­al­ly be there for the enjoy­ment of future generations.

From the “Paseo Del Mor­ro” you can see Fort San Juan de La Cruz “El Cañue­lo” across the bay and the old lep­er hos­pi­tal. Both of these struc­tures are in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Cataño about 10 miles west of the San Juan Metro­plex. And if you real­ly want to see a stun­ning view of Fort San Felipe del Mor­ro that’s the place to see it from.

Check out the rock for­ma­tions under the fort. Click on image to see it larger.

Anoth­er inter­est­ing fea­ture is when you arrive at the fort itself. Notice the mas­sive stone upon which the fort is built. These Span­ish engi­neers real­ly knew there stuff.

And here’s a piece of triv­ia for you. Did you know that the orig­i­nal fort that was going to be com­mis­sioned to pro­tect the entrance to San Juan Bay was “La For­t­aleza” (present­ly known as San­ta Catali­na Palace)? That’s right. But some­one dropped the ball and built the place too far in, where it was­n’t effec­tive at all. So I guess you could say that the present gov­er­nor’s man­sion was a mis­take from the beginning.

The walk took about 30 min­utes at a slow pace. And it was hot… real­ly hot!!! The blis­ter­ing Caribbean sun, and the fact that there isn’t a sin­gle shade along the way, marred what would have oth­er­wise been a won­der­ful trek. I can’t imag­ine what walk­ing the entire three miles will be like when the walk­way is com­plet­ed. So my advise —if you’re plan­ning to walk the “Paseo Del Mor­ro”— is to wear light clothes, com­fort­able shoes and bring lots of water. An umbrel­la would­n’t hurt either.

So, in clos­ing, the “Paseo Del Mor­ro” is a great idea that’s miss­ing just one thing: SHADE!!! If they would only install some umbrel­las along the stone bench­es or plant some trees along the side of the walk­way it would be perfect.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2014,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590

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