1797 British Invasion of San Juan, Revisited

‘San Juan 1797 Puerto Rico 2012’ IS a must see!
People from all over the world come for this 3 day event.

If you can schedule your cruise ship trip around it, you will get to witness something truly unique.  Over 60 participants were dressed in period costumes.

Big kids, little kids, everyone loves it!

The re-enactment is performed annually, by the Regimiento Fijo de Puerto Rico… staged on the grounds of El Morro, Fort San Cristobal and the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan.  The US National Parks Service provides support for the event as well.  I covered that in great detail last year.

The Regiment has a most excellent Website with both Spanish and English content.  When they post a new schedule, you can find it there.  The local group was host to re-enactors from Poland this year.  Yes, Poland!  A friend of mine in San Juan is from Poland.  He got a chance to chat and visit with his fellow countrymen.  Cool.

For re-enactors, San Juan is considered the ‘trip of a lifetime’.

Battle of San Juan, 1797-  The Brits’ 3rd attempt..

The British had tried to take San Juan in 1595 and again, 3 years later in 1598.  It took them 199 years to come back and try one last time.  The Dutch also tried to take San Juan in 1625 as mentioned in the Isla de Cabras post.

On April 18, 1797, the British Royal Navy with the help of German troops, disembarked 6,000 men for a march on San Juan.  Though the British offered surrender to the Spanish Governor of Puerto Rico, Ramón de Castro, he refused.  After facing constant resistance from several directions, the Brits and Germans ceased their attack on April 30th, retreating to their ships.  The British armada left San Juan on May 2, 1797.  A much more detailed description of the event can be found on the Spanish Regiment’s Page and on Wikipedia.

In 1898, the US entered Puerto Rico via the South side of the island and won it from Spain without ever having to confront San Juan.  How smart was that?

2012 Activities-

This year’s activities took place on April 27th, 28th and 29th.

Since I like to try to avoid the crowds whenever I can, we went on Friday, the 27th.  Friday was a full schedule, so there was lots of opportunity for images.

The weather was overcast, but comfortable, with a strong breeze on the grounds of El Morro.

OK… it’s always windy there.

Kite flying is very popular.  In fact, if you take your kite flying seriously, I would bring a ‘fav’ and have someone take your pic, flying it.

In my last post about Isla de Cabras, I have a very large, very wide view taken of El Morro from across the bay.  You can make out several kites in that shot.

The key events we wanted to shoot were not until about 6PM.

On Friday, exhibition performances on the grounds of El Morro were at 10:30AM and 2:30PM, each lasting a couple of hours.

With that being the case, we made it into Old San Juan about 3PM.  We chose to park down near the La Princesa where there is a very large, semi secure parking lot.  OK… it had a fence, but several unattended places to go through it.

The game plan was to walk Paseo de la Princesa starting at the Fuente Raíces, the ‘Roots Fountain’ and on around to the San Juan Gate where a small dock is located, then up Calle Las Monjas to the grounds of El Morro.  We paused up above the San Juan Gate near the monument ‘La Rogativa’ for a wide shot of the dock below.

The dock is where most folks go to get that killer shot of the old fort wall with sentry box lookout.  This classic view of El Morro is featured on many postcards.

This same dock will be part of the activities scheduled for later on.

We made it to the area dedicated to the re-enactment exhibition about 3:30PM… just in time to see them fire off several cannon.  I managed to get one shot of a cannon being discharged.  Quite the bark!  In fact, there were several more cannon on display than the last time I was here.  Most impressive.  All told, they discharged cannon 8 or 9 times while we were there.

I also got to meet José Lopez, the flag bearer of the group.  He also manages their Website.  He gave me the rundown for Friday’s activities and the route through town, they would be taking later.

After working the area for more shots, we walked over to the Cuartel de Ballajá where the march down to Plaza de las Armas was to start.  I got great shots of the Polish Regiment and the Spanish drummers from here.

We walked on down to Plaza de las Armas via the planned route and was able to catch a few shots of the plaza before the sun set.   On the walk down, I shot a few buildings I had not seen before.

I badly need to come back and spend 3 or 4 days, just shooting in ‘Old Town’.

The old City Hall (Alcaldia) is located on Plaza de las Armas.  There is a beautiful water fountain with several statues around it, as well as a large formal gazebo for making presentations.  Something the Polish troops would be doing in a couple more hours.

Since we still had about 40 minutes before the march was to happen, we took a break to grab a bite to eat.  There is a local coffee vendor on the plaza and a few fast food shops around the edges.  We chose Wendy’s… it was only OK.  It was food… what can I say.

From there, we went back to the spot I had staked out for shots of the troops as they marched by, but close enough to the Plaza de las Armas to run back there for more shots.  It worked out well, even though they were an hour late… the sun had pretty much set by then.

Seems they had some trouble securing horses for the cavalry.

We did not stick around for the actual presentation since I wanted to catch them when they marched on down through the San Juan Gate to the dock where they were going to stage a second presentation.  On the dash down, I paused long enough to get shots of a street musician and a bride and groom going the other way.

Old San Juan, the local color and the forts are a photographer’s dream come true.

We went back to the overlook point we shot from earlier in the day and waited for them.  It was pitch black out… the one good shot I have is courtesy of me First Mate.  She done good.  I did not get the shot… it happens.  After that, we made our way down and through the San Juan Gate again, to where there were more street lights to shoot by.

At the conclusion of this last presentation, the Spanish and Polish troops marched down Paseo de la Princesa to the Chamber of Commerce building for refreshments before the final march back up Del Cristo Street.

We were dead tired at this point so we headed for the car instead of the Chamber of Commerce.  Maybe next time.

Now that I’ve seen Old San Juan at night, I have a good idea on how to prep for it.

Correction: Parking was NOT a small fortune as I previously reported.  The 5.5 hours cost $2.50 plus tax, Not $20 bucks!  So parking was very reasonable.  Apologies for my mistake.  We will use this parking lot again.

It was after 9:30PM by the time we hit home.

What a fabulous day!!!

New Camera Update:  As mentioned in the previous post about Isla de Cabras, I’m still getting used to my new camera, a Sony NEX-7.  This post is a mix of images from it and my old Sony A100.  The low-light capability of the NEX-7 is quite good…  I would have never got some of the shots I did, without it.  Seems there is a special ‘Hand-Held Twilight’ mode I need to try.  In about a month, I plan to do a detailed post about it’s strengths and weaknesses.

Much has been written lately about this new ‘disruptive’ approach to digital photography.

As Always, much larger photos can be seen over on Roberto’s Puerto Rico Facebook Page.  There are 21 shots, some of which did not make it to this post.