We had to return the rental car in the morning but had some time to spare before catching the ferry back to the big island. We had seen this fort sitting over Isabella II. Posters showed a sample of the photograph exhibit contained in the fort's museum and rumor had it the view alone was worth the hike, so we trekked up the hill, past trees covered in flowers and fruit and the occasional chicken or rooster. You couldn't starve to death on Vieques if you tried.

Other yard displays were a bit more disturbing...

 

The museum had an exhibition of photographs from Cuba that were gorgeous, as well as some pre-Columbian artifacts, early Spanish artifacts, and a cute little gift shop. But the real deal is the view.

The fort is the last Spanish one to be built in this hemisphere, and it wasn't even finished. It spent much of its life as a jail. "Ghetto paradise" indeed! Check out the view.  (Note: some browsers automatically resize the image to fit the window. Hold the cursor over the window until a zoom box appears in the lower right corner. Click it then use the scroll bar for a much bigger picture!)

We wandered back down the hill, past the Catholic church mid-service where a strange gray dog kept watch at the door. We had passed the locals' bar many times, Bar Plaza, right on the plaza, as you might have guessed. The place is small, just a bar and pool table, but even at 9 AM on a Sunday there were already locals drinking beer there - my kind of place. As we still had time to spare, we stopped in for a cold beer for the road.

Crap, do we really have to go?

We got our tickets and I picked up a serving of pinchos, basically shish kabob, at a stand across the street. This particular flavor was barbecue chicken - delicious and 1/4 the price of Duffy's.

As the ferry pulled out, we turned and looked back at Al's Mar Azul Bar, and our hotel room balcony next door.