I have been thinking a lot lately about how much I have been missing out on the rest of the island, we decided to drop some dough on a rental car and see it all.  First on the agenda was to see the Camuy caves, but due to all of the rain and flooding we have been getting lately, that was not going to happen.

(When we got there the lady at the front desk said “I am sorry the caves are closed due to the rain, but the sinkhole is open!” Ooo a sink hole, like I am going to pay the full admission price to see a hole in the ground. we will come back when its not flooding)

We had to drive through many of these giant puddles and apparently there was a severe weather warning issued by weather.com  for flooding. Last time we rented a car it rained the whole time we had it. I think the rental car gods are against us.

We drive 50 or so miles to peep these caves and they are closed? On our way back we had a glimmer of hope when noticing a small sign that said Arecibo Observatory this way. I don’t think I have ever been to a observatory, but I wasn’t expecting much. Probably just a big telescope, and they weren’t kidding. Big is a understatement, this thing is massive, the largest radio single aperture telescope in the world.

While taking the 500 steps needed to get to the top of the thing, there were many signs saying things like “almost there” and “bathrooms this way” all with 7up advertisements underneath them. When finally reaching the actual telescope I asked one of the lovely curators if 7up was a major contributor “apparently” she says to me. Not to proud of it eh?

The 1,000 ton dish is made of 38,778 aluminum panels that is held up by these 39 cables (1 foot of 1 cable weighs 66 pounds). With a combined cable length of about 4 miles. Each cable strung between the tower and the dish weigh about 10 tons.

I was a little disappointed not to see actual pictures from this giant telescope, or some of the actual finds from this beast.  Thats alright the telescope it self was amazing to look at, and must have been a feat in and of itself lugging all of the metal up a mountain in the middle of bfe.