P.R. November 2005

Page 10 - Arecibo Radiotelescope

Getting close to time for me to leave.

Another weirdly north wind day, with maybe shoulder high sets and I said, “The hell with this, I’m gonna drive to Arecibo and go look at that gigantic radiotelescope they have over there.

In case you didn’t know, up in the hills near the town of Arecibo, there’s a natural depression in the countryside that has permitted us humans to construct a radio transmitter/receiver dish that’s a thousand feet across, nestled down in the fortuitously-shaped basin in which it’s located. Saved a shitload of money on not having to DIG a specially shaped thousand foot hole in the ground. They just strung the thing up on support stands in the hollow, built three gigantic pylons around it to string cables that support a secondary feed horn far above the dish, flipped the switch and they’re in business.

I recall reading somewhere that this fricking rig is so sensitive as a receiver, and so powerful as a transmitter, that a pair of these things could communicate with each other across the width of our galaxy! Of course, a hundred thousand year one-way time delay in signal transmission/receipt, might make for a pretty boring wait for an answer to your “hello.”

Amazing machine, no matter how you cut it, and I’ve wanted to see it ever since I was a little kid and first learned that they were building it.

So ok, the waves are (relatively) junky, and it’s a beautiful day, so here I go.

No plans, no nothing, just jump in the rent-a-car and go.

I’ll figure the sonofabitch out when I get there.

Through Aguada, Aguadilla, and este-bound we go on route 2.

Tra la la.

Coming up on the beginning of the Autopista and I say, “Screw that, I ain’t gonna pay no toll,” and I stay on 2, into the depths of Arecibo.

Which turns out to be a much larger version of Rincon, or most any other town down here. Streets, cars, buildings, and people, all thrown together in a delightful stew.

Don’t take but a minute for me to, once again, become lost.

A half hour of heavy traffic on 2, which apparently is the main drag hereabouts, with no indication of any goddamned radiotelescope anywhere to be found, and I bail out and pull over in front of a paint store of all weird places.

Go inside and, “Habla englais?”

“Poco.”

Ok, that’s enough for me, let’s try it.

And I inquire as to the whereabouts of the “observatorio” and the three people in there (two behind a counter and one customer) immediately jump in on trying to help me. Fortunately they know the English word for “left” and I know the español word for right (derecho) and we all kind of laughingly attempt to get this damnfool gringo sorted out and on his way.

And of course it works like a charm.

Have I mentioned that the people down here are just INCREDIBLY nice?

I smile and thank them one and all, and go across and left back on 2 for three traffic lights este, and then take a derecho and then another derecho, and there I am, smack dab on 129 sur (if you’re keeping track at home you’ll know that este plus a pair of derechos equals oeste, but the road bends around to the left, southbound, soon enough and all is well), just like I’m supposed to be. In the middle of a fair sized town I’ve never laid eyes on in my life.

God I love this place!

And the fun hasn’t even begun yet.

The observatorio is way the hell and gone up in the hills, a good bit south of town.

And I let 129 take me merrily sur, until a large sign informs me that I need to turn left if I want to stay on the road to the Big Dish.

Which I do.

And then it gets interesting.

Eastbound on a narrow street, past homes and shops, and a noonday recess or something at a school that swarms with uniformed children. Around and down the little road winds, and I’m wondering where it’s taking me.

My friends in the paint store assured me that the road would tell me where to go, and I trust them, but damned if I know where I’m going right now.

And I discover that around these parts, they don’t bother to tell you when you’re STAYING on the right road. You get a sign at an intersection telling you which way to turn, and then you get NOTHING until a requirement for another turn, at another intersection, presents itself.

It’s a bit disconcerting, to say the least.

You’re rolling along and along and along, and then the thought creeps up on you that maybe you missed one of those little signs somewhere? Or maybe the local hooligans have vandalized it and it’s not there anymore? Or something?

But you can’t know, so you just keep winding along on your chosen road, hoping that you’re not going further and further offtrack into the wilds.

And it’s starting to get pretty wild out there, too.

We’re entering some serious back country, on a little bitty ribbon of asphalt, hardly wide enough for one car, nevermind two, and seriously pockmarked here and there along the way.

No thruway this.

Out the windows of the car, you might expect to see Tarzan come swinging by on a vine.

It’s a serious rainforest out here now, and the terrain has gone crazy with a bewildering array of cliffs, hills, depressions, and all manner of vertical psychosis. It seems to have no pattern, rhyme, or reason. Everywhere else I’ve been, the rough country is at least somewhat organized with ridgelines, mountain crests, valleys, and other erosional features that connect together and make at least a LITTLE sense. Not here. It’s just all horsed up and the land seems to rise and fall vigorously, completely without regard to anything surrounding it. Weird as hell, and VERY disorienting. I’m going to need to learn the geology of this place, no doubt about it.

Up. Down. Around. Back. Forth. Down. Up. Up. Down. Left. Right. Left. RightRight. Downup. HereThere. Endlessly winding along through a dense green forest that would do a tyrannosaurus proud as a homestead.

Screw the fucking radiotelescope, the drive alone is worth the price of admission.

Little did I know the prescience of my thoughts.

Finally, after what seems like forever on a lost road through a lost world, one of the enormous pylons becomes visible a couple of ridgelines over.

Way cool, we’re getting there at last.

And oh yeah, one other note. No matter how far out into the wild green yonder we’re going, there’s people’s houses ALL OVER THE PLACE. A lot of them. All clinging to the insane vertical relief of the area like they were glued on or something.

What the hell are all these people DOING out here?

I see NOTHING by way of any indication at all of an income producing infrastructure of any kind. No farms. No stores. No warehouses. No nothing. Just all these small houses, lining the roadside and extending up into the hills here and there.

It’s a serious jungle out there, but I’m pretty sure they’re not all growing dope or something either. Place has to wrong look to it for that kind of shenanigans.

Dunno. Whatever it is that they’re doing out here, they’re certainly HERE, that’s for sure.

And no, a thousand foot dish antenna can’t support a population this dense either.

Is the whole island carpeted with people this way?

Some day I’m going to take the five years it would require, and find out for myself.

Back country PR is a whole ‘nother thing.

I like it a LOT.

So ok, we’re finally here at the front gate. And gate it is, ‘cause we’ve reentered the world of high tech high security.

No fooling around steel gate that rolls open and closed, with a bulletproof guardshack on one side. This setup would fit right in out at Cape Canaveral. Maybe a dozen nearby parking spots and another anonymous little concrete building and that’s it. The road on the other side of the gate promptly disappears around a sharp corner.

In the distance, two cycloptic support pylons (damn things are HUNDREDS of feet high) are visible along with some serious cabling strung over to an equally cycloptic triangular trusswork steel frame that supports the feed horn secondary antenna, which dangles downward like a malevolent stinger.

And all of it looming over a Jurassic Park foreground like something out of a cheap Japanese science fiction move.

Weird looking. Very VERY weird looking.

So ok, up to the the guard shack we go and the guard is just as nice as can be as he informs me that the MOTHERFUCKER IS CLOSED TODAY!!!! It’s closed on Monday and Tuesday, and today is Tuesday, like it or not.

Well shit fuck piss cuss hell damn!

Guess I shouldda called first?

Probably.

Oh well, it’s entirely my own damn fault and there’s nobody around to point a finger at except little old me.

Phoo.

The guard is kindness personified, but there’s no mistaking that I’m not getting in to this thing today. He kindly hands me a pamphlet that describes the place, and, significantly, also provides a fairly detailed map for successfully making it back to civilization.

No telling who or what might observing me from hidden locations, and I’m not in a mood to find out, either.

Well ok then, it’s a good thing that the drive alone was worth the price of admission, eh?

Guess I’ll take it again, going the other way.

Bye.