The visitors center had a tram that shuttled people to and from the caves with a guide. They had both spanish and english guides, and so we opted for the english guide. The tram took us down a steep hill, which we later found out was part of an ancient crater, and took us to the entrance to the Camuy Cave. What was interesting was that there was plenty of green vegetation surrounding the cave, but as soon as it got dark inside, it was only rock formations and water. Certain areas were lit up so that it would be possible for us to follow the path. The entrance of the cave system did not really foretell the expanse of the cave network. It seemed like just as we passed one rock formation, there was brand new section of the cave opened up for us. Bats also lived in this cave, and we were lucky enough to not get attacked by bats, but our noses were introduced to the smell of bat poop, and that was not pleasant at all. Not sure why you would want to live amid the smell of your own poop, but I suppose that's what bats like.
These are pictures of the caves...Amy and I didn't take any pictures because we figured that they wouldn't come out very well because of the low lighting. So we left it all up to the professionals =)
Entrance to the cave
Pathway network in the cave
The next part of our tour was go to the Arecibo radio telescope observatory. This radio telescope was featured in the movies Goldeneye and Contact. What was amazing was how big this thing was. Apparently it is as big as ten football fields and about 150ft. tall from the center to the top edge. They replace the thousands of panels once every 5 years, and it takes 1 year to go through all of them. Someone has to wear special shoes to walk around on the panels, and the laser guidance systems tell them how to align the panels. The person can't weigh more than 120lbs, or something like that. Anyway, the big antenna and dome thing rotates according to where they want to look in the atmosphere, and while we were there they were spinning that thing around for whatever reason. In any case, it was amazing to see how it was all being supported with wires attached to 3 towers. Crazy...again...Amy B and I were lame and we didn't take pictures. So here again I am relying on professional photos from the internet.
The central dome thing that rotates depending on what part of the sky they are capturing
The entire radio telescope...it's huge!
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