We sailed into San Juan's harbor fairly soon after first light. There are several impressive forts that guard the large harbor, forts that I will need to return to as I didn't get a chance to explore them. Why? Well, we spent the day going to Arecibo.
A Coast Guard boat escorted us into and eventually out of the harbor. While the boat was there for our protection, we didn't feel very protected as the boat was no more than 20 feet long and had maybe 4 crew on board. We docked in Old San Juan, right next to the Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas. This ship is brand new and is their second megaship. It features a climbing wall behind the funnel and an indoor ice skating rink. This ship was huge - it's too large to fit through the Panama Canal. It towered several decks above us, and the Maasdam was not a small ship.
The Arecibo tour was set up by GeekCruises and included a bus ride to the site, a tour of the Bacardi distillery upon our return, and a pub crawl through Old San Juan. However, it didn't quite work out that way.
First off, we had to go present our passports to the Immigration fellows. While this was not a major problem for most of us, the folks in cabin 421 ignored repeated summons. We waited and we waited, eventually crammed into the stairways as we all waited for our chance to leave the ship. Finally, they found the couple from cabin 421, down near the head of the debarkation line. It's good there were ship's crew there, or the other passengers might have damaged them.
Once we got off the ship, we still had a long bus ride to the radiotelescope site - almost two hours each way. After we parked the bus, we had a walk up of several hundred feet to get to the visitor's center. The visitor's center was not terribly impressive, but the radiotelescope itself was.
The telescope's reflecting dish is built into a natural bowl in the limestone hills, and is 1000 feet across. The receiver and transmitter are hung from a platform, which is then hung from three towers via heavy cables. I had been told in advance that photographs would not show how truly huge this bowl is, and it's true. The only way to get a sense of the scale is to find a human somewhere - either out in the bowl or around the antennas suspended above it, and let their size be your guide. The radiotelescope was featured in the James Bond movies Diamonds Are Forever and GoldenEye, and Carl Sagan's movie Contact.
After the tour, we stopped at a buffet-style restaurant that apparently didn't know we were coming. By then, it was about 2 PM, so the lunch crowd was over and the dinner crowd had not arrived. We immediately ate all the food in the buffet, sending the cooks scrambling to fix more. The food was not exceptional - more like the Puerto Rico equivalent of a Country Buffet - but it was well-stocked with local favorites.
Due to all the delays, we didn't get back to San Juan until after the Bacardi factory closed. So, I now have a reason to go back as I was really looking forward to the tour. While the rest of the Lunatics crawled from pub to pub, Theresa and I went shopping for Bacardi - there are special versions you can get in the islands that never are imported to the states.
Copyright © 2008 by Dana Cline
Last updated on 7/8/2008
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