Back and Forth Across the Pond

The Arecibo Observatory is the world's largest radio telescope. It's located in the mountains near Arecibo, Puerto Rico, was is about a 90-minute drive from Isabela. The telescope was constructed in 1963 and is used in three primary fields of research: radio astronomy, radar astronomy, and atmospheric science. The site has been used in two movies: Contact , starring Jodie Foster, and Goldeneye , starring Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. It was also featured in an episode of X Files. Narrow, steep, and winding mountain roads are punctuated by settlement areas like this one. The road levels out and suddenly you're in a neighborhood. This house has a different type of window than the one I showed you in the earlier blog. Instead of a series of jalousie-type windows, it has rows of smaller windows.  Puerto Rico is not a rich country. Staying around the tourist areas belies that fact. But here in the mountains, it's easier to see. Unlike other radio tel...

It was my last Friday in Puerto Rico. I was washing my hands in the guest bathroom, a room we hardly used, when I heard a strange metallic scratching sound. I look out the window and see this: A bird was sitting on the metal hurricane shutters that bracketed the small window. It was robustly squawking, but did not fly away. I thought that was a bit strange. It kept looking at me, which was stranger still. Then it hopped down on to the window sill. I have never seen a bird be so brave before. After snapping this photos, I went back into the livingroom. When Steve got home an hour or so later, I went to see if the bird was still around the window, so I could show it to Steve. At first, I didn't see the bird. Then I looked around the shower curtain (the window is in the bath tub) and saw this: She had a nest! Now her weird behavior made sense. She was protecting her family! She hopped off the nest and I saw three little heads pop up, mouths agape. But I di...

There's no real theme to the photos in this blog post. They were just things that caught my eye. This tree is ubiquitous around the island. The photo doesn't do it justice because I snapped it from within a moving car on an overcast day. It's an African Tulip tree and the flowers are a bright orange. Another photo marred by being taken from within a car. The reflection from the windshield wreaked havoc. This is a big banyan tree that was on our route through Isabela. Not a lot of homes have air conditioning, apparently. The classic house style across the island features this louvered windows, much like the old jalousie windows prevalent in Florida before air conditioning. These windows make it possible to maximize the amount of breeze blowing through the house. Another example of the windows. A lot of the houses are elevated like this. Again, it's to make it easier to catch the breeze. Steve and I both had the same thought: This store,...

Steve is staying in the town of Isabela in northwestern Puerto Rico. Although the Spanish had been mucking about on the island since the early 16th Century, the first western settlement, called La Tuna, wasn't established until 1725. It was situated near the Guajataca River on the northwest coast. A church was built between 1725 and 1750,. The town eventually moved to its present location nearer the ocean and renamed Isabela. We visited the ruins of the church,  Ermita San Antonio de Padua de la Tuna , on a rainy Sunday. I didn't know that you had to make an appointment to actually get inside the grounds, so we had to content ourselves with looking at the site over the fence.  You can see where the walls have been reinforced. This is obviously a modern addition. After we finished our brief wander of the church site, we headed over to see the Guajataca Tunnel, a former railroad tunnel that connected Isabela to the town of Quebradillas. The American Railroad ...