Carlsbad Cavern.
I need to start this first of all by saying, today was one of the best experiences of my life! We entered Carlsbad, New Mexico after about 10/11 of driving through expansive and beautiful landscapes. For miles all you could see was land, hills and very little vegetation. It was the exact view I had come to America for. It was as if it was just plucked from a movie (in fact the whole of america is seeming that way!).
The desert like landscape was dissected, what seemed like, straight through the middle with a fresh Tarmac road. This applied for rocks and roads as well, we drove through huge rocks which has been carved out to make way for the road, the drill lines still looked fresh.
We drove through the Carlsbad Caverns national park up to the top of the hill on a meandering road through them, the view getting better and better the higher we rose. When we reached the top you could see for miles and miles, while Becca ran in to get all out tickets we got our walking boots on ready for the hike! Unfortunately we got there a bit late to do The Kings Palace, but that is only a very small part of the tour Becca reassure. I was a bit disappointed because I hate not being able to experience everything when only visiting a place once, but it didn't in anyway dampen my experience!
We all decided the only way we would go down is by the natural entrance, there is an option to go down the some 750 levels in an elevator but who would want to do that!?!? What's more fun than walk down 750 levels right!? RIGHT!? Well it turns out, super fun!
We walked through a small part of the national park to get to the amphitheatre (where we would spend the night watching the bats) which over looks the epic opening on the cavern. The initial part is a beautiful winding path down into the cavern, from up above the cave is just pitch black so you can't grasp how deep it actually is (870ft). As we walked down, looking back up towards the natural light was such a magnificent view, it showed the great scale of the cavern.
The paths curved and twisted for 1.25 miles. It was just amazing (If I'm honest, I'm struggling on how I can put this whole day into words, but I'll try) we walked through huge open spaces, past natural rock deposits which towered up to the ceilings above and tucked and turned through narrower tunnels. The whole cavern was beautifully lit with low soft lights which gave it an almost secretive feel? And an untouched feeling?
It took us about an hour to reach the centre room, which itself was an expansive open room with a ceiling lined with stalactites all peering down on us. To the right was The Big Room which Becca said was AMAZING. And it was, it was absolutely breath taking, I thought the way down was amazing but this was something else. The entire place was full of amazing stalagmites which stood thick and tall, there were amazing coves of stalactites and different types of them, the rooms were huge caverns where the dim lighting softly bounced off the open spaces illuminating the whole space. It's amazing to think this whole place was created purely from nature...
The whole tour took us about 2.5 hours to complete as the rooms below were a further mile or so long, we saw The Bottomless pit which was something they came across when they first discovered the cavern, because they didn't have powerful lights to gage the depth, they called it bottomless and Top of The Cross, which comes from the way in which the cavern is, it has two long 'hallways' which take the shape of a cross, being at the top you can look out across a huge open space within the cavern.
I reluctantly finished the tour, we were going to head back and set up camp before coming back to see the bats. We set back off at 6:45pm as the bats tend to come out anytime after 7:30pm. We made our way back through the national park, this time it was just before sunset, watching the orange sun beam down on the sand and landscapes giving everything a warm glow. We also snapped a group photo outside the parks sign!
We got to the amphitheatre at about 7:15 to see the bats, which turned out to be perfect timing. There was a park ranger at the front telling the group about the cavern, the national park, the bats and of course a few bat jokes! When the bats leave the cave you have to be absolutely dead silent and you are not allowed ANY cameras, phones or video equipment (as one guy found out by being asked to leave even before it started!), so he asked if we saw the bats begin to come out to signal by waving our arm in the air. He had no sooner said that and began talking again that a guy in the front row very excitedly waved his arm around, they were starting to come out!!
The bats swarmed out of the caves in a reverse helix, they do this to help gain speed and height when flying. I expected it to be over within a few minutes, but they just kept going, and going, and going! There must of been hundreds of thousands if not millions of bats come out of the cave! (Honestly!!) They still hadn't stopped by the time we left as it was getting dark! I expected thousands of bats to be very loud when together, but you could of heard a pin drop! All you heard sometimes was a faint twitter noise of a bat, other than that, silence!? As they left the cave they would cluster into a group then separate off and head towards where the water is. To this day, it is one of the best things I've seen, and amazing that it's something so few have and will ever see! Amazing!
If I could ever recommend somewhere to people to see, it's Carlsbad Cavern and the bats on the evening, one of the best days of my trip so far!
Alien hunting tomorrow, see you then!
x
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