There was one day left of the Janet and John Holiday Experience…
After a couple of days of missiles and explosions, star gazing and sunset walks, it was time to end the trip with something completely different.
After missing the Aliens at the VLA, and the ocean at white sands – there was another miss on the horizon.
The bats at Carlsbad Cavern.
Carslbad is famous for two things – a big hole in the ground and bats. Mexican Free-Tailed Bats to be precise.
The bats led to the discovery of the cavern back in 1898 by a sixteen year old cowboy named Jim White.
He saw what he thought was smoke. It proved to be a huge wave of bats exiting from a hole in the ground.
Armed with a torch and some rope he went exploring and found one of the largest caverns in the world.
He also found one of the largest deposits of bat guano in the world – 45 feet deep. Thankfully, most of the guano was mined to fertilize the Californian orchards. When we were there, the bats were still on vacation in Mexico – so we were spared the smell of three questers of a million bats – and the resulting bat guano – for which I am quite thankful.
We took a ranger guided tour lit only by the type of lanterns Jim White used for that early exploration. A single candle each.
It really is amazing how much light one candle can produce… but not as amazing as what it was like when Ranger Alison blew out that last candle.
How to describe total darkness….
It’s something that can only be experienced in so very few places in the worlds – devoid of sunlight or even faint starlight, with no human light and no phosphorescence. A total absence of light. Normally, as you stand in ‘darkness’, your eyes begin to adjust and you see at the very least shades of darkness and light. Not this time. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face.
Not everyone’s idea of a good time – so most of the caves open to the public have electric lighting.
The main cavern is awesome – more than a kilometer long! It’s decorated with beautiful limestone formations formed over thousands of years.
There are dragons and old men, ancient gods, aliens and trolls and creatures from the depths of the ocean. And did I mention dragons – lots of them!
In the middle of all this – in true tourist fashion – a souvenir shop 700 feet underground!
The photos just don’t do it justice.
It was a fabulous way to end the holiday. Now – where to next?????
