Carlsbad Caverns

By Rebecca Hernandez

The witch's finger.

I hold this spot near and dear because in 1998 my husband and I travelled here for one of many geeky holidays together. I remember having to repeat myself when I told people where we were going. ‘We’re going to Carlsbad Caverns.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Carlsbad Caverns.’ ‘Oh. Why?’

After reading Michael Ray Taylor’s book ‘Dark Life’, about cave-dwelling nanobacteria, I became briefly obsessed with caves. What better place to visit, then, than the national park that contains some of the largest and certainly the most famous caves in North America?

The caves are located in the Guadalupe Mountains, which is actually an uplifted portion of an ancient reef: its rocks contain fossils of ancient sea life.

The caves themselves are quite spectacular, and you can choose from a variety of tours to go on, ranging from the wheelchair accessible to the crawl-on-your-hands-and-knees-and-kiss-the-bat-guano type. And speaking of guano, the cave is host to a few hundred thousand Mexican free-tailed bats, who perform an amazing ‘outflight’ from the cave at dusk between April and October. The bats spiral counter-clockwise out of the cave entrance, and the park has built a handy amphitheatre for visitors to watch the spectacle.

There’s not much else to do around Carlsbad Caverns (save for eat the GREAT Mexican food in the surrounding towns) but weaving around the stalactites and stalagmites of these huge caves should keep you busy for a few days.

Time required: a couple of days. Could be more.

Money: ££

More information: National Park Service

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