Le Nouveau-Mexique nous réserve décidément de très belles surprises ! Nous nous attendions à la beauté du désert blanc de White Sands, mais les grottes de Carlsbad, où nous avons décidé d’aller au dernier moment, ont été une merveille inattendue. Sans parler d’une rencontre fortuite avec quelques extraterrestres !
Friday, November 4th, 2022
We are on our way to White Sands National Park when we see some odd signs on the road. The road is subject to closure due to "missile firing"! White Sands National Park is indeed located within the White Sands Missile Range. Twice a week, bombs are drop either as part of military tests or training. The first atomic bomb test was conducted here. Thus, the park and the road leading to it may be closed from time to time. Fortunately, today, everything is open and we can discover the beautiful white sand desert.
White Sands is located in southern New Mexico and north of the vast Chihuahua Desert. It's a gypsum desert, hence its white color. It's the largest gypsum desert in the world, covering some 700 km2. We go for a walk on the Dune Life Nature Trail, a small hike of 1.6 kilometers through the desert. We knew the paradisiacal white sand beaches, but not the deserts! The place is simply stunning! Although the ranger certified us that there was no danger for today, we are nevertheless surprised by two detonations of missiles in the distance. It's really impressive!
We then go to Alkali Flat Trail, a 8 kilometers hike in the sand. We just walk 2 kilometers. It's even more beautiful here, because there is no vegetation. At the entrance station, the ranger gave us a leaflet indicating that we can see fossilized prints of mammoths and megatherium (an extinct giant sloth from 11 000 years ago). We look hard for them, but we can't find any place where these prints could be. There is only sand as far as the eye can see, and it's just sublime!
After the heat of the desert, the freshness of the mountains. We follow a winding and narrow road that goes up, up, up. We reach 2 500 meters high and we are now in the snow. We even go through a ski resort, in New Mexico! It's 0°C... and it's barely 4 pm! We can't sleep here! We continue the road and we drive until we leave the mountains and return in the plains. It's only when the thermostat goes back up above the 10°C that we agree to stop for the night. It's much more acceptable!
Saturday, November 5th
Once again, we are driving through the desertic plains of New Mexico and another sign catches our attention. The city of Roswell is a few kilometers away from here. This name rings a bell. We've heard it recently but where? Then it comes back to us! Yes, the podcast about the conspiracy theories! (Well yeah, gotta keep busy on the road 😁). Roswell, the city of aliens! 👽 The opportunity is great, it's worth the detour!
You don't know Roswell? Don't worry, here's the thing: in 1947, an unidentified object crashes in a field near the town. The sheriff is dispatched to the scene, quickly followed by the army. The lieutenant write a report and the next day, the local newspaper says: "Flying saucer crashes in a field". What a blunder! A few hours later, the article is amended: no, it wasn't a flying saucer, but a weather balloon 🤪 A press conference is organized, in which some pieces are displayed as a proof of this new official version. The incident is then forgotten... until 1978! Here comes the lieutenant of the blunder again, now retired. In an interview, he declares that the pieces were indeed of extraterrestrial origin and that the military and the U.S. government tried to hide the discovery of a spacecraft 🛸 After that, sensational books and movies were published and the conspiracy theory was launched. The Roswell incident is now one of the most famous cases on alien theory. And Roswell found something on which to capitalize. It works, because we came here, determined to get to the bottom of this affair!
We spend a great moment walking in town in search of extraterrestrial traces. And there are a lot! The city center is full of references to UFOs and aliens: alien street lamps, street arts, trees trim in the shape of flying saucers, stores selling all sorts of objects on the subject, a UFO museum, merchants who play along. Even the town's McDonald's plays its role! It's all very funny!
We don't find any evidence of alien existence in Roswell but it's really a funny city! The detour was worth it! We go then to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Rare thing for a cave: it's not a guided tour. We can go down either by an elevator which goes down to more than 250 meters of depth or by the natural entrance. We choose the second option and it's the best choice, because this way to reach the cave is particularly impressive. The bends go down in the gaping mouth of the cave. The atmosphere changes little by little. It becomes colder and darker, until we are far from the daylight and the heat of the sun. It's magnificent!
As we move away from the entrance of the cave, the luminosity decreases. The park took the decision to leave some passages in the dark, in order to preserve the darkness for the animals that live there. We advance cautiously, whispering. Soon enough, all natural light disappears. Bend after bend, we sink deeper and deeper into the cave. We descend the equivalent of the height of the Empire State Building, that is to say 440 m on 2 kilometers! How beautiful!
We finally reach the bottom of the cave. It's The Big Room, a huge room in which there are many concretions: stalagmites, stalactites, columns, draperies, popcorn, soda straws, cave pearls! It's huge and magnificent. Each corner of this immense cave offers wonders to admire. The path is 4 kilometers long. Obviously, the cave is even more immense than that, but certain parts aren't accessible to the public. Fun fact: there are bathrooms in the cave and even a huge counter-restaurant where we can have a snack and take a break... We have never seen that at the bottom of a cave!
The photos hardly pay tribute to this magnificent visit, and we come out of it very impressed. After three hours spent underground, the elevator brings us back to the surface in a few seconds, directly in the service center.
It's almost 5 pm and we are about to admire a beautiful spectacle: the bat flight! Even though it's late in the season, it's still possible to observe the flight of the Brazilian free-tailed colony that live in the cave, after sunset. During the season, it's estimated at 5,000 to 10,000 bats per minute! We wait for an hour at the entrance of the cave. Will the bats be there tonight or have they already migrated to Mexico to winter? All of a sudden, hundreds, no thousands of bats fly out of the cave entrance in swirling clouds. Contrary to what we can see in the movies, they do not make any noise. The moment is magical. We watch them go away in the red sky until they disappear. We didn't film or take any pictures, because bats are very sensitive to waves and it was therefore forbidden.
We go back to the car under a magnificent flaming sky, still all moved by the spectacle we have just witnessed. Once again, our trip offered us a great day full of surprises and twists! We leave the national park at night to return to the city of Carlsbad, where we buy a pizza.
Sunday, November 6th
We wake up at 8 am. No, 7 am. Wait, what time is it? Our connected devices display 7 am, the others display 8 am... We get lost with all these time changes! (We will realize later in the day that it was today the change to the winter time). Disconnected? Not at all! 🤪 No matter what time it is, we follow the sun. Besides, it's pretty hot this morning. We take breakfast in the middle of the cacti, under a beautiful sun and in front of an incredible landscape. We love New Mexico 😊
We have nothing special planned for today. It's so nice to let ourselves be carried out by our desires, our encounters, signs that we see on the road 😅 It's nice and warm, and we decide to go back to Carlsbad Caverns National Park for a walk. We are falling in love with New Mexico landscape and all its kinds of cacti. I love cacti! We hear for the first time the threatening hiss of a rattlesnake, but it seems hidden under rocks and we don't dare to approach too close! More pleasant, we also fall on a colony, not of bats, but of bighorn sheeps!
The border is there, a few kilometers away. It's difficult to resist! Beside it's the fastest road to continue our journey. Let's go! It's not every day that we have the chance to say that we went to Texas 😀
2 commentaires
Incroyable cette diversité sur quelques jours !!!
Mamie,
Incroyable ces étendues de sable blanc. Quelle pureté.
Dommage que vous n’ayez pas rencontré des petits hommes verts !!!!!!!!!!