Day 9 - Spelunking the bat caves of Carlsbad; Tarantula, deer and turkey vultures; descent into heat (322 km)

First off, I want to thank everyone for the feedback they've given us on this blog. It is very much appreciated. And now, today's entry.

*****

When we set off this morning for Carlsbad Caverns National Park, it was already approaching (if not past) 30 C. I wore shorts beneath my leathers for the first time this trip (but almost certainly not the last). And the only reason I wore the shorts is that I knew we'd be getting off the bikes and walking around a fair bit, and that I'd want to shed the leathers for that. (And no one would want me to do that without at least the shorts. It wasn't comedy night, after all.)

The ride to the caverns was a dull affair until we'd made the turn off of the highway. Then, suddenly, it was amazing. The hills that flanked the twisty road were covered with the charred remains of burnt yucca and prickly-pear. You could see that there had been a lot of life here, before whatever fire made it a wasteland. For some reason, it always brings to mind T.S. Eliot:

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
 .....
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
 .....

 Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains 

Education can be crippling. It makes you think things other people don't.

It does seem a dead land, though. For most of the day, the only sign of life we saw, other than dry grass and cactus, was the odd vulture circling over the sand on either side of the road.

The caverns themselves are marvelous. And I mean that very literally, in that people marvel at them. At least we did. Once again, as was the case repeatedly in Wyoming, the focus of our trip was geological in nature. And yet, these subterranean calcifications would make any modern sculptor proud.

The path through the caverns descends 750 ft (just shy of 250 m, for those of you brought up using more rational & scientific measures), although the caverns themselves go much deeper. How much I'm not really sure, but according to the signs in along the path, at least 900 ft (roughly 300 m). The path winds its way amongst the various 'speleothems' - stalactites and stalagmites and 'soda straws' and 'columns'.

On our way into the caverns, we were warned by the ranger not to spit, chew gum (what is this, Singapore?), eat, touch the stone, walk off the path or speak above a whisper. Midway along the path we encountered an extended family of what looked like Mexican Hutterites, who spoke, at different times, but always loudly, French, German, Spanish and Russian. It was like being stuck behind a meeting of the EU. (Okay, I know, Russia's not part of the EU. So sue me.)

We managed to get past them, for a while at least, and to see most of the caverns in relative peace. I couldn't help but imagine a feminist critique of the largely (and I do mean LARGELY) phallic formations. Happily, I did find some that were more feminine in nature.

We spent a couple of hours hiking through the caves, taking pictures, before we got back on the bikes and started to make our way West to Alamogordo.

There were numerous signs along the road warning us to watch for wildlife, but the only hint of it for much of the day were vultures circling over the desert on either side of the highway.

We rode the ruler-straight road back through Carlsbad to Artesia, where we stopped for a quick lunch. Then we were back on the road again, turning off onto US Hwy 82, which wound its way through desert, gradually ascending into the Sacramento Mountain Range and the Lincoln National Forest.

Our backs, legs and get buttocks tired riding for long distances. Colin deals with this by sitting on the back seat of his bike. I stand on my pegs, which gives me a fantastic vista, although I can't watch the speedometer this way. We also get off and stretch every hundred-fifty or so kilometres.

We pulled off for a rest as the terrain was shifting from desert to alpine, cacti giving way first to juniper trees, then to pine and cottonwood and birch. As I was dismounting my bike, Colin pointed to a tarantula a few feet behind me and to the left. I must have narrowly avoided running it over as I pulled over to the shoulder. Imagine! If stepping on a garden variety spider is, as superstition back home has it, the cause of rain showers, then running a tarantula over with a motorcycle must bring on something almost biblical.

A short while later, we encountered several deer on the road. In each case, they smartly leapt away from our approaching bikes. Colin believes this is because of the deer whistles on his bike. This may be true, in spite of the fact that everything I've read about them says they don't work. However, it may also be true that they have the opposite effect on birds. I've seen swallows dive at Colin's bike as he rides by them, narrowly missing his helmet and windscreen. And just yesterday, a turkey vulture, its wings each the length of a motorcycle, swooped toward him, its talons outstretched, only to veer at the last moment toward the trees, having decided upon closer inspection that Colin was too large to carry off.

The mountains of New Mexico are apparently where all the state's clouds gather. In fact, at the peak of our journey today (some 8,600 ft - just over 2,600 m) was in a place called 'Cloud Country', a kind of ski resort for those not affluent or artsy enough for Taos. The temperature dropped from Carlsbad to Cloudcroft (the main town in Cloud Country) by at least 10 C (I have no idea what that is in Harenfeit).

But in the 16 miles from Cloudcroft to Alamogordo, the elevation drops and the temperature rises significantly. We rode down six degree inclines, and passed through a tunnel that starkly marked the boundary between alpine woods and desert. East of the tunnel, we were in pine forest. West of the tunnel, we were back to yucca and prickly pear.

We arrived in Alamogordo (where it was still 30 C at 8 p.m.) too late to visit White Sands today, so plan to do that tomorrow. We may also venture further South, to what Marty Robbins famously dubbed 'the West Texas town of El Paso'.

*****

On another note, Colin is working on the next video installment, so stay tuned.