Carlsbad Caverns are Mother Nature's very own Santa's Grotto- a magical subterranean wonderland buried more than 750 feet beneath the majestic landscape of the Guadalupe Mountains.

It is hard to believe that the underground fantasyland that greets you half a mile beneath the surface is anything more than the work of some celestial being. According to the egg-heads, however, this awe-inspiring network of stalagmites, stalactites, drapes and helictites are merely a result of calcite deposits formed over a period of about 500,000 years when a solution of water and limestone dripped down into the caverns.

The Big Room located at the heart of Carlsbad Caverns is, as the name suggests, rather large. It is a breathtaking chasm, the size of 14 football pitches, that contains the majority of the best rock formations. You can reach the Big Room by way of a 60-second elevator ride, or you can take the gently meandering mile-long route of the Natural Entrance and experience the true beauty that the caverns have to offer.

As if that's not enough Carlsbad Caverns also happen to be home to more than 500,000 Mexican Freetail Bats. They provide their own awesome spectacle at dusk every evening between April-October when they emerge from the Cavern's Natural Entrance in a mass exodus as they embark on a feeding frenzy on the bountiful supply of insects that New Mexico has to offer.

This is a real-life bat cave and 10 times more impressive than anything that Gotham City has to offer. Carlsbad Caverns are truly awesome. What are you waiting for???!!