Saturday, March 29, 2008

Stardate 020080329: Colorado

In Spring Break, in Finland I guess it would be "hiihtoloma" we went to Colorado, to go snowboarding and a bit of sightseeing. Here they have all these holidays from the university :P Not like in Finland, that you just have to take your own holiday if you want to go somewhere :D hehehe. Anyway, this trip was another road trip, since we drove to Colorado and eventually all the way to Denver.

First stop was Durango, a small town close to the border of Colorado and New Mexico. We stayed in a cheap motel there and went skiing in a place called Purgatory. Quite funny name :P The slopes there were amazing! I rent a snowboard and Gerardo got skies, and we were enjoying the sun shine and snow for two days there :) I burned my face completely though... :P The sun was a bit stronger than the spring sun in Finland... hehehe


View from Purgatory


That was my snowboard in Durango


American flags...


Having lunch and enjoying the sun :P


The resort was really high! About 3 km... :P


Me and Gerardo


Chillin..


After Durango and Purgatory we headed to another place called Pagosa Springs. Near that there was a skiing resort called Wolf Creek. It was also a really cool place! Although I think I liked Purgatory more... This one had too many pumps all over :P No coolio... But, the weather was amazing also there all the time. Sun shine every day, more burning my face :P

In Pagosa Springs we also went to some natural hot springs! There were like small pools like in a spa (like Eden or something) outside but it was all natural heated! It was really cool to thing that we were sitting in a water that had come from deep underground and was heated by magma... :P Some of the pools were as hot as 45 degrees (celsius)....oh my god :p I couldn't stay in all of those really long since they were soooo hot! But it was really nice and relaxing experience, a bit like going to sauna after snowboarding the whole day. We payed about 17 dollars to go in, not so bad.

Well, here are some pictures from Wolf Creek.


Gerardo


Me


Take a look what the sign says... hähähähä




After skiing in Wolf Creek we drove to Denver. It was a nice city, didn't appear really big though. We were walking like insane there (of course). The first day was sunny and warm, but the other one was kind of cloudy and crapy... Anyway, we were walking in downtown in this pedestrian area with all the shops. Then we walked some 4 miles to a City Park which was really beautiful place. There was also a Museum of Nature and Science which had really cool exhibitions. We went to one about Space, one about Egypt and then there was a special exhibition of Gold. It was interesting too :)

But, I think the most cool thing about this museum was the Space part :P We could see ourselves in infrared, you could see the body heat and so on as red. And....my fingers were completely blue!! :( Well, it's not really a surprise, but it was kind of shoking to see it :P Even some couple were commenting about my cold hands but warm heart! :D hehehehe

Well, here are some more pictures.


From the way to Denver...


...From the road as well


Downtown Denver!


Denver..


From the City Park..


...Some weird pictures with my shoe :P


And finally, a view of the city!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Stardate 020080315: VLA (Very Large Array)

The reason for my existence, the one reason why I wanted to come to New Mexico in the first place.. Yes, it indeed sounds geek. I wanted to see the Radioantennas in Socorro, the same ones appearing in many movies, such as The Contact, 2001 Space Adventure etc. And yes! I finally did it and went there! :D It was reeeeeally cool! The antennas are insanely huuuuge. We were driving about 3 hours from Las Cruces to get there but it was all worth it to me at least :)

The VLA site had a small museum telling about the construction and history of the site, a small gift shop, walking tour and god damn strong wind :P Well, maybe for many people it wouldn't have been sooo special...but for me, woooow, I loved it :D

So, here are some pictures from there:



A sign beside the highway


You couldn't use the cell phone and yes, well, it was good that we didn't take our microvaweoven with us....hmmm


Gerardo in front of one antenna


And that's me! Damn the thing is huuuge!


There's just something about the restricted areas that appeal to me...


....Yeah...well...hehehe


This was kind of like a "garage" for the antennas


On the way back to Las Cruces we noticed a ghost town near Socorro. It was called Kelly Mines. We decided to see how it was, and it was really a ghost town... no people whatsoever.. All the buildings had been torn down, the only thing remaining was an ooold mine tower or something and some ruins. Well, I wouldn't want to be in that place in the dark :P The view from the Kelly Mines was amazing. The location was reeally high..


Kelly Mines




A view from the Kelly Mines

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Stardate 020080306: Hiking and Snowboarding in NM!

After the party party party end of December it seems that my life has settled down again. I haven't been doing much anything else but working every day until late. Actually it's really nice because my job at the Astronomy department is in fact really interesting :) And plus I'm feeling more geek every day...so I guess I'm fitting in to this department quite well :P hehehe! Although I wouldn't have guessed that I would be programming ever in my work, but well...you learn something new every day!

Besides working I've gone hiking two times and even snowboarding once during these two months! We went hiking to the Organ mountains, just next to Las Cruces. In fact you can see the mountains every day just walking anywhere here :P The view is nevertheless really beautiful, and like I probably have said before, the weather here is always nice, always sun shine and no clouds. So you can imagine how beautiful the view is from up there! Or wait, you don't actually have to imagine because I have some pictures from there :D heheheheh!
Oh my god, my jokes are getting worse every day...


Me enjoying the sun shine in our hiking trip


View from the mountains..


God damn bugs spoiling the fun..


More view from the hike


Well well, as hard as it seems to believe, I did go snowboarding here in New Mexico! How is it possible? Well, in America everything is possible :D hehehe! Just kidding.. Anyway, the state is actually quite big and when you drive up north it actually gets cold! Yes, there can be even snow up there :D We went to this place called Santa Fe, which is by the way also the capital of the state of New Mexico. There's a really nice skiing resort there, really really high...feels like you are above the clouds or something. I don't know if you can notice it from the pictures but it's damn high :P

Thinking that it would be summer all year round here, I hadn't brought my winter clothes, my snowboarding jacket or anything with me here initially :P So (what a pity) I had to go shopping :P heheh :) I bought some really nice snowboarding clothes and payed maybe third of the prize I would pay in Finland... Yes, it's ridiculous how cheap it is around here... Not to mention the hair cutting in Mexico... can you believe that I paid only 7 euros for it... :P

Anyway, here's pictures from Santa Fe, the "pro-snowboarder" :D





Oh! And yes, it was freaking cold!! I was freezing to death there :P I guess I've used to warmer climate here already or something...or it's just my normal freezing always.. heheh!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Stardate 020080123: Mexico & Cuba

During the holidays over Christmas I was traveling with Jaime and Hide for 4 weeks! 3 weeks in Mexico and one week in Cuba :P On December 16th, me and Jaime packed our backbags and headed to Juarez to take our first bus of so many. We met Hide later on the way. The idea was to travel mainly by bus and stay few days in each city we would reach. So, our first goal was Puerto Penasco, a city on the west coast of Mexico in the north... Well... everything didn't really start smoothly... During our bus trip (that was btw something like 12 hours) we got to an immigration check point. An officer came to the bus and asked everybody's ids. I showed my passport and he was taking a look at it a looong time. He asked me where I was going and I said that around Mexico for the holidays. Well, he gave me back my passport and it was fine. Or was it :P It was something like 2 in the morning and Jaime has decided to sleep on the bus floor with his sleeping back. He came in the front to get his passport...soon he came back again and said that the officer had said that we have to take our stuff and go with him! I was like what the fuck!! So, there we were in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, freezing to death, and had no clue what was going on, and the bus left... Well, we ended up in a border patrol office and were told that we should for some reason have a visa.. we thought that we would have to pay him something or he would take us back to US :P We ended up paying something like 20 dollars, got our visas, and were taken to another bus. So it ended up ok, although the impression of the trip wasn't so good in the beginning :P

Finally we got to Puerto Penasco, stayed there for few hours and took another bus to Hermosillo, the capital of the state of Sonora. We were staying in a cheap hostel, had some hot dogs from the street, and went to the zoo. I saw for the first time of my life a giraffe! It was cool! :D



Sunset in Hermosillo


Hotel Washington D.C. in Hermosillo :P


After Hermosillo we took a bus to Bahia de Kino, a beach resort quite close to Hermosillo. The place had amazingly beautiful beach. Although it was crowded by American tourists with their fancy beach houses. There was also a small village with locals. We were staying over night at some woman's place who rented rooms. It was really nice because she gave us many good tips! Next day we wanted to visit an island near by and decided to ask some local fishermen to take us there. Eventually we ended up hiring one the fishermen to take us to the island. It was really nice day, warm and sunny, and most of all with amazing view!



Some pelicans and the island where we went in the backround


Same place in Bahia de Kino, with the boat and dude who took us to the island


Me and the lady at who's house we were staying in Bahia de Kino


From Bahia de Kino we went to a place called Guaymas, a small town in about 5 hours away from Hermosillo. It was not touristic at all, although we did find a tourist information. Jaime decided to introduce himself as a Creek so that the people would speak English to us :D hhahaha It was quite funny :P From Guaymas we went for one day to San Carlos, another beach resort. It was about one hour away from Guaymas. Another resort concorred by the Americans :P In San Carlos we run into an American guy called George. He was sort of a funny guy. Well, he wanted to take us to a tour and took us to his truck and drove around. We got to really nice spots. He thought that we are both from Spain, and the fact that we spoke English to each other didn't raise any suspisions in him :P heheh! Yeah, we'll always remember Georgie from Iowa :P


View from San Carlos


Sunset in San Carlos


Jaime and George, our amigo americano :P haha


Next we went to Los Mochis. The plan was to take the only train in Mexico, to Chihuahua. First we took a look at the city a bit and went also to Topolobampo, quite close to Los Mochis. Another beach place... well, we had a nice nap in the beach and afterwards we were watching a Christmas parade there. People were driving with their boats that were full of Cristmas decoration. It was quite cool :) After we came back to Los Mochis to take the train next morning. Well, we didn't want to pay for housing so we decided to sleep in the train station. We weren't the only ones since there we quite many other people too :P In the morning we took a second class train, got some student discount and felt quite happy about the trip.

The best part of the train trip was the amazing view! The tracks went through huge canyons. People were taking pictures from the windows and as a proper "Japanese' I also did my share :D Well, the minus point was that the trip took 18 hours.... you can imagine how boring it was in the end to sit there... it was already dark and we couldn't enjoy the view anymore...


View from the train to Chihuahua




View from a small place in the middle of the way where the train stopped


We finally got to Chihuahua and were really tired and dirty from the trip. We checked into some cheap hostel. I felt really crapy the whole night, my stomach was hurting and I felt like throwing up all the time... Eventually I was so sick in Chihuahua that I spent the whole day in bed and I couldn't eat anything, do anything else but lay down. The worst part is that that day was Christmas eve... I don't think that I ever had so crapy Christmas, in a cheap hostel room and sick. Although Jaime was really nice and brought me some pudding and sprite to eat something. Eventually we ended up eating in Burger King and watching a film in that day. Well, Burger King junk food really didn't help my stomach ache, but at least it was something to remember :P

In Chihuahua we visited eventually quite many museums and sights, since we were staying there 3 nights because I was sick.. One of the museums was the house of Panco Villa, a famous man in the history of Mexico, a guy who was fighting in the revolution. The house was really cool!



From the house of Pancho Villa, the car where he was shot


Finally we left Chihuahua and had another looooong bus ride ahead, to Monterrey. I was feeling really shitty but we took the bus anyway...I think it was the worst bus ride I ever had! I was feeling really sick the whole way. In Monterrey we were staying at Cesar's "kingdom". Also we finally met Hide, who joined us for the rest of the time in Mexico. It was extremely nice to stay at Cesar's after traveling for two weeks and sleeping where ever, in the bus, in the station.. It felt like I got a touch of the civilization again :P heheheh

In Monterrey we saw many nice places. Obviously because we had a local to guide us :) We went for a walk by a river in the middle of the city. We saw some beautiful water falls and breath taking mountains. I have to say that Cesar was an excellent host :D The food was great and also the "program" was very nice! On top of all that his sister is a doctor and examined my stomach problems. I ended up taking medicine for 10 days and having sort of diet for my stomach to get better :P In the end it helped and I was fine again :) Although I couldn't drink coffee or eat chocolate for 10 days....... :/


From Monterrey


An exhibition of statues in Monterrey


Evening walk view..


...Christmas tree made of used laundry buckets


From the water falls




The spectacular mountains circulating the city of Monterrey; Cesar, Jaime and Hide




Jaime, me and Hide in a view point in Monterrey


After enjoying Cesar's hospitality, getting some Christmas presents from his parents and tasting some excellent Mexican barbeque the three of us headed down to Mexico City. The insanely huge city with 20 million people :P There were so god damn many people that we thought that we couldn't even walk there properly :P

We were staying in a very strange place there. It was a hostel owned by Japanese people and also full of Japanese people. Jaime had stayed there in his previous trip and we decided to go again since we had a Japanese representative with us :D We stayed there two nights and I managed to freek out some Japanese girls because I woke up in the middle of the night screaming like hell because of my nightmare :P hehehe, I think they thought I was completely insane :D

Anyway, in Mexico City we visited a cathedral, a huge park and the Anthropology Museum which was really impressive. We also stayed there for the new year's eve. Eventually we were in a wrong place when the year changed but we found "the party" later on and it was full of people. In new year's eve we also went to Teotihuacan, an ancient mayan city close to Mexico City. It was really amazing place!! We climbed two pyramids up and were enjoying the perfectly warm weather there for the whole day :)



Mexican flag in a cathedral in Mexico City


Me and Jaime in Mexico City


From the Anthropology Museum


Me and the Sun pyramid in Teotihuacan!!


Hide and Jaime and the "ISEP picture"...


Jaime and Hide in front of the Japanese hostel (looks like a garage, doesn't it :D)


Our initial plan was to travel to Oaxaca from Mexico City but we figured out that we really didn't have time to do it. Instead we found some cheap flights and flew straight to Merida to meet Luis, another Mexican friend of ours. Surprisingly in Merida I was sick again.... this time I had fewer, and a lot! I was almost burning because my skin was so hot :P Anyway, the weather in Merida is always either hot or very hot. It's also very humid there so we were just wearing our shorts in the middle of January :P That's when I thought that something might be wrong when I was really freezing during the night :D hahah!

Luis took us to a tour in the city and also to the beach. The weather was kind of crapy because it was raining and really windy. In the beach it felt like there was a hurricane :D The wind was really strong, but at the same time it was very warm :P We also went to Chitzen Itza, a mayan city as well. I had a bit of fewer there but it was really impressive. And by the way it's one of the wonders of the world!


Jaime, me and Hide in Chitzen Itza




Luis, me, Jaime and Hide


After Merida we headed to Cancun, our last stop in Mexico. We only stayed there for one day but I think I really have to go there again! The beaches are amazing...white sand, green water, summer always...wow :)


Cancun




From Cancun me and Jaime continued to Cuba. Hide stayed in Cancun and was going back to Merida and Monterrey later. Cuba was something completely different... First of all the plane that we took there was this Cubana Airlines...using ooold Russian planes. Let's say that I was a bit scared when I couldn't even lock my seat belt :P Well, we stayed alive so that's all that matters I guess :D

We were first staying in Havana. In Cuba it's common to stay in local's houses which they call "casas particulares". So, we were staying in one of those, in an old woman's place. She was really nice and gave us lots of good tips. In Havana we visited some museums, and were walking around a lot. The thing that you can really spot there are the old cars and the propaganda (literally) about revolution and propaganda against USA :P


Some propaganda in Havana...


Patriotism or death...next to US embassy


Plaza de la Revolucion


In addition to all the propaganda Cuba has also reeeally nice beaches. From Havana we took a bus to Verdadero. It seemed like paradise. It was really hot day, in the middle of January! I was swimming and everything there. It was great! We just stayed in the beach the whole day chilling out :D


Verdadero


Next stop was Cienfuegos. If you don't want to take a bus it's also possible to take a "taxi" anywhere. There will be many people offering you to take you basically anywhere as long as the price is negotiated :P We ended up going to Cienfuegos in one of these "taxis" :P We were staying in another casa particular and only for one day. It was nothing really special, we were just walking around. The funny part is that we had left some of our stuff to Havana to this old woman's place because we were going back there in the end of the week. Well, we had for some reason decided to leave our passports there too.. But we needed the passport numbers for the accommodation.. It was kind of a mess but eventually we could stay when I searched me mails to find my passport number :P


Cienfuegos




Last city we visited was Trinidad, very small town with narrow streets. And amazingly many people trying to sell stuff to you. And of course it was full of tourists :P The strange thing about Cuba was that it was really difficult to buy food there. You basically couldn't find a supermarket, only some small kiosks where you can buy chips and cookies. So you can imagine what we were eating there for one week :P Well, of course we also ate in restaurants but still :D

In Trinidad we rented bikes and went biking to the beach to see the sunset. It was really beautiful! In the las day we went horse riding to a national park to see water falls. We hired some dude to take us there. It was really great :) I can't remember when i had been riding the last time :P My ass hurted soooo much afterwards..could barely sit in the plane to get back :D heheh


Biking in Trinidad


In a beach, Trinidad




Still the same beach..


From the water falls, we went swimming here :)


Finally after 4 weeks of traveling, sleeping where ever, eating sometimes, walking like crazy, we returned to VDM. And it actually seemed really nice to be back home after so long time. Although the trip was indeed really great :D


Me, Maria Luisa (the woman whose place we were staying in Havana) and Jaime

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Stardate 020080119: News Finally...

Finally after almost two months I'm able to write some updates here! First of all, my computer broke down in the beginning of December...now I have a new one to use, it took a while but I'm back again :D Before Christmas the whole VDM (Vista del Monte, where we live) went partying. We had two big parties at our place and had lots of fun! Before that we went to some theme parties. Here are some pictures from the parties. The first ones are from "glow party". We were wearing all white and writing to each others' shirts greetings for memories from the semester.

Franco, me and Julia







Me, Julia and Fernando

On December 6th me and Saara decided to throw an Independence day party for our friends. We baked some korvapuusti, cooked karjalanpaisti and had some candies and of course Finnish music! It was really fun party, people got drunk like in a good Finnish party you should ;)






The last weekend in December, before everybody left home was just partying. I think people were even more insane than normally... Maybe it was because everybody knew that they were most propably ever going to see each other again. It was like saying good bye parties. The funny part is that in both nights the parties were at mine and Julia's place, and we didn't even plan it! Suddenly there were just lots of people, and they just kept coming :P Before the party we had a banquet for international students. We got diplomas about our exchange and were having dinner.

Me and Julia in the banquet

Luis and me


Yo Cesar! :D


In my room, most of my best friends, Jaime, Ansgar, Julia, Hide, Luis and Cesar


Finally, most importantly, I'm staying in New Mexico for the spring semester too! That's right, I'm still here :D Everything is a bit different, not the same people around...missing my friends, my roomie, my Julia :/ But I'm really sure that this semester is going to be great too! There are new people to meet, new challenges to face and new trips to make :) For the spring I won;t be studying because I got an internship from the Astronomy Department.

For the holidays I did damn lots of traveling, but that's another chapter, another story... Will be posting that soon ;)

I miss you guys!


My current and previous roommate :)




Sunday, December 2, 2007

Stardate 020071202: California trip

Thanksgiving break was something that everybody was expecting for. People made plans to go on trips to California, New York etc already months before the break. I ended up going to California by car with Jiang (from China), Seth (American) and Coco (from France). We rented a car and drove first all the way to San Francisco, about 20 hours! We were staying in the most dangerous area in the city in a crapy hostel. But San Francisco is really an amazing city! It's very small in area but so dense that it's crazy. The houses are very tightly close to each other and the blocks and areas change suddenly when walking in the streets.


Me and Jiang on the streets of San Francisco




San Francisco at night


The city hall


Some houses..


In San Francisco we were walking quite a lot because the parking was a bit problematic. Even so problematic that we ended up getting two parking tickets...in total worth 100 dollars... It wasn't really funny at the moment :P Anyway, we were walking around the city, in Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and Fisherman's Wharf. Especially the coast line was really amazing. We found an ice ring too but didn't go skating eventually. On the last day we went to Golden Gate bridge and were walking on it. Then we drove outside the city and went to kind of a national park, called Muir Woods. It was really beautiful place, very peaceful, like a contrast to the busy city :)



Japanese garden in Golden Gate park


Some downtown view


The trams are one symbol of San Francisco


The Golden Gate bridge




Coco, me and Seth




There were some strange signs for suicide seekers..


On the way to Muir Woods; Seth, Jiang and me


Muir Woods




Some traffic in San Francisco


After three days in San Francisco we started driving towards Los Angeles. For some reason we decided to take the coast road because we thought that the view would be nicer that from the big freeway. Result: the view was indeed really nice, although it was dark but still you could see the Pacific Ocean in a moonlight, but the road was horrible, very small full of curves and I ended up feeling incredibly car sick. Plus I noticed that I had lost my glasses in San Francisco.

After hours and hours we finally reached Los Angeles found a parking lot and slept in the car. We thought that the parking tickets were worth so much that we should save on something :P Next day we went to walk in Hollywood and saw some beaches and visited the Griffith Observatory, but basically we were just driving around and being stuck in the traffic. Overall LA was quite disappointing.. Very polluted and the traffic...it's just awful! It took us hours to go very small distances and the whole city is so spread out that it was difficult to visit much any places.. So, to sum it up, we really didn't like LA so much..


Los Angeles


Hollywood




View from the Griffith Observatory




Jiang, me and Seth


Los Angeles is incredibly polluted.. there were no clouds and sun was shining, but still we couldn't see any of the landscape because of the smog!


Telescope in the Griffith Observatory


In the beach during sun set..



"The Baywatches" :D

On the second day in LA we went to Universal Studios. The parking itself cost 10 dollars but it was free to walk in the street where the gift shops were. If we wanted to enter the actual studios, we should have payed about 65 dollars.. We ended up not going.. But instead we went to see a film in the iMax theater! We saw Beowulf in 3D and it was quite cool :) Even the price for the film was cheaper than in Helsinki...




The Universal Studios


Coco, or Forrest Gump?


Me, Seth and Coco




The street in the Universal Studios


After the Universal Studios we were heading to San Diego, the last city in our road trip. In San Diego we were staying in one local aiesecer's place and it was really nice after sleeping in a car for two nights in LA. Taking a shower and just sitting in a sofa felt extremely comfortable. Emerald was really friendly and let us stay at her place for 3 nights. We had Thanksgiving dinner with her and her friends and it was really nice :)

In San Diego we visited the San Diego Zoo and we walking in a really nice park, went to downtown and some beaches. San Diego is a really friendly city, very different from LA for example. One day we were having luch in the beach and a couple started talking with us. We ended up having dinner in the house of the parents of the guy named Steven. They were really tipical American family :P We had a prayer in the beginning of the meal and the father seemed really to be the head of the family. But it was really nice :) I even tasted pumpkin pie for the first time in my life! :D And it was amazingly good!!


Some pictures from Balboa park in San Diego






The whole group! Me, Coco, Seth and Jiang





San Diego Zoo


Jiang, Coco and Seth...





A panda!!


Sunset in a beach








The Old Town of San Diego


Another beach...


...and some view of the city!


On the way back to Las Cruces we stopped in Joshua Tree national park. I think we didn't go to nicest place because for us it looked more like Las Cruces with all the desert! hehehe :D The trip was in total long, tireing, very interesting and also fun! Above all California is really cool place where I definately want to visit again!! :)

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Stardate 020071202: Roswell & Carlsbad Caverns

Roswell was one of the cities that I absolutely wanted to visit during my stay here in US. So one weekend we decided to rent a car with few people and drive there for a day :P It seems that in fact there's really nothing to see in Roswell... heheh.. Many people already said that there's nothing to see so we could already kind of expect it :D Basically we just went to the UFO museum and local Wal Mart. The UFO museum was really lame... I was expecting something a bit better than just some pictures and text on the walls.. And plus you had to pay 5 dollars for it. I wouldn't recommend. Besides the museum was really small and the gift shop expencive and crapy. Anyway, we went to see the local Wal Mart because we were told that it would look funny outside with the ufo stuff. And it seemed that Wal Mart of Roswell had the best souvenirs we could find and the cheapest ones too :)



Streetlamps in Roswell are shape of ufo :D


Everything in Roswell is about UFOs :P


Me and Julia hugging an alien!


Thomas, Julia and Cecar in front of Wal Mart

On the way back to Las Cruces we stopped in a ghost town called Lincoln. It was in fact quite creapy :P It was already dark and there was absolutely nobody, we could only hear dogs barking. Not even any cars were passing by... :P I took a small video there, you can't see so much, but listen carefully ;) It's like Blare Witch Project :D hahaha



video


Next day we drove to Carlsbad Caverns, a really amazing network of caves that was formed during millions of years. It was like mines of Moria from the Lord of the Rings! Really cool! I took lots of pictures but most of them are too dark or blurry, but I tried to select here some of the best ones.


On the way to Carlsbad we stopped in a national park entrance.


View from outside the caves.


The natural entrance, it was also possible to go there with an elevator


Inside the caverns...




video
Here's a video from the caverns!

On the way back we went to see some small waterfalls and were also hunting some other ghost towns. We kind of found one but then we got lost on the way :P We wanted to get back to the highway to El Paso but we ended up to some very strange and small road which seemed like not a road at all. It was full of huge stones and we could only drive like 10 miles per hour and in addition to that we were running out of gas.. We decided to turn back and ended up in a camping area which was the end of the road :P We were guided to drive back to Carslbad, the city and take the highway from there. Well, we just managed to go there with the gas that we had left :D In total we were lost for hours and decided to have dinner in Carlsbad. So that the story wouldn't get too boring, we came back to Las Cruces something like 1 in the morning and plus I got some strange stomach ache and was throwing up the whole night! hehehe


The waterfalls


Polish people in the water falls


Queen, the ghost town we found! After this we got lost...