The journey takes the traveler up a winding and rugged road to the top of a hill, where the “Cave house” is reached, a large frame structure built over the entrance, and containing, among other objects of interest, a large collection of beautiful crystal formations found in the cave.

Here the tourist enters his name in the visitors’ register, pays his dollar, and follows the boy guide down the stairs into the cave.  About one hundred and fifty feet from the entrance a small bridge is crossed, and the “Gothic Temple” is reached.  The only light comes from a few scattered lanterns, and is consequently very obscure, but one can see the millions of crystals, the thousand weird forms, and realize that it is surpassingly beautiful.  The temple is about two hundred feet in length and seventy feet in width, and while it does not equal in size or solemn grandeur the temple of the same name in the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, it greatly excels it in the richness and splendor of its crystal formations and beautiful effects.

The spectator possessed of strongly developed imaginative powers cannot fail to feel himself in fairy land.  From the gloomy corners come gnomes and demons, and in the crystal shadows he sees sprites and lovely fairies, keeping gay revel to dreamy airs, played on invisible strings by spirit hands.

One of the most beautiful objects in the cave is the “Fountain of Snow,” a name given to one of the great pillars, called by the natives the “Cloak of the Virgin.”  Others are known as “Columbus Mantle,” “The Altar,” and “The Guardian Spirit.”

“Who has not seen the Caves of Bellamar has not seen Cuba.”

Under nature’s dome.

One of the most vivid pieces of descriptive writing, referring to the beauties of Cuban skies, is from the pen of James M. Phillippo: 

“The splendor of the early dawn in Cuba, as in the tropical islands in its vicinity, has been referred to.  The whole sky is often so resplendent that it is difficult to determine where the orb of day will appear.  Small fleecy clouds are often seen floating on the north wind, and as they hover over the mountains and meet the rays of the sun, are changed into liquid gold and a hundred intensely beautiful dyes more splendid than the tints of the rainbow.  During the cooler months, the mornings are delightful till about ten o’clock, the air soon after dawn becoming agreeably elastic, and so transparent that distant objects appear as if delineated upon the bright surface of the air; the scenery everywhere, especially when viewed from an eminence, is indescribably rich and glowing; the tops of the rising grounds and the summits of the mountains are radiant with a flood of light, while the vapor is seen creeping along the valleys, here concealing the entrance to some beautiful glen, and there wreathing itself fantastically around a tall spire or groves of palm trees that mark the site of a populous village.