New Mexico: Feb 4 - 7

I knew I shoulda toined left at Albakoikee!

There was a surprising amount of snow around, for an area that is famous for being a desert. That’s because of the altitude.

On arrival in Alburquerque, we checked into a cheap airport motel, with Santa Fe as our main destination in the morning. We rented a car, and drove the Turquoise Trail from Alberquerque to Santa Fe rather than the main Interstate highway. The towns along the Trail, which overlooks the Rio Grande valley, were charming, and filled with history. Kit Carson drove the Navajo down that trail from their lands, and the oldest silver mine in the US is there. The country’s main turquoise mine is also there. In one town, Madrid, there were lots of galleries and cafes but it being mid-winter, and snowy, there weren’t many people around. Perfect.

Many, many western movies were shot around there, and it's all vaguely familiar.

Another quote: "A cow's nothing but a lot of trouble in a leather bag".

I was shocked at the prices of jewelry and leather items, which is a speciality of the area (particularly silver and turquoise, obviously). Belt buckles were up around $1000 USD! So I didn’t buy one. I did buy some earrings made by a local pueblo Indian, very nice, but not silver and turquoise and still quite expensive. It was a silly impulse buy. I later found a leather bag in Santa Fe that I'm still wishing I bought - I'm going to order it online.

Cerrilos was another town on the Trail, it seemed deserted - a real life ghost town (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms). But had some lovely photo opportunities. Clearly the local religion centres around Our Lady of Guadalupe. We decide to google her later and wonder whether she ever thought she’d be googled one day.

All along the Trail, we have views of snow-capped peaks of the Sagrado Christo mountains in three of four directions. It’s very beautiful.

We decide to head straight through Santa Fe and explore it tomorrow. Today, we’ll keep going towards Los Alamos, and perhaps a pueblo (Indian village) or two, built into the mountain / mesa side, if we have time.

After a few embarrassing mis-turns on the highway to Los Alamos, including one where I was on the wrong side of the road, luckily an unoccupied at that minute service road, we began our incline up to Los Alamos itself. It’s extraordinary - on top of a large mesa (which is a large oblong shaped and fairly high protrusion from the desert floor, flat on top. It was also snow-peaked. Driving up the narrow winding road felt like climbing up to a ski resort. I took note of all the hairpin bends and decided we needed to leave well before dark and any resulting ice or snow.

Once on top of the Mesa and in the very pretty town, we pulled into the Bradbury Science Museum. It was very moving. Los Alamos is where the nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and which resulted in the Japanese surrender in WW2, were invented. (Not that they put it that way - they talked about the bombs that ended WW2, which is a slightly different emphasis. More on this when I write about New Orleans and the National WW2 Museum).

It was a great museum. It occured to me while we were there, that there's a real sense in the US of the country as a super military power - and that the country is 'at war', which I guess it is. There are military death lists daily in the papers, signs and announcements at airports acknowledging veterans and serving servicemen/women, special lounges for same at the airports, cinema and other discounts for military personnel.

After a little walk around town, and withdrawing some cash for the first time since I arrived (I had $600 on arrival), and finding a supermarket - fresh fruit!!!! - we headed back down the mesa towards Santa Fe. No time for pueblos. They all seemed to be primarily casinos, anyway.

We checked into a cheap motel, one which didn’t have much security (ie you parked your car at the door, and walked in, not needing to go through a reception area). I didn’t like this, and didn’t feel at all secure. The vacant lot with a shed on it next door looked like a drug den, and I didn’t sleep well.

In the morning, we headed into town. Santa Fe is (apparently) quite a foodie town with some renowned ‘south-western’ chefs and restaurants. I booked us into one that sounded good, Luminaria, but we had a few hours to explore first.

We found a car park which turned out to be very near the town plaza. It was hard to tell, as Santa Fe has no big buildings (other than the Cathedral, built in the 1850s by the first Archbishop, Lamy, who had come out from France). It really looks like an old wild west town, with low-rise red / ochre adobe buildings concentrated around a central plaza. The cathedral and a smaller chapel are off little streets stemming from the plaza. While it was a St Francis cathedral, Our Lady of Guadalupe was again prominent. We went into the little chapel, which has a ‘miraculous staircase’ - it is a spiral staircase up to the choir loft, with nothing holding it up, and not using any nails. Apparently a mysterious carpenter turned up and built it in response to a novena said in prayer for a staircase, by the Loreto nuns. It took him 6 months, then he disappeared without seeking payment. It’s quite a feat, and worth a look.

Memorable meal: Our lunch at Luminaria restaurant in Santa Fe was beautiful. I had the Yucatan Chicken Sandwich. it as incredibly tender chicken fillet, with orange, chipotle (smoked jalapeno pepper) mayonnaise, caramelised onions, pepperjack cheese in a beautiful bread. I tried a lovely New Mexico sauv blanc with it. With the exception of Bright Angel Lodge at the Grand Canyon, this was the first ‘good food’ we’ve had on this continent. Sadly, there was still no proper coffee there though. The cappuccino machine was broken. And even if it hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been holding my breath.

Albuquerque

The next day we headed back to Alburquerque, taking the main highway this time. We checked back into the same airport motel, for familiarity’s sake (also they were quite nice people). The guy working the front desk noticed Angus’s book ‘Spooky stories of the South West’ and suggested we might be interested in the Ghost Tour of old town Alburquerque. We hadn’t planned on going out, but I had wanted to see the old town, and this combined both of our interests. So, we went along. There were only three others there, and the whole place, which I’d expected to be a buzzing ‘old town’, full of restaurants etc, was almost deserted.

It was also freezing, literally, which may have been a partial cause of the desertion.

But, we braved it, and the tour was fascinating - great stories which gave us some insight into life in Albuquerque’s heyday. Also a little spooky at times. We didn’t see any ghosts that night, for which I was thankful.

Things we’ve learnt:

A&B: Jewish people had a huge role in settling New Mexico. The wives of what were mostly Jewish salesmen, were European ladies (the Jewish men had done well in the US, in supplying the new settlements of the West as it was explored, and as the railroad brought more settlers and supply lines, so were able to go back to Europe and marry well), and they were great friends with the Catholics - in particular Archbishop Lamy, who no doubt missed European society. They sent each other gifts for their respective religious feasts.

A: If you hear a nekked lady calling out to you from the top of a house of negotiated affection late at night in the old town, don't answer.  Just skateboard on by.

B: Santa Fe is the place where gay cowboys hang out (correlated to the good restaurants and fine wine??).

B: The west was really wild. And those European ladies who went out there were tough as nails.