dare2go

Santa Fe & Taos / New Mexico


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On Saturday evening we went out to dinner - a fairly rare occurrence these days as the garlic issue seems to be an even greater problem here than at home (Juergen is allergic) and also we have had difficulty finding restaurants to our taste. The American palate seems to be geared more towards sweeter, saltier, and all flavours more so than we are used to. We tried a Mexican seafood restaurant, also on Cerillos Road a few blocks from the RV Park, called Mariscos Costa Azul. The decor was amazing - very Mexican with really bright colours next to each other that didn't even clash!!! The food and the service was really good, except that I got oysters in my meal, which I hadn't expected (weren't listed on the menu). When I told them they took it away and offered me another dish. By then I had eaten quite a bit of the other stuff from the plate and had not much appetite left. I did however ask them to bring me a plate of their french fries, which were homemade and really good. They didn't charge us for my meal or the fries! And I discovered my Mexican beer of choice - Dos XX Lager!
We left Santa Fe on Sunday and headed toward Las Vegas - not the one we had already been to in Nevada, but Las Vegas in New Mexico, about 60 miles east of Santa Fe. On the way we stopped at Pecos National Historical Park. This park contains the ruins of one of the largest pueblo communities in the south-west. It was inhabited well into the 18th century, when the population diminished, largely due to disease and raids by the Comanche tribes from the plains. The last of the Pecos people migrated west to the Jemez Pueblo, where their descendants live today. There are quite a lot of the foundations of the pueblo left and also a large part of the church belonging to the Spanish mission which was set up alongside the pueblo first in 1621. Dating the earlier settlements in the south west is based on a system which was first used here in 1915 - the archeologist used the trash mound to get a clear view of the history of the people here.
Las Vegas was a bit disappointing - we had read that it had a lot of interesting historical buildings, and it did, but a lot of them were extremely dilapidated, and some were just boarded up. The historic downtown area has a beautiful plaza, but on a Sunday afternoon, it was dead. A few cars drove around, but no people to be seen. The town certainly has great tourist potential, but at the moment it doesn't seem to be developed. We couldn't even find a place open to sit and have a cold drink!
We had planned to spend the night in Las Vegas, but since it was only 3.00pm and we felt we had seen all that the town had to offer, we drove on in the direction of Taos. We found the drive north on the 518 a little boring, but also a little depressing. The majority of the dwellings seen alongside the roads, both in villages and out in the countryside, seemed to be temporary places that had become permanent. They were often surrounded by car wrecks and various other pieces of what we would probably call rubbish. There seemed to be little pride in where these people were living and it led us to wonder what sort of people live here.
After passing through Mora, the road began to climb. We had entered the Carson National Forest and were climbing the Sangre De Christo Mountains. The vegetation had changed again to the pine forests and lush meadows, with their wildflowers, that we have come to expect at higher altitudes. There were no signs to tell us what altitude we had reached, but it seemed to be quite high when we could see mountains with snow on and they didn't appear to be very far above us! This countryside with its green colour is always so uplifting after some time spent in the desert. I do find the desert beautiful, but somehow this strong green is always a bit like finding an oasis! And after seeing so many signs warning of elk crossing, we finally saw one crossing the road in front of us.
After a longer day than we had planned we finally found a campground a few miles south-east of Taos still in the Carson National Forest, that is at 8000 feet. It was relatively mild when we went to bed, but at 6.00 this morning we were wishing for the thicker blanket on the bed when it was 8° outside!!!

Tuesday, June 06, 2006, Lathrop State Park, CO (near Walsenburg)
Leaving our campground yesterday morning, we drove back the way we had come on Sunday to get to the visitors centre which is on the southern side of Taos. By the time we had reached there it was late morning and too hot to go out to Taos Pueblo. We decided to stay there and use the free wireless offered to catch up on a few things, before exploring the town.
Unlike Santa Fe, which is a city, Taos has a population of about 5000 people. While it is fairly spread out, it is easy to get around. The first place we decided to visit was a couple of miles further south from the visitors centre. San Francisco de Asis Church was built between 1710 and 1801. It is an adobe structure and requires constant upkeep, like all traditional adobe buildings. We arrived during their annual 'working bee', when locals volunteer their time to clean off cracked adobe and then give the building a new coat to see it through until next June. As you will see from the photos, there were quite a few people hard at work. This church is one of the most photographed and painted adobe churches in the southwest, according to the information provided by the visitor information service.
We left the church and drove around the western side of the town through an area which appeared to be a cusp between town and country living. There was quite a mix of old and new dwellings in this area, and the vast majority were either adobe style, or true adobe buildings. Our destination was the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Finished in 1965, this bridge is 1200 feet across and 650 feet above the river. I took my vertigo for another walk halfway across the bridge to look down into this narrow but deep canyon, hanging on tightly as a bus drove across the bridge and made the whole thing vibrate. I must say that I had expected the Rio Grande to be a much more imposing river!!!
With our feet back on solid ground, we then decided to drive into the centre of town to the plaza. It was the same sort of shady area as we had seen in Santa Fe, if a little smaller and more concrete, but there were hardly any people utilising the space. The shops around the edge seemed to be all selling the same stuff - cheap, ticky-tacky that is aimed at the tourists - and not an inviting coffee shop or restaurant to be seen. While there was life in the plaza, I felt that it was not the centre of the town, as locals were really not in evidence. We wandered away from the centre a bit and discovered some interesting art galleries, and some original buildings which had been taken care of. Overall, I was not very impressed by Taos, although it exhibited more life and culture than Las Vegas, down the road!
We drove out of town again to spend the night in a not very salubrious RV Park - but then there was no one to pay for the accommodation, so it was certainly good value for money! This morning we went to visit the Taos Pueblo. This pueblo was inscribed onto the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1992 as The First Living World Heritage. The native owners of this village and the surrounding lands have been living here for 1000's of years. The pueblo is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States, and the buildings are believed to be well over 1000 years old. The people maintain their traditions here - an oral tradition which is kept among the members of the community and not spoken of to outsiders. Thanks largely to Nixon, they have control over the Blue Lake Wilderness Area, which is over 100000 acres. They are working to maintain it in its natural state and it is not open to any use by any persons not belonging to the community. It was interesting to see these people keeping their traditions alive and at the same time, making a living from people like us who want to observe this happening. I don't regret the $10 per person, $5 for the camera and the $5 tip for the guide. I think the money is well-spent and I am happy to have a small part in supporting these people in keeping their culture alive.
After filling the fuel tank (a constant necessity), we left Taos to drive part of the so-called 'Enchanted Circle', before heading north toward Colorado. We must have missed the enchanted part, because we didn't find the scenery any more special than the mountains we have been driving through the last weeks. Just as we were getting toward the 522 that would take us north, it started to thunder and rain. This is the third lot of rain we have seen in 3 months, so it was an interesting experience! It continued, on and off, as we drove across the border into Colorado, north through San Luis (the oldest town in Colorado - a pretty neat little place) and Fort Garland, and then east on to the Lathrop State Park where we are currently camped. The rain has eased, but now we are being battered by winds that rock the camper from side to side - unfortunately it is a little early yet to be rocked to sleep!

- Insert from Juergen -
I'm very glad I came back to this area! Back in 1988 I did a lot of the same trip in a much shorter time frame with a rental car. This time around we had the opportunity to just drift from place to place and stay as long as we felt like (except at Bryce Canyon, which we left a bit early due to car trouble).
I'm particularly glad to have come back to Santa Fe. During my first visit in 1988 I felt so connected with the town and its people that for the first time in my life I had sensed some desire to leave Germany and migrate to another part of the world. The vibe of the town and its people kept me captured for years; people who know my background are probably aware of my 'creative side', and here in Santa Fe I felt right 'at home'...
Santa Fe has changed and grown considerably since then. Now you find a huge area on the southern outskirts covered with the typical commercial franchise businesses, although they are all clad in some sort of adobe style facade, and there's still no highrise building in the city. In all directions from the town center new subdivisions of adobe style concrete re-creations have taken hold of the hill sides, and there are plenty of four-lane roads surrounding the center.
Yet in the old part of town and along the artist district of Canyon Road the feeling is still the same: beautiful, vibrant yet relaxed, friendly and attentive...

What a shock it was then to return to Taos. From my last visit I remembered it as the one place where in the central plaza local Indians mingled with 'white people', shared a drink or a meal at the same table in a small diner... All this is now replaced by rather tacky tourist shops and (in the town centre) second class run-of-the-mill so-called art! Not a single diner or coffee shop left. All galleries of some quality have been pushed to the outer part of the center, away from the tourist square.
And the outer parts of Taos are now dominated by such a misch-masch of commercial buildings, large adobe-style resorts, and run-down (or empty) industrial shacks that the first impression on entering the town is one of a rather ugly place - where has the creative magic (which you can still find in many galleries) gone?