New Mexico Part 2: Paradise at 7,199 ft

Outside a Canyon Rd Gallery, Santa Fe.

Upon my arrival in Santa Fe, I found I had three major problems:

#1 - The Greyhound station in Santa Fe is a tiny shed in the middle of the arse end of nowhere.
#2 - There were no transport options waiting outside the terminal, as it was around 10 p.m. at night and well, you've already read #1.
#3 - I did not know any cab numbers.

Shit.

Thankfully, Santa Fe is a town full of hippies and when they're not hazed out of their brains from all that bucket bong smoking, they're full of kindness and goodwill towards humanity, two concepts I haven't quite got my head around yet. So I hitched a ride in a station wagon with your typical Mama-Bear-who-Runs-with-the-Dolphins type and her offspring who she was picking up from the bus station. I really should be nicer; when all was said and done they took pity on the sick, stranded Australian, dropped me all the way to my hotel and didn't even run off with my luggage (that happened later on in the piece).

Here's the lowdown on Santa Fe. According to our friend Wikipedia, it is the highest state capital in the country, positioned at an almost altitude sickness worthy 7,199 ft (hence the title). To all my Australians reading this, our highest peak Mt Kosciuszko is a whopping 7,310 ft. All my Canadians are probably busy exploding from laughter right now. The city itself is divided into two distinct parts: the Old Santa Fe (beautiful, full of galleries, revoltingly expensive and home to all the fancy schmancy hotels) and Stripville (low, flat chain stores, suburbs, all the cheap hotels that bargain hunting tourists frequent). To their credit, most of the cheap hotels are more confortable than they should be and run complimentary shuttle services into old town. New Mexican cabs, like most places in the South, are fairly priced as well.

The cost of living in Santa Fe is double that of Albuquerque because of all the corporate CEO's who retired, bought up half the land in New Mexico, built ranches and became artists. The guy who runs The Gap, for example, has a huge property just outside of Santa Fe. I was told this one afternoon in a gallery on Canyon Rd, a street full of nothing but galleries and a place called The Tea House at the end of it (with an extensive selection of tea and yummy cookies). In one of the Canyon Rd galleries I saw an exhibition by a Chinese artist called Ying Zhao Liu who has since become one of my favourite artists. His still life paintings look more like photographs, I wanted to reach into the canvas and tear the tablecloth away. Out of all the Santa Fe galleries, I was most interested in the Georgia O'Keeffe museum (being a huge fan of her delicate va...flowers) and I wasn't disappointed. The museum exhibited more than just her classic paintings - there were some early sketches and most exciting of all - some of the Stieglitz portraits of O'Keeffe. This one is my personal favourite.

If you're not lifting your jaw along with your skirts inside the galleries of Santa Fe, take a look outside. The New Mexican landscape covers the whole spectrum of colour, especially the Jemez Mountains. It makes me wonder if people move to Santa Fe because they are artists, or whether they became artists because they moved to Santa Fe. The town centre is equally stunning, you don't have the development issues that Albuquerque is dealing with in Santa Fe because the city tries its very best to maintain the original adobe structures. A highlight is the St Francis of Assisi cathedral. If you haven't figured yet, I'm quite the fan of churches despite my disdain where organised religion is concerned. St Francis is a particularly special memory, because I walked in seeking respite from my nagging flu and ended up catching the end of the choir rehearsal.

Everywhere you wander in Santa Fe, you'll find the tan adobe buildings and turquoise/white window frames. One of the few exceptions is that of the State Capitol building, which stands out because it looks nothing like the other cookie cutter Capitol buildings.

The adobe buildings even look gorgeous through the lens of my terrible phone camera.

The other reasons to visit Santa Fe (not that you need more reasons) are the shopping and the food. The jewellery stores are of a higher quality than the ones you find in Albuquerque, but the theme is the same - turquoise and silver. The restaurants in Old Town (outside of town is nothing but burger and other restaurant chains, pass) are pricey but you're paying for quality. I went for dinner at a place called Dinner For Two (and sheepishly asked for a table for one), the owner took pity on me and kept me company with the usual tourist/local conversation ("Oh, you're Australian? My sister/uncle/ex-teacher/brother's ex girlfriend's dad's monkey's aunt went there for a couple of months, loved the place." etc.) and I had a chance to some to try some high-end local fare, like salmon (or was it tuna?) with mole sauce. Weiiiiiird. Quality though, and their desserts were amazing. I also went for high tea at the Hotel St Francis which was the equal of Sydney's Victoria Room for taste and was my favourite American high tea overall (The Victoria Room set the benchmark for all my high tea escapades, I've yet to find a better place) - I'd really like to stay at the St Francis next time. I am convinced that the mountain air, good food and all that tea I drank in Santa Fe cured my bout of Vegas flu.

I'm going to finish this entry with a couple of stories from Santa Fe. On my last night in Santa Fe I'd just returned from Canyon Rd and was about to sniff around town for some dinner when I hear voices calling in my general direction. Whaddya know, it's the hippie kids from my first night in town. I go over and bullshit with them for a while, let them know how I got on and leave them to their 'peace pipe'.

The day I left Santa Fe (another kerfuffle, there were no Greyhounds that went direct to Roswell from Santa Fe and no buses left for Albuquerque that matched up with the bus I would have to take from Albuquerque to Roswell). The Sandia Shuttle was my salvation and naturally I spent most of my time up front chatting to the driver who doubled as a technician in the local film studios. As I left Santa Fe in the morning, I had a chance to witness the Turquoise Trail (my previous glimpses of the landscape had been through brief lightning flashes) There was a moment where the mountain road opened up to unveil a panoramic view of the valley below. The intensity of the colours in the landscape made me want to cry, I'd never seen anything like it. The fantastic views soon gave way to reality when we pulled into the Sunport, I hailed a cab back into town and my driver wanted to personally drive me to Roswell himself. He spent the entire 15 minute drive back into town trying to convince me "You come with me, pretty thing, I take you to Roswell, it'll be cheap!" "Uh...yeah, but my Greyhound bus will be free (sort of)". Gross. Unfortunately that was small potatoes when compared to what came next...