NEW MEXICO REVIEW: WHY GO; WHAT TO DO & SEE
September 2023 and many times in the past
Most of my past memories of New Mexico center on Santa Fe, a place I found abundant in the things I love, coffee, great spicy food, mountains to hike, and a European shoe store with walkable stylish boots. And then there were the silver coin margaritas. I always flew home with a burning stomach but well worth it. This trip felt different – the energy had changed. Or maybe it was being here alone for the first time. In any event, I still enjoyed my time but it wasn’t the same.
LOS ALAMOS. In all my past visits to Santa Fe, I had yet to explore Los Alamos. I ended up here by default given I was arriving much later than anticipated and I needed a clean place to rest my head before heading to Bandelier. Turned out Los Alamos is quite nice with parks, a Natural Foods, clean and affordable lodging (well, relative to Santa Fe), proximity to Bandelier, and the very cool Bradbury Science Museum. This is a free museum tracing the history of the WWII Manhattan Project and covers the Los Alamos lab’s research projects. I spent hours here and thank my friend Bill for the recommendation. You can do a virtual tour here: https://storage.net-fs.com/hosting/5224642/0/index.htm
BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT. This park includes 33,000 acres of canyon and mesa country and includes cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and masonry villages, once occupied by ancestral pueblo people for about 11,000 years through the 1500’s. The area is beautiful but more importantly, so interesting to climb the various ladders into the cliff dwellings and see the exteriors of what look like early nature formed apartment buildings.
SANTA FE. Still a great place even with some not so great changes like Pasqual’s charging $37 for a chicken enchilada and $19 for a basic margarita (I left and went to Tomasita’s which, while maybe not quite as good, allowed me to have the same meal and margarita for way less and included some great conversations at the bar with visitors and locals alike). I still managed to get in a great hike up Atalaya Mountain via Dale Ball Trails which helped me burn off the amazing and big Tup’s burrito I had for breakfast at the Pantry (original location and so yummy I ate the entire thing even though I was full from the night before). Lots of things to do like shop in the square and Canyon Row, visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, get a massage and tour the grounds at a Thousand Waves, check out Tesuque Village, and sample loads of Hatch chile sauces – everyday can be Christmas.
TAOS. Best explored in the winter as a ski destination, however, the drive along the Rio Grande (which when I went years ago was more like the Rio Pequeno with the drought having taken its toll) is quite lovely with beautiful bridges crossing the gorge.
CHIMAYO. People flock here not only for the Chimayo chilis, but to make the journey to El Santuario de Chimayo, a Catholic pilgrimage center with a side chapel having a dirt floor reputed to have healing powers. The dirt did not help me nor did it heal my dad’s cancer (I brought back some dirt from the pit just in case given he was a devout Catholic and all) but worth the side trip if you have the time.