The ride from Dallas to Santa Fe had my bus travel change for the better over night. The view from the bus window became that which you imagine to see on a US road trip. A dead straight road that goes for miles without so much as a kink. Initially at the sides the the plains were wide and predominantly flat, then little hills started to crop up more often as we got closer to the mountains. Then there's the mountains themselves - like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You can see their snow capped outline seemingly at the end of the road. My travelling companion to Santa Fe was Megan, a sweet young woman who had spent a lot of time in Asia and was fluent in Thai. We eat Indian food together at a small town called Raton - it seemed a rather random experience! She checked out the scenery through her binoculars and I had my breath taken away as the mountains got closer. It was like entering the pages of National Geographic.
Amanda and sarah - Jane (friends I had met at Edinburgh Festival last year) live in the most beautiful little cottage, mulit colours/photos/art/funky objects, fill every available space - it is so sweet and homey - I love it. They welcomed me in like old friends, not someone they had met for half an hour a year ago.
Being in Santa Fe is like being in a different country -well I guess it's not called New Mexico for nothing. It's pretty, the streets are winding and full of flowers growing up walls. The houses are single storey and all are terracotta with bright coloured window frames and doors. Apparently it is a city full of artists and has quite a big queer community. I'm also told that it is a city of extremes as there are a huge number of millionaries, but it is also a very poor area.
It was a relaxing couple of days, drinking coffee, visiting little art galleries, cathedrals and churches. On wednesday I managed to impress myself with my cycling skills. I'm nervous of cycling in traffic at the best of times, even in the UK, but I decided to borrow Amanda's bike and cycle part way up the mountains and from there go hiking. I set off, getting off to cross the major roads like a pedestrian, once in the hills I could cycle for prolongued periods of time. The altitude effected me a little, I'm not the fittest person around, but neither am I unhealthy, however I ended up with the lungs of a 90 year old for the first hour - things did improve though and with the sun beating down and sweat streaming down my back (nice!) I had a great time. I hiked along the Dale Ball trails and into the mountains, following trails randomly and talking aloud to myself about Shakespeare, an odd sight if anyone had come across me. The scenery is unlike anything else I have seen before - rolling hills of shrubbery and dry, red sandy ground, snow capped mountains in the back ground. The only thing that brough me off the mountain after lunch was the fear of de-hydration. I'd taken a lot of water but it wasn't enough. I cycled back to town but this time my confidence grew and before I knew it I was cycling along major roads, navigating the filter systems and the like - all on the wrong side of the road ! Boy was I chuffed with myself whan I got back ! I've come to the conclusion that I am going to try cycling into university when I get back home. If I can do it here I can certainly do it there. In the evening I met up with Megan, my Greyhound companion, it turned out that she was staying at her grandmothers just round the corner - it's a small world !
On Thursday Amanda, her sister Liz, Sarah-Jane and I headed out to Tent Rocks - the guide book says:
Tent Rocks formed over a 100,000 year period nearly 7 million years back. Ever since, the forces of erosion have scoured the area, pushing back the canyon walls and exposing the tents, tee-pee shaped formations of volcanic debris.
It was incredible, I've never seen such drastic, but artistic (if that's possible) effects of nature so close. They're beautiful, despite this being part of an essentially destructive process. Photos to follow for sure. It was my final day in Santa Fe (my bus was due to depart at 1.05am) but we crammed everything in. I got my head shaved (think GI Jane - hats now required to avoid burning my head - I do occassionally wonder just how short I'll beable to go as a teacher!), visited Megan for an hour, drank margharitas at Willy's Blues Bar with Amanda, and then went to see Nomy Lamm at Backroad Pizza. "She famously describes herself as "badass, fatass dyke amputee", she's queer - she's fat and she's got a prosthetic leg, and she uses direct honesty about all those things to confront all our internally entrenched prejudices about body image and anti-queer bias and mysogyny". I was expecting an evening of politics, anger, generally hard work and difficult thought. Instead she sang sweet songs with the most amazing voice, played the accordian, made us do vocal exercises and sing along at the end. It was a fun evening to end my stay in Santa Fe.
posted by KP @ 6:08 PM
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