Day 35. Alamosa, Colorado.
Once again struck by the friendliness and helpfulness of many of the people we have met on our trip. Many people want to know where are bikes are from and where we've been / are going to. This morning's conversation was similar, but we were then offered a military badge saying 'Thanks from the Commander'. It was given to the man by his son who was in the military, and would give you access to a US commander anywhere if you got in trouble. We politely declined but it was a thoughtful gesture.
We were ready to leave fairly early so took the High Road (Route 76 and 518) north to Taos, through the mountains. This was one of the best, most scenic route so far, and reminded us of parts of Spain. We passed several tiny villages, but even here, like everywhere else in New Mexico, there were art studios open for viewing.
After a quick lunch stop in Taos we headed north towards Colorado. New Mexico has been one of our favourite states - red mud (adobe) style buildings everywhere, big open landscapes, mesas and mountains.
Our next stop was the Great Sand Dunes NP. This was located at an altitude of 2300m and consisted of sand dunes at the foot of the Colorado mountains. They were very localized and from a distance it looked like someone had swept up all of the sand in Colorado and placed it neatly there. We walked to the foot of the dunes but given the combination of altitude and wading through sand we didn't go far. Just far enough though to see the large numbers who were "surfing" the dunes using skiing equipment.
After that we headed off to Zapata Falls which were located 3 miles up an unpaved dirt track. The Ranger at the Visitors Centre told us it would be fine for motorbikes. We don't think he had a clue! Taking the bikes up there was a massive challenge as they were fully laden and the surface was full of rocks, sand and was massively uneven. Nevertheless we made it up and back without incident (just!). The waterfall itself turned out to be quite hard to reach as we had to wade through ice water to get there. Some odd photos resulted as we had decided to keep our motorcycle gear on for the short hike.
We are now in our hotel and looking forward to a bit of a lie in following the excitement of today!