After my luggage adventures I was glad to be running under my own steam. I left Santa Fe after one night and drove out to Bandelier National Monument, which wasn't far away on the map. However the drive still took an hour because the roads got a little bit rural after a while. The drive was beautiful and I was still excited to be out in a desert environment and away from all those pesky trees and corn fields that had been filling my view for the last three and a half months.

The monument is protecting a site of an ancient puelbo - an old Native American village with some homes carved out of the cliffside. To tour the area was a simple two mile walk and included the opportunity to climb up ladders into three rooms. The first was tiny, but the second one was really cool - much bigger and with adjoining rooms as well. The third was a much larger room and I imagined it could be a meeting place.

The last part of the walk takes you along to a series of ladders and steps totalling 140 feet up to Alcove House. I was completely underwhelmed by it - it was just a large cave. Some other people coming down as I was going up also said the same thing to each other. The view was nice though.

From Bandelier I set out for Taos which is another old Spanish town and with an ancient pueblo - Taos Pueblo - nearby that I could visit that has been continuously occupied for about a thousand years. My GPS is very pessimistic in this region, always estimating an extra hour or two for my journeys, but even so it was still a couple of hours drive to Taos. The drive was through yet more beautiful country, and there was one spectacular moment that took my breath away. (I got it back though.) I came over the crest of a hill and was greeted with a view that must have stretched for a hundred miles over flat terrain to some distant hills and a few tens of miles away was a huge gorge just splitting the ground asunder. I tried to capture a photo of it on my drive back but it doesn't do it justice.

I beat my GPS to Taos by a long way and drove up to the hostel. That route took me straight through the centre of town and it looked every bit at beautiful as Sante Fe. Once I was settled at the hostel I headed into town to get some dinner. Of course, it was raining by then. But that didn't bother me and I was lucky enough to find that rarity in America - free parking! To get there I even drove straight through the plaza, which I preferred to the one in Santa Fe. Once I'd parked I walked back to the plaza and found a nice restaurant, so now I've eaten on the plazas of both Santa Fe and Taos.

The next day I had planned to visit Taos Pueblo in the morning before driving back to Albuquerque to drop off my car and get a bus out. But on my way into town I had seen banners for 'Taos Pueblo Pow Wow' on that weekend so I found out more about it at the hostel and, once I'd spent $60 filling up my gas tank (you're probably jealous in the UK that I can fill the tank for 30 pounds) I went to the pow wow.

There was a constructed circular arena created by making a circular shaded area using all natural materials - logs for supports and branches for the roof, and there was an MC in a booth on one side trying to whip up the crowd. It was a nice way to spend the morning, sitting in the shade watching some Native Americans dancing to drumming and singing created by some other Native Americans. It felt a bit like a school disco at first though as a tiny handful of people danced in this large arena danced very gently in their own corners, despite the MC encouraging them to use all of the arena. There was also one guy who looked like he had just finished working in the bank and had thrown on a sash of feathers and jumped in there.

I had to leave at 12:45pm to get back to Albuquerque in time and that was unfortunate because at 1pm was the start of the big event and as I walked out to my car I passed a lot of people dressed very extravagantly. Apparently, in the evening they start the dancing competitions and it gets a lot better. But I was glad to have been lucky enough to see what I did, despite the crazy middle-aged Australian hippy that sat down and talked to me for a while.

I drove back to Albuquerque, dropped the car off and got to the bus station. I thought the bad luck with my luggage had been a one-off as I walked up at 4pm to buy my ticket for the 5:15pm bus. "Sorry, sir, that bus is full. The next one is at 2:35am." "Okay, I guess I'll have a ticket for that one then." Luckily the woman took pity on me because of my previous luggage woes and took my large backpack off me and stored it for free (instead of charging the usual $4). I didn't let myself calculate how long I had to wait because if I realised it was ten hours I would probably have broken down and cried. Instead I immediately crossed the street to the cinema and watched Hancock.

That ended at 6pm. Still a long way to go so I walked the streets looking for a good restaurant and found myself back at the diner where I'd had all those coffees while waiting for my bag to arrive. I had a lovely, cheap dinner there. Then I wrote some of my journal but I stopped at 9pm and went back to the cinema again and watched Hellboy II. Movies really are the easiest way to pass a couple of hours. I even finished reading the book I had but by then it was only one hour until the bus so I stood in line and listened to some music as the minutes dragged by.

I had not intended to spend any time in Albuquerque. It was just a place to cheaply rent a car and avoid the four hour layover of taking the bus all the way to Santa Fe. But I think I spent more time out in Albuquerque than I spent out in either Santa Fe or Taos.

Then 2:35am came and brought with it a small piece of good luck - they knew the bus coming in would be full so they'd laid on another one starting at Albuquerque, which meant we boarded on time and set off for Flagstaff, Arizona. I just hope my luggage made it onto the bus!