Aluburquerque (ABQ) in one sentence....Breaking Bad tourist stuff everywhere in a town with a really old - for America - Spanish town square.

I guess we didn't get the time to really dig deep, but the folk we met at the hostel were friendly and interesting. We learned a thing or two about the film industry there and the buzz going on with that little hub and we got the low down on Santa Fe and Taos from a local who was in ABQ visiting friends. It's also the first time we had heard the word "monsoon" since we left India and it lived up to the name, they get some awesome storms in this part of the world. There was me being all ignorant thinking we were in the desert, in the summer and that meant dry (full stop).

We got up the next morning after the storm and took all our stuff to the laundry that had got soaked in the boot when a cheap ice box leaked and made everything smell like damp cardboard. (Fun.) Then we packed up and after a brief tourist stop in "Old Town" ABQ and made our way on the not too far trip up to Santa Fe within a couple hours.

We booked into a campsite, set up our crappy tent and bonus tarp over the top, pumped up our airbed and headed off into town. Santa Fe is amazing. Absolutely beautiful little town, loaded with swanky art houses and boutique indie stores and nice bars and restaurants. Again, a little Spanish town square at the heart of it. Something tells me this is the oldest town or one of the oldest in the States and you can tell. It has a feel like nothing I can remember ever seeing or reading about. Make the trip if you are ever stuck in ABQ for a lay over or something.

We were hanging around in the square as the band that did the theme tune to True Detectives were playing in the town band stand and we were interested to see what the rest of their stuff was like. We ended up pitched up in a bar as dark thunderheads were looking pretty serious and the wind was up. Sure enough it unloaded like neither of us had seen in a long long time.

We were lucky in that we made a great 20 minute friend in Robert, who was sat at the bar next to us and struck up an intersting conversation. We were especially fortunate as we had seen loads of touristy native american stops as we had come out from California, but here we were in a bar, meeting a real Apache! (Ok he said he also had Spanish and mexican in his blood too. But I've numbed my ears to that. I heard Apache!)

We heard about this incredible mexican restaurant out of town which was where the local went according to the chap at the hostel in ABQ. Bear in mind this was a mid-week night at 6pm, we thought we'd have no problem strolling in. Nope. 1 hour wait. (So I updated the blog while Stace supped on a bloody good margarita.) It was worth the wait though. Soft blue corn tacos with spicy chicken and some incredible nachos to start. Oh yeah.

It might have been a bit damp, but our tent survived the night. We had a lazy day and took it slow up to Taos and pitched at a $5 Bureau of Land Management campground. What happened the night before while we were in the bar, happened for 2 or 3 hours, yep a HUGE storm, but this time we only had an open sided picnic tin shack to take the edge off the practically horizontal torrent. To make it worse were down wind from the long drop toilets...

Highlight of that night though was the boot not closing properly when Brett slammed it....30 minutes later we noticed. Yep...soaked. everything. Icing on the cake!

The next morning we laughed it off in the sunshine and headed to the farmers market in Taos before taking a tour around Taos Pueblo (the longest continuously inhabited community in the USA). Rare for a native tribe, the group here were settled farmers rather than nomdic or seasonal inhabitants. Cute place and had a wierd twist on Cristianity in their church with Mary taking centre stage and Jesus making a cameo.

We rounded off the day (and New Mexico) with a trip to the Earthship project (earthship.com) which was a great eye opener for architecture. Ever since Brett met a guy in India 8 years ago who was designing a house using this method of stuffing the surrounding earth in tyres (acting like bricks), we've been interested in the concept. Check out the photos to give you an idea of what living off-grid with no heating (even in cold countries!). Just heat from earth, bodies in the place and passive solar with solar PV for your electric needs. We knew it would be a tall order but we opted to stick a 7 hour shift in on the road and get our butts all the way up to Denver/Boulder CO. One of our "maybe we should live here places", did we stay there? You will have to wait and see!)

(Ridiculously long and explanatory post complete! Well done you for reading/scanning it all)