We really knew very little about New Mexico when we planned our trip there, even though one of us had passed through in the 60s. In my mind it was mostly dry and flat. Of course, only part of that was true, and we found ourselves mainly in the mountains.
And while we spent most of our time in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, we did “take a ride” up to Taos, with a few stops along the way, and lots of well-worth-it scenery, a long history, and even a dip into recent history at the Classical Gas Museum.
Our day driving north to Taos on the “High Road, ” a route that follows winding roads mostly along the mountains; the “Low Road” follows the Rio Grande River. Our first stop along the way was at Chimayo, where an adobe church, the Sanctuario de Chimayo, is a magnet for both tourists and pilgrims.
The pilgrims have been coming since 1810, when a local landowner built it and let word out that visitors were experiencing miraculous cures. The family owned the church until the Great Depression, and lived in part on pilgrims’ donations, refusing requests to turn the building over to the ‘official’ church. Since 1929, it has belonged to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
The church isn’t claiming any miracles from the ‘holy dirt’ or clay that believers take from a receptacle and rub on themselves (in early days, they often ate it!), but it does replenish the supply, sometimes more than a truckload a day, up to about 30 tons a year. In addition to all that, it’s a National Historic Landmark.
Not that far from the Santuario, in fact down the same road, there’s a sort of shed/kiosk/advertising board for a small low-rider museum (closed when we were there) and other possible attractions.
Back on the road again, we visited one of Chimayo’s other attractions. The area is known for weaving, both in Native American traditions, and by later craftspeople who learned from the earlier traditions. There are a number of stores and workshops in the area. We stopped at Ortega’s Weaving Shop, and bought nearly our only souvenirs of the trip from among the beautiful work.
Continuing north, passing through rolling plains and low mountains in which it seems almost impossible to imagine agriculture, we reached our next stop, in Las Trampas.
The main feature of Las Trampas is the San Jose de Gracia church, built between 1760 and 1776 by a small community of 12 Spanish families. The church is also a National Historic Landmark, and is believed to be nearly unaltered between its completion in 1776 and the mid-20th century when the roof was replaced and other repair work done.
The lack of alteration wasn’t, of course, out of any esthetic sensibility; it was simply because the town never grew much beyond the church and the plaza and had no need—or cash—to glorify it. Mostly what they could afford, and did, and still do, is periodically add more mud to the exterior walls, which are now as much as six feet thick at point.
After our visit to Taos and the Taos Pueblo, which will be covered in next week’s blog, we headed back to Santa Fe via the ‘Low Road,’ heading down toward the river which, of course, is not as wide and famous as it is along the Texas border.
We stopped a number of times along the road, almost every scenic overlook to be honest, for the varying views and colors of the river and the vegetation along it, with colors from almost bleached white to vivid orange.
The river seems to change color frequently as well, depending on depth and angle. Sometimes the difference was startling.
Back in Santa Fe for our last evening and last stroll on the Plaza, and then off to return to Albuquerque. We ignored the interstate we had followed north a few days before, and followed the so-called Turquoise Trail south, a route that alternates between towns full of crafts and not-so-crafts and spectacular scenery.
In all, we left with the impression that there’s a lot more to know than we expected, and a lot more to see another time, perhaps.
