Taking the slow road from T or C to Santa Fe

With a whole day ahead to reach Santa Fé we left T or C in the sunshine yesterday morning. With only about 330km to cover we could take our time, so we decided to take the slower route for part of the way. We left I-25 to switch to Hwy. 1, a paved but narrow road leading by the Bosque del Apache bird sanctuary. While the thousands of sandhill cranes who winter here have left already the wetlands along the Rio Grande still provide habitat for many birds during the summer and a place to rest for migratory birds.

We were mainly looking for a place to walk on a travelling day, so we stopped at the first of the hiking trails, still south of the visitor centre, the 'Canyon Trail'. 

The soft sand on the first part of the trail was not so easy to walk in but provided a good workout. At the trailhead kiosk we found a map to explain different features along the way, but many of them were not really relevant yet since it is so early in the year. Still, plants are starting to green up, and after a bit of rain the day before the soft sand showed tracks of coyote and, according to the description in the trail guide, a kangaroo rat, its dragging tail a line drawn in the sand. A few birds, too, were around, though the only ones I recognized were swallows. 

The trail followed the canyon with its eroding sculpted walls, so soft that they are almost more gravelly than sandstone. The map alerted us to a wall with thousands of tiny holes: here, bees have burrowed into the rock to build their hives, the tunnels often no more than 10 cm deep and widening into chambers. 

The trail zig-zagged to the top of the canyon where an overlook provided a good view of the marshlands near the visitor centre. 

Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore more of this bird sanctuary, which is sought out by people from all over the world, we found out, but it was a nice stop on the way. Had we stopped at the visitor centre before embarking on the hike I'd likely have opted for a different hike, somewhere in the marsh, to see the spring migratory birds that have arrived already.

Near the small town of San Antonio we re-entered I-25 to head for Albuquerque for a fuel stop at Costco. Glad to have an alternative to passing through this city of more than half a million people we headed for Hwy. 14, the so-called Turquoise Road, another one of the many beautiful scenic byways. 

 

While we didn't have time to explore it at length we much enjoyed the slower pace, much less traffic and rugged beauty of the landscape. Hills covered in juniper and pinion pine, the growth much denser than where we passed through in the morning, the green more prevalent than the pale yellow, pink and grey of the flats, high, snow-covered mountains in the distance, colourful rock outcroppings – it was great advice from a friend to send us on that alternate route to Santa Fe.

There are several little towns along the way, mining towns at one time, but now quite changed, from ghost towns to artist communities. 

We picked one to look at a bit closer and chose Madrid, which proved to be a good choice. Many of the old houses have been restored and are now homes for galleries, shops and restaurants; others are left standing the way they were, looking as if they were gazing back into a distant past where life was much different and other hopes and dreams were lived out in them.

We visited one of the shops to look at the art work and learned that all of it is being crafted by local artists who live in the pueblos along the turquoise road. Materials, too, come from here, but only in part. No longer is turquoise mined in large amounts in the US; much of it comes from China where still big deposits are being mined. Turquoise was only one of the stones used by the pueblo people. Traditionally they also used sea shells that were acquired in trade, and we saw some beautiful examples of the orange spiny oyster shell jewellery made here.

It was early evening when we reached our hotel on the outskirts of Santa Fe, and we looked forward to visiting this old town with its special architecture in the morning.