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United States of America

Acoma Pueblo & Albuquerque, New Mexico and Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.

While in New Mexico travelling to Albuquerque I decided to visit Acoma Pueblo on someone’s recommendation.  This turned out to be a very good recommendation.  It was about an hour’s drive from Santa Fe to Albuquerque and then another hour to Acoma Pueblo which is west from Albuquerque along the I-40.  I am so glad I took the trip – it was fascinating to see the way the Native Americans live and their traditional dwellings.  It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the U.S.A.  No electricity (although some have generators), no running water (they bring in water from one of the three villages) and no sewerage (I noticed they had portaloos).  The Pueblo was atop a hill (a sandstone mesa to be precise) and the scenery was magnificent.  Wide sweeping vistas reminiscent of any of the old westerns I saw as a kid.  It was very hot up at the Pueblo and luckily I had brought an umbrella with me so I was shaded from the sun bearing down on me.  The language of Acoma is Keresan which was an oral language only.  Recently they have taken to writing it down phonetically using the English alphabet (modern Latin alphabet) so that their language may survive.  Many of the inhabitants are artisans and had their wares for sale outside their houses.  There was a cemetery and mission church called San Esteban del Rey.  Out of respect we were asked to not take photos of these areas.

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United States of America

Dallas to Amarillo, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.

It was nice to leave overcast Dallas and get out on the road.  I got lost on the Dallas freeways several times again.  The GPS kept turning itself off.  But eventually I found the correct freeway and then the highway north toward Amarillo.  The weather turned out to be beautiful the further north I got.  I guess Dallas was getting some of the rain from Hurricane Alex which hit northern Mexico that night.  
The highway went through several rural cities and towns – some with populations as low as the 300s.  It kind of felt I was going through the real Texas.  Places such as Decatur, Rhome, Bowie, Clarendon, Quanah, Memphis (not the Tennesse one!), Childress and Claude.  In one place I asked a girl in a restaurant for some ‘take away’ food and she seemed completely perplexed.  After explaining I wanted to take the food with me she said ‘oh you mean “to go”‘ and had a little giggle at me.  About three quarters of the way there I needed to get petrol so I pulled into a ‘gas station’.  When I looked at the pump I couldn’t work out how to use it.  So I asked a lady on the other side of the pump and she admitted she didn’t usually come to this station and she didn’t know either.  Together we worked it out with a queue of cars forming behind us.  The lady asked where I was from and said we had cute accents!