Day 13: Santa Fe

This morning in Albuqurque, we drove the van back to the Old Town to have a look at two museums that we didn't get a chance to look at yesterday. The first museum was the Rattlesnake Museum. It was a bit hard to find, because you had to approach it from the right angle to see the signs, but eventually we opened the door. We were greeted by a python, a black widow and a tarantula. I didn't think Alex was going to get any further than that. We had no idea that spiders were going to be part of the deal but there it was, all fat and hairy and waiting. Alex pressed hard up against the door and turned white as a sheet. Eventually we got past the spider, paid our money and moved in the museum.

They had crocodile skulls, alligator skulls, hippo skulls, and lots of other little reptile skulls. There were about 15 different types of rattlesnake. I was surprised at how small they are. I was expecting much larger creatures, but in actual fact, most of the snakes didn't seem to be much longer than my arm, or thicker than my thumb. Scattered in amongst the snakes were various other scorpion, hissing cockroach, toad, and gila monster exhibits. Oh, and tarantulas. That meant that I had to walk first and check out every exhibit to warn Alex that she might not want to look into this or that display. I have to say though, that the Indian decorative tarantula was the biggest spider I have ever seen. This thing had legs as thick as my fingers, and a fat patterned body that screamed danger.

Once we had stared at snakes all we could, we crossed the road to find the Turquoise Museum. More homeless people asked us for money (there isn't a single place we've been yet, that didn't have beggars). I didn't really know much about Turquoise before I went to this museum, but it really is a pretty fascinating mineral. Every Turquoise source is different, not only in colour, but also in the way the rocks around it inflitrate the vein and create patterns within it. The thing we noticed was that there must be a big trade in fake turquoise, as the museum had lots of notices explaining how to spot fakes, and the exact questions to ask dealers.

It was still quite early when we had finished with the museums, so we headed North for an hour and a half to Santa Fe. Just like the guide book promised, there was a large section of the town made out of adobe brick. Parts of it were almost like being in a European city. We spent the afternoon wandering through the streets looking in the shop windows. This was much better than Albuquerque, where all of the old buildings had been converted into tacky souvenier shops. In Santa Fe, the old buildings were still, for the most part, a working part of the town.

I had promised Alex that when the Michael Jackson movie “This Is It” opened I would take her to see it. It wasn't a bad film about a rehearsal for a show, and you got the sense that the concert itself would have been pretty spectacular. The large audience actually clapped and cheered after every song, which was a bit different, but it did add to the spectacle.

After the movie, we found the Wal-Mart and settled in. Until there was a knock at the door and a security guard told us there was no overnight parking. So we were moved on from our first Wal-Mart (and I don't know why, the car park seemed the same as all the others). No matter though, as we soon found a street to park on, and we went to sleep.