¡Bienvenido a Albuquerque, NM!

Albuquerque is a city-town in the middle of the desert, just like Tucson. Albuquerque is much bigger, however, and has an entirely different feel. From our experience, it definitely has more pizzazz and character to it. For instance, we popped into a charity shop to pick up baseball caps and books, and got talking to the old women who were working/volunteering there. We found that two of them had studied art in London, another had lived in Winchester (UK, Dexter's hometown), and a customer interjected that she too had studied in London... a very random coincidence, especially out in the Wild West! They spelled out what we had already suspected: Albuquerque is very much characterized by and proud of its artistic community.

San Felipe de Neri Church in Old Town

We didn't get to spend much time exploring the charming Southwestern city, unfortunately, since we used it as a 'base camp' for our trip to White Sands (see next post). We had also lost a day, since the bus we booked via Amtrak left without us, leaving us with no choice but to pull an all-nighter at the LV airport until a Greyhound bus took us the following day. We did get to explore the Old Town however, a small but very pretty historic district full of Native American gift shops, New Age Mexican restaurants and various quaint old buildings.

Maryann in Old Town

Why Dex was held up at Border Patrol via White Sands

In front of a gift shop

The nightlife along Central Ave (also known as Route 66!) was inaccessible to us, due to time constraints. This was a shame, because it actually looked quite lively. Central Avenue is lined with bars, clubs and cheap eateries; and looked like a weird fusion of Camden Town, London with the clean-cut, grid arrangement of a downtown historic district.

Only photo we could find online of Central Ave, downtown Albuquerque

Before we managed to walk around the Old Town, however, we attempted to explore a national park that we thought was reachable by foot.. emphasis on attempted.

There is a national park on the edge of Albuquerque, called the Petroglyph National Monument. It's home to some Native American rock art, some thousands of years old. Very cool stuff! We decided, being as it was a mere 5 miles from the centre of town, to pay it a visit.

Petroglyphs, photo not our own

We gradually found it nearly impossible to get to, however, since we didn't have a car (and it's impossible to rent a car in the U.S. until you're at least 25-years-old) and public transportation in that part of the States is abominable. Giving it a shot anyway with the bus system, we got off at a stop that looked nearby the park on the map, but ended up hiking 2-mi uphill through Albuquerque suburbia. When we finally got to the Petroglyph park half an hour before it closed- dehydrated and exhausted- the ranger gave us a map with driving instructions to where the petroglyphs actually were, the closest being a 3-mi drive. BAH! So essentially it was a massive fail-trip all around, with us once again stubbornly refusing to accept what has become a recurring theme in the American Southwest: you can't get around anywhere without a car. Ah well. There is so much to see in the southwest, we're already planning to hit it up once again in the form of a road trip when we're a bit older.

Not all our trips within the city ended badly. On our last night, after coming back from White Sands ravenous for some cheese enchiladas, we took the bus to the University of New Mexico campus for some good, cheap eats at the suggestion of a local and ended up at The Frontier Restaurant. Right in front of UNM, and evidently very popular with the students, the seat-yourself, New Age Mexican diner was pretty busy when we showed up at 10:30 PM. Very cheap, cheerful, and generous chicken & cheese enchiladas and burritos if you happen to be in the city!