Day 15

Cold night. Perfect storm of badly fitted hotel windows, unusably noisy heater and no spare blanket. I haven’t been that cold since a night in the lodge at the top of the Tioga Pass. The Best Western Rio Grande Inn is definitely a notch down from the others on this trip.
However everything was forgiven when we drove to the airport with the sky full of balloons again.

Day 13

4.30 start for the Balloon Fiesta! Sleep punctuated by police sirens (understandable in a large city) and train whistles (nope).

We’d just got settled at the park, and Albuquerque had the most dramatic thunderstorm. Balloons and wind don’t mix well, and lightning and propane are worse. No ballooning today. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

Went to see Taken 2 in the afternoon – great film, but shades of wet holidays in Brighton.

To compensate for lack of balloons, had dinner at posh restaurant including Saganaki, a Greek dish which involves pouring Bacardi over Kasseri cheese and setting fire to it at the table. Excellent.

Photography 0/10
Ballooning 0/10
Shopping 2/10 (had to buy a case for all the other shopping)
Food 8/10

Day 14

Finally, the weather was in our favour, and today was a great success. Our balloon flight got airborne as part of the “mass ascension”. At the risk of using tired superlatives this was simply magical. I have done balloon flights before, and they are always fun, but nothing can compare with being part of over 500 hot air balloons lifting off together.

The Albuquerque setting is wonderful, with mountains and desert around as well as the town and river below you, and the photography opportunities were almost unlimited. The other great thing about Albuquerque is that when you land the locals all know the drill and are only too keen to help.

We have, however, discovered the nadir of New Mexican cuisine. The donut burger is a four-layered concoction of donut, burger, cheese and another donut. Neither of us was brave enough to try one.

Come the evening, come the evening glow, where the balloons are all inflated on the ground and lit from within using their burners, with a moderate degree of synchronisation. We were also entertained by a very good rock covers band, and the evening was capped off by an excellent firework display which had all 100,000 attendees ooh-ing and ah-ing like children.

We were impressed by the traffic management coming out, the Albuquerque police using all available roads inventively and getting us from car park to the other side of the city in 25 minutes.

Balloons 11/10
Photography 9/10
Food 4/10

Day 12

Looking for hairdryer in Taos hotel found secret stash of MORE pillows!!!

After a couple of hours browsing in Taos we set off for Santa Fe via the famous “High Road to Taos”. First stop, the church of San Francisco di Asis in Ranchos do Taos. This is just as pretty as in the photos of Ansel Adams and Georgia O’Keefe, a natural target for artists of all persuasions.

The drive along the High Road was very enjoyable in bright sunshine. However our lunch target of Truchas turned out to be a bit disappointing with about 50 art galleries and no diner. The next town down the road, Chimayo, is only slightly better. They say that “man cannot live by bread alone”, but “art alone” doesn’t do it for me either.

We were also rather disappointed by a sign to “watch for roadside activity”, but apparently the artists can’t stretch to a bit of performance art.

The Santuario de Chimayo is a bit odd. At the risk of being slightly offensive the term “Catholic Voodoo” came to mind. I suspect this is best reserved for devout Catholics, but left us feeling a bit uncomfortable.

We also managed a quick stop in Santa Fe, but the historic centre is very busy and very expensive, and a bit of an anti-climax after the much more accessible towns we’d visited earlier.

Photography 7/10
Shopping 5/10
No large animals, despite promising “Elk Crossing” signs…

Day 11

Up at dawn to try and get golden hour light on the dunes – they are in shadow themselves in the evening. Lodge has world’s most powerful tap in world’s smallest basin. Oh well…

Irish contingent dressed in balaclava got it right – photography OK but it was bloody cold! However it does have to be admitted that walking on sand-dunes at 8,000 ft is not ideal exercise for an overweight bloke with dodgy knees.

Boring drive down to Taos, but the town and especially the Indian Pueblo really make up for it. The Pueblo is still lived in, but they also allow visitors and photography for personal use.

Nice dinner at Taos’ posh fine dining restaurant.

Note re Fonda Hotel Taos – to double size of room simply remove 4 super-sized leopard print cushions and 6 spare pillows!

Photography 8/10
Food 8/10
Large animal count 26 (by 10 am)

Day 10

Drove East from Durango through the Rockies. Another almost 11,000 ft pass, but roads not as interesting as yesterday . At coffee stop we were almost forced to purchase two enormous slices of pie, of which more later.

We ended up at the Great Sand Dunes National Park. This is an amazing enclave of 40 square miles of full-on Arabian sand dunes, right in the middle of the Rockies. It’s pure photographic gold, with aforesaid sand dunes, mountains, trees in fall colour, dramatic dead trees and very much alive deer available in all required combinations.

Food slightly more of a challenge as the only eatery for about 30 miles has closed for the season. However sub sandwiches from the shop were not too bad, and aforementioned coconut and peach pies turned out to be absolutely superb, rescuing us from potential 3/10 danger.

Early start tomorrow to catch dawn on the dunes.

Photography 9/10
Food 7/10
Large animal count 20+