At the end of March, we stayed in Bosque, New Mexico about 40 miles south of Albuquerque for a few days followed by Santa Fe for almost a week. Our time was largely spent hiking in National Monuments and visiting American Indian ruins. Many of the ruins are at least 700 years old and are the last vestiges of native peoples who occupied the land for thousands of years. In general, many native cultures developed stable agriculture-based societies and built “apartment” complexes and cliff dwellings.
Our agenda in Bosque was to visit the Sevilleta and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuges, followed by touring the three Salinas Pueblo Missions ruin sites. As luck would have it, our first real snow of 2021 arrived and we didn’t make it to the Refuges. We visited the Salinas Pueblo Missions in three locations including Gran Quivira, Quarai, and Abo. The story of ruins is largely a tale of the Spanish. The Spanish came to New Mexico to colonize and convert the natives to Christianity. The churches the Spaniards built (with native labor) were the centerpiece of each of the three villages. Through the 1600s, significant conflicts between civil and church authorities, and later between other Native American tribes developed in New Mexico. Ultimately, violent attacks, Spanish exploitation, disease, drought, and famine caused everyone to abandon the area, leaving everything behind. It proved conclusively that Spain could mess up civilizations just as well as any other European power.
The stay in Santa Fe was hiking intensive. We spent most of our time in Bandelier National Monument. It is large, beautiful, and has been considered for promotion to a National Park. It has extensive and well preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings and a village. Additionally, the scenery and the trails were excellent and varied. We also visited Valles Caldera National Preserve which is adjacent to the Bandelier. It is a gigantic valley formed by a volcanic eruption over a million years ago that was 300 times larger than Mount St. Helens. Part of the fun was driving there. It was a good hour and a half drive though some beautiful mountainous territory. With no prior knowledge, we ended up driving though the Los Alamos Labs complex and had to get through US Government security on both ends of the road.
We stopped in Santa Fe a couple of years ago and loved the place, but didn’t have time to explore the surrounding area. This year we saw it from a different perspective and while visiting Bandelier was great, there is still a lot to see and do that we haven’t experienced. We’ll be back.
