Da Bomb!

After a great meal last night, a long lie in, watching Murray win Wimbledon again, and a massive breakfast we finally got out of our lovely hotel and headed over to the apparently world-renowned Santa Fe International Folk Art Festival, not knowing quite what to expect but everyone in town buzzing about it. It was a really impressive collection of incredible craft work from as far a field as Uzbekistan, Phillipines & Brazil. The silverwork from Laos that we couldn't afford when we were there 10 years ago and it was quarter the price was difficult to to resist (but we did).

Next stop was Bandelier National Park. We knew there were cliff dwellings but weren't prepared for the amazing homes hollowed in the rock as we descended down from the mesa plateau. The photos don't do it justice, but are still pretty impressive.

We saw the building in Santa Fe where the men recruited to work on the top secret atomic bomb entered, unaware to what they were to work on, so we visited Los Alamos which is where they were secretly sent. This is being turned into a brand new National Park so unfortunately we couldn't see much, other than a beautiful if probably rather boring (not unlike Princeton!) town perched up in the hills.

We then drove onto the Enchanted Circle scenic drive that starts at Taos, a small artsy town nestled in the hills. We were really tempted by an amazing painting of an Indian warrier, and know we are going to regret doing the right thing and not buying it.

We camped on a small peninsula of mesa mountaintop between Rio Grande & Red River - another incrediblely magical place to spend a night.Read more