Taos and Angel Fire

On our way to Taos, we stopped in the little town of Las Trampas.  Everything was so green! 

 We stopped at this historic church.  The sign (which Stephen let me struggle to translate before telling me the other side was in English) says that the church was built between 1760 and 1776 by a group of 12 Spanish-American families.  The walls are up to 6 feet thick and parishioners periodically re-mud the adobe walls to maintain the building.  There were two women doing just that, so we chatted with them for a while.  Photography is not allowed inside the church.  The art and architectural details are very beautiful.  The pews are modern.  One of the women told us that church attendees would have stood or sat on the floor on mats originally.  Then people brought their own chairs and some miss-matched pews were given by churches when they upgraded.  But in the 1970's, her grandfather built the existing pews which are in a simple Southwestern style.

Also in Las Trampas we saw this water diversion pipe made of logs. 

 Taos is a charming little town with lots of galleries and shops, a few museums, and some good places to eat.  Judging by the perennial gardens it is in a temperate zone and gets a lot more rain than Albuquerque.  While we were there it was hot and sunny,  just the way I like it.  The mornings, however, were quite cool because of the elevation.  I wake up early and Stephen prefers to sleep in, so I went for long walks in the morning then had coffee in the hotel coffee shop overlooking the plaza while people-watching and/or surfing the net.

 During our stay we visited the historic courthouse.  The murals are upstairs and it was stifling hot but worth the discomfort.  We went to the art museum and visited several galleries.  We breakfasted and dined outdoors and had some excellent New Mexican and Middle Eastern fare.
On Saturday morning there was a farmers market in the plaza right by our hotel.  We explored the market and bought some sweet yellow cherries for a snack.

 We listened to the accordion and guitar duo for a few minutes then headed over to the other side of the square to hear the string band.  They were just finishing a tune.  I said, "Hey, I know her!" and got a big hug from one of the fiddle players.  Small world -- we had just taken a class together at UNM.  We listened to their last three songs and then chatted for a short time before continuing on.

 After the farmers market we drove to Angel Fire which is a ski resort area.  There were bike races going on and the place was full of impressively fit young people wearing lots of safety gear, riding serious mountain bikes with shock absorbers and huge knobby tires.  We had lunch at a cafe near the ski lift and watched the bikes and bikers go up.

 Then we drove up the mountain on a dirt road, admiring the views and checking out the houses under construction.  We saw a female elk who didn't seem to be at all discomfited by our presence.

 A few miles outside of Taos is an Earthship Community.  We went there on Sunday and took a tour of the model.  An Earthship is a house that is completely off the grid, built of recycled materials (tires, bottles, cans, etc.), and is as self-sustaining as possible.  Rain is harvested with a rooftop collection system and is recycled four times.  Passive solar heats greenhouses that surround the living space and allows food to be grown.  Active solar and windmills provide power.  Geothermal is used for heating and cooling.  We were impressed by the technology, but also by the art.  All the Earthships we saw were very beautiful in addition to being practical.

 This one is under construction:

 On our way back to Taos from the Earthship Community, we stopped at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge to take pictures. 

 We didn't eat lunch at the food truck in the parking lot, but the picture reminded me of all the interesting characters we saw in the Taos area.  We were definitely the most boring, square people in town! 

Taos Pueblo

 

 As the sign says, Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for over 1000 years.  The reservation includes 10,000 acres.  While only about 150 people now live in the village year-round, there are many more people living in the area in modern houses.  Only a part of the village is open to the public, and even that part is closed during certain ceremonial times of the year.  Other dances and ceremonies are open to the public.  The tribal council has done an excellent job of allowing the public to come and learn about the ancient culture while preserving privacy and respect.  Stephen and I wondered if we would feel awkward visiting a place that was someone's home, but the rules and areas of access are very clear and the guides and craftspeople were obviously happy to educate us and welcome us.  It was a lovely experience.

 The dwellings did not originally have doors.  You would climb a ladder and access the building through an opening in the roof.  This was for protection.  When the doors were added they were frequently painted turquoise or other bright colors.

 The river, we were told, has potable water that is tested frequently and carefully protected.  The source is a blue lake on the mountain.  President Teddy Roosevelt took the lake away from the Pueblo and opened it to public access.  Soon, people vandalized the area and polluted the lake.  But under President Richard Nixon the Pueblo was able to regain control of the mountain area that includes the lake and eventually its purity was restored.  It was the first time that Native people were able to get land back from the United States government.

 Stephen bought frybread and lemonade from one shop and I talked to the owner.  He had been born in the house we were standing in.  The extended family lived in different parts of the building.  His grandmother's kitchen is where he and his wife now make the frybread and cornbread to sell to visitors.  He is a veteran, has been on the Tribal Council, and was a member of the police force on the pueblo. He spoke Tiwa until he went to public school. He told me that there is now an elementary school on the Pueblo that goes to 7th grade, after which students either go to the public school in Taos or the Indian boarding school in Santa Fe.
In one shop we fell in love with a group of paintings that were so cheerful and happy we wanted to look at the images every day.  The young man in charge of the shop said that his sister was the artist.  The shop had been his grandparents' home and he showed us pictures of them and told us a bit about his family.  In some of the shops the old ceilings had been replaced with smooth boards over the vigas (log beams) but in this shop the ceiling was still small branches and mud as it would have been originally.  We decided to buy one of the paintings, but we had to go back to the visitor's center to get cash.  When we returned we got to meet the artist -- a charming young lady wearing jeans and a rock and roll t-shirt.  We told her how much we admired her work, but she was a little shy.  It is clear that her talkative brother is more suited to deal with the public and she prefers to paint.

The ruins of the original church stand over the cemetery.  We feel so fortunate that we were able to visit the pueblo and talk to interesting people and learn about the history and culture.