Blue Goose ~ Day 305

March 28, 2015 ~ Albuquerque, NM to Socorro, NM

We were to visit Acoma Pueblo today but impulsively chose to eat breakfast in the hotel before starting out. The restaurant was empty and waiting to serve, and they needed our patronage. We both ordered a quinoa, kale and sweet potato hash with two lightly and perfectly fried eggs on the side. Elegant, really quite simple and delicious.

Breakfast at the Andaluz in Albuquerque, NM

DHC had reserved a rental car so we walked half a mile to pick it up, through the very quiet, early Saturday morning downtown streets of Albuquerque, past buildings adorned with murals and decorative tiles, past pots of pansies, in glorious sunshine. As happened repeatedly on this trip, DHC ran into a woman who was out walking and who had moved to Arizona from South Bend, Indiana. She and her husband had first tried living in Tucson, but it was too hot, and they returned to Indiana before trying again in Albuquerque, which they love. DHC had spotted a bird across the street and spent 30 minutes trying to figure it out. Knowing nothing about the habitat of Rosy Finches, she was hopeful she was seeing one, but it was only an orangey House Finch, a color phase she had never seen before.

Oops....her driver's license had expired, so I became the designated driver of a small new Buick; we headed west to Acoma.

Downtown Albuquerque - building mural

When we got off the Interstate for the 12 miles of secondary road to Acoma, we stopped for a photo and immediately saw a Black-chinned Sparrow, a lifer for DHC and, skulking near the base of a nearby bush, I saw a Greater Roadrunner. Deborah just missed seeing more than a flicker of movement even though she walked into the scrub to try to find it.

DHC chasing a Roadrunner near Acoma - NM

No luck, and we continued to Acoma, arriving minutes before the next tour began. The way it works is that every hour guided tours are offered, and a van transports visitors up the short steep road to village on top of the mesa.  It is the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America.

Seeing and hearing about Acoma, built on top of a steep-sided mesa, was an amazing experience. There are 13-15 families who live here permanently but hundreds of other families have homes, visiting and staying for shorter periods of time. There are some 300 dwellings; no electricity; no plumbing. Vehicles have been allowed since the road was built but only Natives are allowed to use it (and school buses). The pueblo "roads"are barely more than open spaces of rutted, hard-packed sand between the homes, which are a jumble of adobe structures, one to three stories high. Often the second and third floors are accessed only by outside ladders. There are large freestanding beehive bread ovens outside. Vendors and artists had set up pottery on small tables right outside their homes, but we were asked to wait until after the 90-minute tour was over before buying anything. However, there were food items available as we walked along – frybread or fruit cakes or tamales.

Acoma Pueblo - AZ
(DHC photo)

A few kids wandered about, usually sticking close to the pottery vendors. At one point a middle-aged handsome gentleman came out of his home. He wore jeans and had striking long white hair, unrestrained by braids. Immediately people asked if they could take his picture and he agreed (of course he did, which was obviously why he came out as we walked by) and he motioned to a small “photo” jar for contributions. To me, it was amusingly so Indian...so modern day Native American and totally fine.

Acoma Pueblo - AZ
(DHC photo)

Our guide was Geri, also middle-aged, dressed comfortably in tennis shoes, a T-shirt and loose capri-length pants. Her long black hair blew in the wind until halfway through the tour when she casually braided it as she moved along. She had immediate and total control over our group of 20, telling us both the generic history (Spanish versus the Native tribes) and more specific stories of Acoma. There is a cemetery where people have been buried in layers, but which has now reached capacity after the fifth layer. There will be no more burials up on the mesa. Sand would be brought up from below by women and children in buckets and placed between each successive layer. The thick-walled adobe church was several degrees cooler than outside, in fact, almost chilly. Geri explained the paintings and decorative features and how the present day Acoma people use the church. High-set windows let in some light. There were 14 stations of the cross along the side wall. The floor was dirt, mostly hard packed, but with a covering of fine loose sand. Those who wished to take photos had to get a permit before the tour and some areas were off limits (the cemetery and inside the church). 

To me, Acoma was the curious mix of a Native American experience with components of their concession to what most white people expect, the subtlety of their sly humor, their lack of taking themselves seriously and the juxtapostion of modernity and old ways of living.

Acoma Pueblo  - AZ
(DHC photo)

DHC and I both bought a beautiful piece of pottery from Terrence Chino. Acoma pottery is known for its thinness and intricate designs. We had to pay cash, and the artist met us down below at the ATM machine. A small black-haired boy came with him. He had carefully packed our pieces for travel.

WWW.WESTERNARTANDARCHITECTURE.COM

The Four Matriarchs were Acoma women — Marie Z. Chino, Lucy Lewis, Jessie Garcia and Juana Leno — born around the turn of the 20th century. These women, with their bare hands and the most primitive of tools, revived the ancient style of Acoma pottery. And, in so doing, they gave rise to a style now preserved and nurtured by their descendants — and prized for its design, color and workmanship. 

Occasional wind gusts blew the fine yellow sand between houses and all over us as we walked about. Acoma is a hodge-podge of homes – some very old; others quite new, but all of earthy colors, although some window and door frames are brightly painted. A White-throated Swift flew by. 

Geri said that there are now some generators, and on football Sundays, when the Cowboys are playing, the noise is the loudest.

Barbara - Acoma Pueblo - AZ
(DHC photo)

We left and headed back east to the Interstate. Along the way we stopped for a meadowlark tutorial as we listened to one singing on a wire above us. Eastern and Western Meadowlarks are not easy to distinguish and their ranges do overlap, but since DHC has advanced aural capabilities, she learned and remembered vocalizations which is one way to tell them apart.

I remembered a small highly recommended crossroads bar / restaurant (Owl Bar and Cafe) just eight miles north of Bosque del Apache NWR where we stopped for delicious green chile cheeseburgers, and where I also bought earrings (Arizona turquoise) from a Native man who had his wares in the small entryway and had set up for a few hours of trading.

Acoma Pueblo - AZ
(DHC photo)

The cheeseburger was far and away the best burger I've ever eaten!

As we left the Owl to drive the north loop of Bosque, right across the street, we saw Gambel's Quails, a life bird for DHC. On the refuge, we saw another lifer for her - Neotropic Cormorants. For me the best sighting was a trio of javelinas, poking in the roadside brush.

Gambel's Quail - near Bosque del Apache NWR - NM

Deborah was in awe of the landscape, especially on the refuge, which has impoundments for waterfowl, with fields and small wooded areas, with mountains on the western horizon and the Rio Grande to the east. As it always is in these sanctuaries, Bosque was peaceful, serene, soothing....a nice ending to this day.

We then spent the night in Socorro, 20 minutes up the road to the north.