A very kind invitation by Sushmita Roy, Terran Lane and Maggie Werner-Washburne resulted in a visit to UNM in March 2008, where i spent exactly 48 hours (landing at 11pm on Tue and departing at 11pm on Thursday). I should have clearly stayed a week if schedule permitted, but in the short time spent in New Mexico, I was mesmerized by the natural beauty of the land, and the strong presence of the pre-Columbus culture and heritage that's still pervasive in the region. With little time and much to see, i only managed to see three highlights besides Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The first, Bandelier, is a several-hundred strong village dating from a thousand years ago in the heart of mountains and canyons, with buldings in the valley, against the rocks, and carved as caves into the tuff. The second, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks, is nearby as the bird flies, but several hours driving around valleys, craters, and mountains when the small streets are closed for winter. It's a mystical landscape formed by tuff erosion, protected by hard rock, resulting in large tent-like shapes with the hard rock remaining as a hat, and responsible for the very shape of the landscape. The third is Acoma Pueblo, also known as City in the Sky. Built atop an atoll several hundred feet above the rest of an otherwise flat landscape, this village overlooks several hunred miles around it, trapped in a time before Columbus, and a gravity-defying land. Several other atolls surround it, as if sprinked by prehistoric gods on the landscape, 'a place prepared' as the locals say.
