Santa Fe
Trip Start
Mar 03, 2011
1
8
14
Trip End
Apr 05, 2011
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Well, if states were judged on the quality of their hostels, New Mexico would be anything but enchanting. Along a dusty highway, a couple of miles away from the centre of town, I found the grandiosly named 'Santa Fe International Pension and Hostel.' After spending much of the day travelling back east from Los Angeles, one of the last things I needed to be told, rather curtly, by the gentleman behind the desk was that the hostel I had unwittingly booked myself at was a 'chore hostel.' I immediately conjured up nightmarish images of me mannacled and chained to a giant iron ball, cowering under the whip of a sadistic hostel employee. More to the point, how was it logical that I pay the hostel $18 a night to do their work? My mood wasn't much improved when I discovered that the chores were first-come-first-serve, meaning if you woke up late, you were left with the distinctly unappealing prospect of cleaning the toilets. As it turned out, many of the toilets didn't actually flush, meaning I had to take a tour of the entire building to find one that wasn't filled with the waste of the previous user. Enchanting indeed.
Still, at least waking up early meant that I had the entire day to explore what I'd heard was one of the most beautiful towns in the South West. Ignoring the entirely useless instructions of the unwelcoming owner, I followed the railway line north until I eventually crossed the Santa Fe river (more a rubbish-filled hole, really) into the centre of the city. The word 'city' is perhaps somewhat generous - Santa Fe only has 75,000 inhabitants. Nonetheless, for such a small place, it has an eclectic mix of residents, with substantial (relatively speaking) communties of Russians, Frenchmen and even Jordanians. As I quickly discovered, this potpourri of different cultures and traditions has been part of Santa Fe's history for centuries.
Even for a country with a history as diverse as the United States, Santa Fe's (literally: 'Holy Faith') past stands out. Founded way back in 1598 by Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate (who's party piece was apparantly to cut the feet of any local foolish enough not to convert to Catholicism), Santa Fe holds the distinction of being the oldest capital city in the United States. The Palace of the Governors, a squat, narrow adobe building overlooking the elegant colonial plaza which housed the Spanish (and later Mexican and American) governors of New Mexico is the oldest continually-occupied public building in the country; the church around the corner, its gloomy wooden-floored interior adorned with all manner of icons and crucifixes, was built in 1610 - over a decade before the pilgrims of Pocahontas fame founded Jamestown. Considering the United States only became a country in 1776, Santa Fe is practically prehistoric by the standards of the New World. In fact, the town can even make a reasonable claim to pre-date the Spanish colonisation at the dawn of the 17th century - it is thought that one house close to the river was built by Pueblo Indians ('pueblo' is the Spanish for 'village'; the Pueblo were agricultural by habit and lived in characteristic adobe brick houses as opposed to their nomadic neighbours to the north and east who lived in tipis) - in the 12th century.
I got the impression, perhaps inevitably considering its rich history, that the people here had a far more thoughtful, sensitive attitude towards their past that many other Americans who seem to have more in common with the flag-waving chauvinism typified by the 19th century ideology of 'Manifest Destiny,' stating that God had chosen the 'promised people' (ie: Anglo-Saxon Protestants) to spread the joys of American freedom from the Atlantic to the Pacific, regardless of whoever else - Hispanics or Native Americans - might have been living there.
This pride in the mescita traditions of New Mexico reflects heavily, following a brief (and, in my view, ill-advised) foray into gaudy Victorian neo-classicism, on the architecture. As I mentioned, practically all the buildings - even modern ones - were built in the traditional Pueblo style, their reddish-brown tone sharply reflecting the dim rays of sunlight that filtered meekly over the mountains just to the north. Because the adobe bricks (a mixture of manure, straw and mud left to dry in the sun) were so tightly packed, buildings looked as if they had been sculpted as if out of clay, their curved corners and smooth ledges easy on the eye. As adobe bricks are not as sturdy as conventional bricks, the walls of the buildings were especially thick, narrow windows carved awkwardly out of the mud.
Perhaps lured by this unique form of architecture, or else by the dark, stocky hills that surround the wide plateau on which it nestles, Santa Fe has played host to dozens of famous artists, authors and intellectuals throughout its history. This bohemian vibe is still very much played upon by locals, who have opened up dozens of bijou bookstores-cum-coffeeshops, jewelry boutiques and barren, whitewashed art galleries that fan systematically out on narrow streets (whose names, like San Francisco Street or Paseo de Peraita were almost exclusively Spanish) leading off the main square. The square itself, while insignificant compared to the spectacular spaces in Rome or Venice, is the most European I've yet encountered on my travels: intersected by park benches, families chatting in the cool afternoon sun, a smart wooden bandstand and bright blue stalls selling standard New Mexican fare like tacos and enchiladas (corn tortillas filled with cheese and/or meat), everything accompanied by the pervasive - and much adored - chile salsa (contrary to popular belief, or, at least, my belief, green chile is far spicier than red chile).
Santa Fe, I think it can therefore safely be said, was enchanting enough. But what I really thought was brilliant were the people. Over the past couple of weeks, I hope you've caught my heavy incinuations about the openness and welcoming attitude (Santa Fe hostels/Amtrak officials notwithstanding) of Americans. But it's probably worth taking a moment to say it explcitly: the difference with Britain is so massive that you might be forgiven for thinking that Americans are a different species. When I explored Europe last summer, I took 'friendliness' to mean a simple 'hello' in a shop or an offered direction if I was lost. But, since being in America, I've realised that this scale is utterly inadequate. I must have had fifty or more conversations with people on the train, or waiting at stations, or with fellow diners in restaurants who lean over from their table and say that they couldn't help but notice my accent. People treat me like a minor celebrity. On the train from Los Angeles, the girl sitting opposite me was so enthralled by my accent (I get an odd sensation every time I hear this, but many people I've spoken to have never heard a British accent in the flesh until they met me), that she insisted that I speak to her best friend on the phone just so she could hear a bona fide tea-drinking, Queen-meeting resident of Blighty. Even my most inocuous 'Hello...' caused a flutter of delighted laughter on the other side of the line.
But the pinnacle of this joyfully curious, friendly attitude came yesterday when, following a brief conversation about where I was from with a lady and her two grandchildren in Santa Fe's Museum, quite out of the blue, I was invited to lunch. Try and imagine a similar story unfolding in Britain, or at least one where you didn't call the police or grab the pepper spray and rape alarm from your pocket. So, quite bizarely - but, in a strange way, wonderfully - I found myself luncheoning (for free, despite my protestations) in Santa Fe's best New Mexican restaurant, trying to explain Yorkshire Puddings, scones and the House of Lords to a white-haired grandmother from Albuquerque and her ten and fifteen-year-old grandkids who I'd only met twenty minutes before. Now that was enchanting.
