New Mexico to Mexico

Our time with Bill DeBuys was relaxing. The place he calls home is a beautiful little spot along a river in Northern New Mexico with a large field, several beautiful adobe homes and a dog which made it easy for us feel at home as well. After leaving him, we drove an hour or so Southwest and had a free afternoon in Santa Fe. The town is a funny mix of Native Americans selling silver on the street, yuppy twenty-somethings (a little too much like us Westies) wandering around and admiring trendy coffee shops, and regular Santa Feans just trying to buy some pens at the Barnes and Noble.

This entire trip I've been lusting after a turquoise ring worn by one of my fellow Westies, an intensely beautiful blue stone set in a plain silver setting. And after a few weeks in the turquoise country of the Southwest, I was becoming increasingly discouraged by the tourist prices - $50 and $60 for a small, plain ring. But we'd heard rumors that throughout Santa Fe there are places where turquoise jewelry comes cheap - either because the Native Americans had been forced to pawn it off to pay for electricity or water, or because it had been hunted out of graves and other archaeological sites. Neither of these made me feel great, but I wanted to see what was available, so Ben and I headed out to find some of the cheap stuff.

The very first shop we went into - Native Feather Jewelry - was run by two large Italian men who spoke rapidly back and forth in a broken mix of Italian and English. It seemed like a strange collision of cultures to have these large, polo shirt wearing, mob-like men polishing small pieces of silver jewelry with rags and admiring brightly colored turquoise and red stones in large, gaudy necklaces. Ben and I shopped around a bit, he was looking for a bear-shaped necklace pendant and I had immediately zeroed in on the rings.

After only a few minutes, Ben and I had both found pieces we were interested in. Upon asking the price, I learned that the ring I wanted was affordable, the only problem was that it didn't fit. "It's no problem," I was assured, "Take it across the street to Bear, and he'll resize it for you. Just three, maybe four dollars. You'll find him by his sign - 'Open when I can, Close when I want. Don't joke with him. I'm serious. And don't wear your sunglasses." I was sold. It was a beautiful, imperfect green-blue turquoise with mottled brown spots and I loved it. Ben was still looking around, so I went to the counter and paid for my purchase. Immediately, the man who helped me began berating Ben for his lack of chivalry - "Aren't you going to buy this for her? What, are you guys not married yet?" to which I jokingly responded that he wasn't trained yet, and that no, we were not married.

Ben was deciding between two pieces, both a little spendier than he'd like, but upon telling the proprietor this, he was admonished with the words, "I give you good deal on this, man. You go somewhere else to buy, I kill you." I, meanwhile, was helping the other man pick out a necklace for his wife as a reconciliation gift for apparent adultury. Ben decided he'd better buy one of the pieces so we could leave. After he'd paid and endured a little more sarcasm for his ungentlemanly ways, we left in a hurry, and went to the central plaza to meet the rest of the Westies for lunch. On our way, we passed rows of Native American sellers who had set their pieces out on blankets on the sidewalk. I stumbled across one interesting man who was completing his fourth master's degree and selling jewelry to pay tuition.

That afternoon, we decided to head down to a different part of town, stopping by to look for Bear on the way. We weren't sure if we'd find him in a jewelers store, or if we'd find him on the sidewalk, so we wandered for a bit, keeping our eyes out for anyone who might fit the description. After meandering through one small mall, we turned a corner and ran into a small, worn desktop with a closed window over it. A small sign reading "Open when I can, close when I want" told us we were in the right place. Additional signs "50% deposit before work" and one that said something along the lines of "I'm a biker. To all you solicitors, proprietors, and other beggars leave me alone. If you bother me, I'll make you sorry unless you're blind and can't read this." Unfortunately his shop was not open.

The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully - we tried to blend in at the local bookstore, then got delicious organic frozen yogurt at a small shop along a small street. I returned to Bear's shop once more before we left, again to find the lights off and the door locked. Though the ring I bought is too small, it is the most beautiful piece of jewelery I've seen and I hope eventually I'll find someone who can fit it for me.

From Santa Fe, we drove a little South of town and set up camp at the Camel Tracks National Guard Training Site. Over the course of our stay here we would be buzzed by lowflying Blackhawks and Apaches and occasionally run into a military convoy. We spent the next few days doing ecology fieldwork in Bandelier National Monument near the Valles Caldera with Phil's college roommate. Though I can't say ecology is my favorite (or anywhere near it) subject, I really enjoyed the time to hike around the monument - first up and over Scooter Peak, a small mountain on the edge of the Caldera, then through Frijoles Canyon - filled with cliff dwellings, cave art and a small stream that would eventually lead us to the Rio Grande. We then did a day of fieldwork near our campsite on the mesa in the burning heat.

After these days, we moved down to Southern New Mexico to the Chihuahua Desert less than 50 miles from the Mexican border. Here we spend several days looking for the extremely rare Pinocereus Gregii - or night-blooming cereus - the subject of Paul's research at UNM. Though we only found 3 individuals after days of looking, we found several stashes of waterbottles and clothing from border crossers and ran into several horny toads. It seemed a little surreal to be in a place so controversial, something that we were consistently reminded of as helicopters flew overhead and a border blimp rose a few miles away.

We then headed down to Mexico. We've spent the last few days on the San Bernadino Ranch which butts up directly to the US border. Our first night here we walked down to the barbed wire fence that serves to delineate our country from our neighbor. In one place there was even a gate, easily hopped over even if it was chained shut. The ranch is a recovering wetland, a private conservation project entirely supported by the Austin family. We did a morning of fieldwork looking at different marsh plants and their frequency along the edges of the cienega, then wrote a quick paper and headed off to another ranch to spend the night at a hotspring.

The night of the election was spent "in one of the forgotten corner's of the world, huddled around a radio" and though it was strange to be so far away from home and not even in our own country, we were grateful that Obama recognized us and we can't wait for January.

Only two weeks remain in this grand adventure, a fact that most of us are still refusing to acknowledge. Next it's back to New Mexico for a little more writing.