Santa Fe and the Land of Enchantment

Santa Fe New Mexico is the first real city to be reviewed by this blog.  I intended the blog to be a more serious literary work of write-ups befitting a travel and tourism publication (hint hint to anyone who knows anyone in the industry).  Though it seems, if you’ve been reading, that it has morphed into more of a diary.  This entry aims to get us back on track – giving you, dear reader, a review of the places we are exploring.  Don’t expect this to be objective or comprehensive – it is still my diary and I intend to make our (you’ll see both he said and she said) opinions clear. 

We spent a week in New Mexico at probably the worse time of year to see the place – sometime after harvest and before the ski season officially takes off.  The state is called the Land of Enchantment according to its bold yellow and turquoise license plates.  It is also about to celebrate its first 100 years of statehood in 2012. 

Santa Fe is our nation’s oldest and highest capital.  And like a smoked out Rastafarian it has its own very distinct vibe.  Strict planning codes mean that everything, everywhere must have the same look – adobe (the mud bricks) or pueblo (the step back architecture) or some sort of federal style (early American west).  What that means is that as you drive north from Albuequerque, an immense landscape stretches in front of you like a light brown Casablanca.  It actually works quite well.  In this high desert landscape, you have mostly dust coloured ground spotted with scrubby pinons (a relative of the pine nut) and juniper trees.  These are more aptly called bushes as they rarely reach over my head.  The homes also help with the intense heat – so we’re told – of summer.  With a stronger bent to modern architecture, I was surprised not to see more people playing with the pueblo style and more modern nods to glass. But it could be that these homes are in the more affluent eastern parts of the city. 

Large Homes on the Eastern Side of Santa Fe

Preconceived Associations:

She says she was expecting:

1.     Older women in flowing white garments
2. ·      The “art crowd”  - expensive galleries specializing in native American arts
3. ·      Really good food, very local farm-to-table, a great farmers market
4. ·      Great villages on the way to the big ski town in Taos
5. ·      Psychics and gem stores

He says he was expecting:

1. ·      Pretty and old and easy to get around
2. ·      Wealthy eastcoasters – they type of people who have gone to find their inner native American selves – you are the coyote
3. ·      Modern haute cuisine with tex-mex touches – foie gras with chilli in a tortilla type of stuff, confit duck sopaipilla with raspberry and chilli reduction

Spoiler alert – wow were we wrong!

Upon Arrival – First Impressions

We rolled into town after dark and after a long day’s driving.  We checked into a small casita (a one bedroom apartment like a guest cottage) and the owners directed us to Tomasita’s – an institution in New Mexico cuisine for our first meal.  After so many hours on the road, we were more looking forward to stocking up on groceries at Trader Joes and just nipping in for a quick margarita.  As a result we didn’t have too much input to our first impression of the place. 

Nonetheless our first impressions were that the city was not at all what we expected:

I didn’t know the city was going to be surrounded by snowcapped peaks. 

I didn’t know that everything would be in adobe / pueblo style architecture. 

I didn’t know the sky would drip with stars.

I didn’t know the temperatures would fluctuate so much between day and night. 

I guess I didn’t know the city was at 7000 feet and would leave me gasping for air. 

Nor did I know the whole city would smell of burning wood and sage 24-7. 

Upon Exit – Lasting Impressions

I was not enchanted by the land of enchantment.

I was going to title this post “Santa Fe is sucky” but even I see that this is a bit unfair. 

Santa Fe doesn’t suck at all.  It’s just a product being run by a bad brand manager and a poor innovation team.   There is no reason not to love Santa Fe – great weather, great national parks, great ingredients for food, etc etc.

The problem with Santa Fe is that it did enchant a bunch of people, yes wealthy eastcoasters, sometime in the 80s and 90s and then hasn’t had an updating since.  Those people are still here and now they are all about 70 years old.  Unlike the senior citizens of Arizona which come from all over the country, it feels like the folks of Santa Fe could have been on the 1980s version of Jersey Shore.  They think they are dripping with class and style, but they aren’t.  Their art is old, their food is old, and they seem better placed dining at IHOP than shopping in a farmer’s market.

I found it a very depressing place.  I saw more billboards for and ads for Medicare and Unemployment benefits than anything else.  No, I lie – I saw more advertising for Indian Casinos – and not the behemoths that are Mohican Sun or Foxwoods – these were little affairs with old run down cars in the parking lot.  With so much natural beauty why aren’t there more entertainment complexes embracing the outdoors?

The best restaurants – and you may have heard of some of them – Coyote Café, Café Pasqual, Restaurant Martin, etc – go out of their way to try and be European, and fail, miserably.  They are expensive, they need editing on the plate, and they serve the same boring things.  I don’t care if you have managed to get your hands on Wagyu beef – it’s still steak tips.  Yawn.  Oh, you’re serving scallops wrapped in bacon. Double Yawn.    I ordered something called “Autumn Textures of Fruit with Blue Cheese Soufflee” and received a long dish covered with various fruit (can we call it what it is – a fruit plate) that is neither autumn nor complementary to blue cheese.  There was kiwi and pineapple and mandarin oranges amongst fig and pear and pomegranate.  The last three would work.  The first three did not.  A little editing would have made it a lovely first course.

As for entertainment?  I guess it’s just about going to galleries and shops.  Snore.  There are some very good spas.  But at the prices of Santa Fe you won’t be able to go more than once. 

There are a bunch of day trips to take – we took the “High Road” drive to Taos.  But don’t plan on seeing much.  The scenery is spectacular, and you go by all these churches made famous by Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams.  But there’s very little to stop over for.

Oddly there was a fantastic hike to be had – and glorious weather to have it in – just 20 minutes away at Kasha-Katuwe  (Tent Rocks) – and no one was there.   This place has the same geology as Cappadocia in Turkey.  Two hikes there take you to a cave once inhabited by the indigenous people and a very narrow but awesome slot canyon trail up to the Mesa top.

Tent Rocks National Monument and the Slot Canyon

In the rearview mirror as we head out of Santa Fe you realize that it’s really the same old medium sized city wrapped in an adobe shell. 

Even the IHOP is in adobe/pueblo style

He says:

It’s up it’s own arse.  It’s like the Cannes of New Mexico – it thinks it is awesome and somewhere everyone should come, but in fact it is just a bit shitty.  It looks backwards, and towards Europe too much.  I wish it would look forward and do its own thing.  I do however see the inspiration Gaudi must have taken from New Mexico – tent rocks becomes La Sagrada Familia and the pueblo style architecture becomes Casa Mila.

She says:

If I wanted to go back to new york in the 1990s, I would build a time machine.  This city needs an Extreme Makeover and a good marketing campaign – it has all the right stuff – great weather, great scenery, great history, but hasn’t packaged it right.  It could be a mecca for extreme sports – rafting the rio grande, skiing and snowboarding, skydiving, climbing – or a mecca for extreme cooking at the crossroads of Mexican and American cuisine. 

Recommendations should you find yourself here:

1. Cocktails – great cocktails at Secreto in the Hotel St Francis, at The Den (with a backlit menu) using dry ice and other interesting flourishes.  Do a pub crawl around the plaza – there really are fantastic cocktails to be had. 
2. Frito Pie – served in an actual frito bag – and other bbq at Cowgirl bbq.  Don’t forget to try their ice cream baked potato  
3. Dinner at Restaurant Martin or Café Pasqual.   Be very clear, neither is worth making a trip to Santa Fe for, but if you are in town, this is probably as good as it gets (sadly).
4. Day hike at Tent Rocks – absolutely gorgeous, one of the newest National Monuments. 
5. The obligatory walk up Canyon Road where all the art galleries are (but our take is to laugh at the arty crowd and realize that even if you could afford it there isn’t much being sold you’d actually want.)  
6. Sitting in your hot tub and gazing up at the stars – especially up and out of town at 10,000 waves.  Now that’s enchanting.