Entering Abiquiú

I arrived in Abiquiú on my way to Ghost Ranch this Thursday.  Abiquiú is only about an hour drive from Chimayo, but it feels and looks completely different.

As I was driving down the highway the landscape started to open up and I began seeing some of the images that I had imagined I would see in New Mexico.  Large wide-open expanses, billowing clouds and rocks of deep red, orange, purple and yellow. (I didn't take any pictures since I was driving)

My first stop was in the little town of Abiquiú and like most of the little towns I have stopped in, there seemed to be nothing there. Honestly, I find this very intimidating.  Half the time I can’t even figure out where the town is.  I am just driving down a bumpy dirt road and I only know I am in the town because I recognize something I saw in a guidebook. 

The adobe St. Thomas Church in Abiquiú

Well, I was early to check into Ghost Ranch and had nowhere to else to go, so I gathered my courage together and wandered into a house with a bunch of wooden signs nailed to the front porch that said things like: welcome, gallery, artist studio, woodcarving, tour guide, map , etc. Chances are I figured I would find something I needed there.

Inside I met Napoleón Garcia, an Albiquiu elder, who talked up a storm and managed to sell me a book about his life and memories of fellow resident of Abiquiú Georgia O’Keeffe.  I bought the book because he talked to me for so long that I felt obligated, but it’s actually a pretty interesting book that recounts the early Spanish and Native American history.

Napoleón is native Genízaro,  or “Hispanicized Indian of mixed breed”, a group I have never heard of before. There is a lot to discover about all the different people who have passed through and presently inhabit this part of the country. When I asked Napoleón about the relationship between the Indians, Anglos and Hispanics he told me that everyone respects the other and gets along fine.  He also told me that Andy Warhol was Georgia O’Keefe’s husband.  I think he was joking, but still, it's good to take thngs with a grain of salt, so I took the map he gave me of Abiquiú and took a short walk around this quiet and very private village.

 

Meeting house of the Brothers of the Penitente Morada

I always wanted to come to the desert and during this walk I felt like I finally arrived.  I thought a lot about my time in Cappadocia while I was walking around.  This desert is similar to Cappadocia in the sense that there are a lot of rocks, very little vegetation and the sun is very strong and yet, it looks and feels very different.  The shapes and colors are nothing like Cappadocia and the desert here has a very distinct smell.  I think it’s the sagebrush.  The silence is very different here too.  It’s not just that it is quiet, it’s more like sound is suspended or maybe I am suspended somehow.  I’m not sure yet, but I will know more as these next weeks carry on.