Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is a nice place that's packed with plenty of preserved culture, to the extent that every building that goes up in Santa Fe must comply with the council regulations, which specify that the building must have a classic architectural style and therefore fit in with its surroundings, so even the local McDonalds has this brown tone to the outer and characteristics of the local architecture, although I couldn't help but notice that the Mc Donald's kept to the look and feel the least out of any of the buildings and it makes you wonder how much you can get away with if your wallet is big enough. But overall the buildings have a rough slightly uneven mud like brown rendered finish to their exteriors and wide archways as entrances, with the beams used for the roof continuing to stick out around 2 feet of the building all around, so it's quite a unique style and once you see it, it would be familiar to most people.

There's more stalls selling burrito's (so good!), enchilada's and taco's than you can poke a stick at and they all tout "Genuine" and "Classic" on their menu's, so it's a bit of a tourist trap, but a great spot to knock out the hunger pains. There's an abundance of market stalls here and lots of local artists selling work, as well as the typical jewellery, scented oils, rings etc. Not far away, the native American Indians are selling jewellery and they're quite nice and when I say nice, I mean not too pushy, just be careful who you make eye contact with, as with anywhere, they're gonna think they have a potential buyer and start hassling you. At this stage, my funds weren't what they were earlier on in the trip, and I spot this great necklace made out of polished bone and silver that would've been perfect for a gift, but after a quick enquiry and finding out the guy wanted $75, I was on my way. Two points of advice here is 1) If you're heading there, wait till you get to Monument Valley to buy jewellery off the Navaho Indians, it's really nice stuff, lots of selection, cheap as, and they also accept visa if you need to use it. 2) Secondly, this isn't Canal St in NYC, so DO NOT haggle! It is considered very offensive and disrespectful to do so, and sure these guys are gonna make a profit off you, but that's what business is about and I don't see these guys driving BMW's.

Up the street is Loretto Cathedral which is a huge church that features in a background scene of the 'Twins' movie as Arnie and Danny Devito are walking down the street in their new matching threads. The church itself is definitely one of the more interesting attractions in Santa Fe, as it wasn't obvious that there was a lot to do, but hey I stopped into the town for 2 hours, so I could hardly claim to have really experienced the town through and through. Loretto Cathedral is very nice inside and has black a fountain as you walk inside and people advising you not to use your flash when taking pictures. Although it was a pity about the dickhead behind me who must've been blind, deaf, dumb and illiterate (not that literacy will help much when your blind) or just chose to repeatedly ignore the lady that robotically chanted "PLEASE-DO-NOT-ENGAGE-IN-FLASH-PHOTOGRAPHY". Situation was that I made sure my flash was off and I took a picture of something and this dickheads flash goes off right behind me, she snaps her head at me, she glares with her glowing red eyes at me and loudly blurts:

Old lady: Excuse me Sir! You're not allowed to use your flash! Me: It wasn't me. Old lady: Now, now Sir, please refrain from using your flash in future and respect the rules. Me: I told you it wasn't me, it was that guy. Old lady: Now Sir! --- Stupid idiot takes another picture with flash --- Me: See? Old lady: Oh, I'm sorry Sir, I was mistaken. Me: Yeap, no sweat... see ya. Old lady: Excuse me Sir… Sir please refrain from using your flash inside the church!

Afterwards I walking out and wondered, "Do you think they allow flash photography in there?". I got some great shots, sure the church is not in the same league as The Cathedral of St John the Devine on Columbus in NYC, but it's still nice and quaint. But after a quick walk around the outside, I noticed the car park across the street (we were on the edge of our seats at this stage) had the typical Mexican architecture, it was quite weird to see. Sure Mexican car parks are quite the tourist attraction, but I couldn't help notice how passionate the locals are off their town. This crazy lady was standing on "her" street corner, she must've bought it, I wonder how much it cost her? She was clearly very protective of it and guarded it with a baseball bat (no kidding!) and anyone who came near her got a wallop, I saw this crazy lady go after a few people with the bat swinging as hard as she could, it was just lucky that she was clearly too incoherent to actually connect with anyone, so after that interesting fiasco, I made a move and hopped back on the tour bus.