Taos, New Mexico

A few years ago, I found some really cheap airfare to Albuquerque for Easter weekend. If you know me at all, you know I’m a sucker for a cheap flight. Donovan groans every time I find affordable airfare because usually it means we have to ride coach. Ha! Someone has become accustomed to getting bumped up to first class!

I went to Albuquerque/Santa Fe a few years prior with my parents, but I had never been to Taos. Donovan had never been to either location, so we felt this would be a good place to explore together.

Because I booked the cheap flight, we were literally on the first flight to ABQ and landed at 8am. Ha! As soon as we picked up our rental car, we headed to Cecilia’s Cafe near downtown Albuquerque. We gravitated to Cecilia’s because 1) that’s my middle name and 2) we were craving some good, local breakfast food. I have to have laugh a little bit because I ended up ordering a very basic breakfast of eggs and bacon. The waitress rolled her eyes and was like “spice it up a little honey” so she ended up bringing me chilaquiles. That was definitely more spicy! Everything we ate was so delicious – I’d highly recommend Cecilia’s Cafe.

After finishing up breakfast, we started to make the trek up to Ojo Caliente – a mineral springs spa. I had booked us massages, and we wanted to spend some time relaxing in the hot springs.

I really liked Ojo Caliente. It was kind of difficult to get to – at least, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be…and it’s kind of out in the middle of no where. There are accommodations and dining at Ojo Caliente, but “rustic” is the best way I can describe it. I’ll share more about Ojo Caliente in this post, but just know that we spent practically all day there.

During our stay in Taos, we stayed at this Air B&B rental which was near the Rio Grande River Gorge. The views from the home were just absolutely gorgeous – definitely 360 views! We were really lucky that our first night we had a full moon, too!

The Air B&B, while seemingly was in the middle of nowhere, was actually fairly close to town, easy to get into the mountains, and close to the major roads which made it appealing to us. We’d definitely stay here again.

The next day, we headed up to Taos Ski Valley to check it out. Unfortunately, ski season had already ended, so it was pretty dead up there. It was fun to walk around a bit and see what the slopes looked like.

After we came down the mountain, we wanted to check out the gorge bridge. We parked on the side of the road on the east side of the bridge, and then walked across. I’m not going to lie – it was a bit terrifying! It looks so deceiving! You don’t really fathom how deep it goes until you’re standing right in the middle!

The next day, we decided to explore a bit beyond Taos. Honestly, we were both a little disappointed with town of Taos. I think we were hoping it would be more like downtown Telluride. BUT – even though I say that, I would definitely visit Taos again. We like to get outside and explore, so it wasn’t a huge deal that the town of Taos wasn’t that exciting.

We decided to take a drive to Chimayo. If we had visited Chimayo outside of Easter weekend, it likely would have also been underwhelming, however, Good Friday is the time to be in Chimayo! Apparently, thousands of people make the trek to Chimayo as part of their pilgrimage. There is a very old Catholic church in Chimayo called El Santuario de Chimayo. It was built in the early 1800s and is also known as a healing site.

Since we went on the Saturday before Easter, we had missed the really big crowds of Good Friday, which gave us the opportunity to explore the grounds more easily. I am also a sucker for learning new cultures and being an active participant, so we stood in line for what seemed like an hour to put our hands in the healing dirt of the chapel.

It has been said that the el pocito (small pit of holy dirt) has healing powers. People from all over the world visit Chimayo to rub their hands in the holy dirt and rub the dirt on the parts of their body that are ailing. After walking through el pocito the first time, i went back again to bring some holy dirt home with us. It was definitely an interesting experience.

The next morning, for Easter Sunday, we attended a sunrise service at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. When looking for Easter Sunday options, I came across the sunrise at the gorge service and was instantly intrigued. With how much diverse culture there is in Taos, I wanted to experience something new. The post I found online didn’t have much information about the service and only said it started at “sunrise.” That wasn’t helpful, but we decided to try. If anything, we would be up early enough to get exploring.

We woke up at 5am, showered, and headed to the Gorge bridge. We were the only ones there for about 30 minutes. At one point, we looked at each other and were like “let’s leave and find coffee” -but about that time other cars started showing up.

The sunrise service was pretty quick, but the views of watching the sun come up behind the mountains were pretty awesome. It was definitely worth waking up early for!

After the service, we grabbed some coffee and breakfast sandwiches and hit the road (again) – this time traveling east through the mountains. We drove through Angel Fire, Eagle’s Nest, Red River, and then ended up in Cimarron.

Cimarron is the home of Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. Fun fact about me: I hiked Philmont as a sophmore in high school with an Explorer group from church. Returning to Philmont brought back a ton of memories. I’m sure Donovan was annoyed hearing me talk about latrines, how I cried when we had to stop to pick up more food because my pack was too heavy, and the stupid games we would play around the campfire because we had no phones or television to entertain ourselves.

My favorite part of the trip was watching Donovan try to figure out why kids had thrown their boots over the Philmont sign. IYKYK 🙂 He kept saying “aren’t their parents ticked for wasting a good pair of boots?” Haha!

We did do some other adventurous things while on our trip to Taos, including a trip to Meow Wolf, but I’m going to save them for future posts…so, sorry, but you have to wait! Taos and Santa Fe (so far) some of our favorite desert towns, and we can’t wait to explore more!