Up into the New Mexico Mountains

 Gypsum dunes cover over 200 sq miles of New Mexico

Evening primrose colonizing  gypsum dune.

Tuesday May 17^th

We debated for a long time whether to take the southern or the northern route to Houston. The southern route is shorter but takes us through El Paso.  El Paso is the US part of Juarez which is currently listed as the most dangerous place in Mexico with lots of murders each week.  Something to do with the drug cartels I believe.  We could probably whizz through El Paso fairly fast before we acquired any bandit hitch-hikers but the road skirts the Mexican border for about 30 miles.  There must be a lot of illegals around as we've been stopped twice by the border police.

On the other hand, the Northern route takes us up into the mountains and is about 100 miles longer but looks more interesting.

Northern Route it is.

Passed through Las Cruces, named because of the people killed there by a) Apaches, b) Spanish c) Mexicans.  Crosses were put on their graves.  Later we visited the White sands National Park.  The white sands are 99% gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O), also known as alabaster or plaster of Paris in its dehydrated form.  There is a high content in the rocks of the surrounding mountains and wind erosion and lack of rain has meant that has accumulated in the valleys in dunes of sand-sized particles. It doesn’t often pile up like this because it’s water-soluble so there aren’t many gypsum sand dunes in the world. It was rather lovely and, unlike sand, was cool to walk on with bare feet.  Animals and plants that live there have become paler and developed long roots respectively.  Yuccas get buried in the sand but can grow their stalks quickly to photosynthesise.

Arrived in Ruidoso in the evening.  It’s at around 7000 ft and considerably cooler than down in the plains.  We’re away from all the dust too; the dust resembles the haar in that it blocks out the sun.  Had a very nice Mexican meal – we’ve thought about it before but the restaurants didn’t look very inviting with their identity graffitied on the outside wall eg "real mexican food".  Road-kill on the menu seemed a possibility.  However, the one we went to this evening was recommended and very tasty although the portions were huge.  Luckily David was hungry so we didn’t need the doggie bag.