Time flies when having fun and if also being busy at the same time it not only flies but rockets past. Two weeks of loading the brain with drilling theory in Albuquerque came to an end in no time.
On my way to the airport, I made a last pit stop in Old Town, just to make sure I had actually filled my monthly quota of shops with souvenirs and handmade thingies. Old Town is the number one tourist trap in Albuquerque, but as one of the locals stated – a nice trap to be caught in. The same instant you’ve made a left hand turn at the traffic light from the main road running through that part of town, it’s like you’ve also made a left hand turn back in time, back to cowboy time and land. Only thing reminding you of the present year would be the gigantic pick-ups and flash cars. Hilux has gotten a competitor on my favourite list by the way. The Toyota Tundra might be slightly more attractive in my eyes. However, they do look suspiciously similar, so might just be a name change sales trick for the American market. Back to the time travelling again…
The old Route 66 town has got picturesque front porches, verandas and signs swinging in the wind everywhere you look. Small cafés, a pretty church at the main square, bead shops, Peruvian and Ecuadorian specialities, native American handcraft and jewellery boutiques, rattlesnake museum and New Mexican chile shops on every corner. And yes, it’s called chile in this end of the world. Green or red style and the main ingredient of the local kitchen, makes some amazing salsas. 
You can also find the fairly cool Vintage Cowgirl shop. After being even more indoctrinated with cowboy hats and buckle belts since the transfer in Salt Lake City, I had to have a look. No hats in there, but boots. Proper cowgirl boots with decorative stiches and patterns, just standing on the shelves waiting to be used in Copenhagen in a few months. Eventually managed to control myself and left with the same amount of money as when I entered the store. Talking about boots, uneducated me thought boots were made of cows, oh sorry, I mean bull hide, or possibly of snakes, alligators or other semi extinct reptiles for the special occasions. But man, I’ve got things to learn about boots. During the ten days of lectures, our Louisianan instructor made sure to display about half of his boots collection. Not only including the standard bull hide and reptile ones, but also the ostrich leg ones, ostrich body ones, the authentic colour elephant ones, the dyed elephant ones and as a Friday treat, the stingray ones. Not really politically correct to make boots out of some of these animals in my opinion, but have to admit that the stingray ones looked pretty cool with their black, glistering texture. And supposedly they’re very good for wet weather.
While walking back to the car after having had the best club sandwich ever for lunch, I realised my eyes were stinging. Strange. Ok, a little bit tired from the Malbec and GTs last night perhaps, and yes, I should have brought my sunnies, but it shouldn’t sting this bad. Almost felt like someone had thrown sand in my eyes. A few second later I had connected the dots, windy weather in a city in the middle of the desert, what would that give you? Sand in the wind of course. Finished the workweeks off in sand storm and started the holiday week in a snow one - nice.
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