Ristra – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Our destination on this trip was the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (the 50th Anniversary Balloon Fiesta, at that!), and we stayed in Albuquerque for the event. One of the stops on this adventure was old town Albuquerque. Touristy? You bet. But it was still fun. I had my Nikon and a 24-120 lens (a real boat anchor camera and lens, to be sure), but I enjoyed myself wandering around and taking pictures.

A plaque below the statue shown in this blog’s featured photo.

That fellow in the statue up above? That’s Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, Spanish governor of New Mexico, who founded La Villa Real de San Francisco de Alburquerque (what we know as Albuquerque) in April 23, 1706.

Albuquerque is one of the oldest towns in New Mexico.

Albuquerque, population 550,000, is New Mexico’s biggest city. We were there for four days. We hit old town Albuquerque on Day 1. Kitschy, corny, but cool. We enjoyed it, and there were plenty of photo ops. There’s a lot to see and do in Gresh’s home state.

A ristra is a cluster of dried red chiles you see hanging in many places in New Mexico. They can be decorative, ot they can be used for cooking. This one was hanging in a doorway in old town Albuquerque.

Another ristra hanging in old town Albuquerque.

A salsa store. There’s lots of it in old town Albuquerque.

On this topic of chiles and authentic New Mexico salsas: In New Mexico Mexican restaurants the question that every waiter asks is: Green or red? That’s for the kind of salsa you want with your meal. Red salsa is made of crushed red chiles that are reconstituted into a red liquid salsa. Green is a bit chunkier with larger pepper pieces included in the mix. They told us that green is the spicier of the two, but I think it depends on the restaurant. The New Mexicans advised us that a good answer for the red or green question is “Christmas, on the side.” You know, red and green. That will get you a dish of each salsa.

A doorway to one of the many shops in old town Albuquerque.

Our tour guide advised us to avoid the restaurants in old town Albuquerque, so we ate at a Mexican place just outside of Old Town. I love New Mexico, but I’m convinced any restaurant in or close to a tourist destination is going to be mediocre. Our lunch didn’t change my mind.

The San Felipe de Neri Church is one of the oldest buildings in Albuquerque. It dominates old town Albuquerque. This church was originally used by Franciscan missionaries. It’s still in use. All of the tourists (and there were a lot of them) congregated outside the church. I checked the door and it was unlocked. I ducked inside and grabbed a quick available light photo.

Inside the San Felipe de Neri Church. I have more than a few photos that look like this from visits to churches elsewhere, including some dynamite photos from the missions in Baja. I use the last pew as a camera rest.

So there you have it…one guy’s photo interpretation of an afternoon walk through old town Albuquerque. The Balloon Fiesta is coming up in a near term future blog. Stay tuned.