Founded in 1609, Santa Fe is the oldest capital
in the United States. At an altitude of 7,000 feet, it's the highest capital
city.
Santa Fe has narrow winding streets, quaint adobe homes, gracious courtyards,
beautiful sunsets and mountain views, and the mixed scents of pińon, red chilli,
and tortillas wafting through the high desert air. With a population of only
60,000, it's truly a tiny city nestled in a valley formed by the Rio Grande,
bordered on the west by the volcanic Jemez Mountains and on the east by the
Sangre de Cristos.
Santa Fe is also called "The Dancing Ground of
the Sun," and if in another place you were to see adobe homes, crowded one after
another along narrow roads twisting into desert foothills, you might have to
squint against the summer harshness of light. But in Santa Fe, as the sun
touches these cubed structures with arched doorways and desert landscaping, they
become strings of dew, dusky rose and turquoise shadows highlighted with glints
of gold.
