Santa Fe -The Contradiction

As part of our Route 66 journey we entered New Mexico and having stayed at the famous Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari we travelled 195 miles north west to Santa Fe, following the original “Mother Road” as much as possible.

As you enter the city you are immediately struck by the wonderful adobe houses. History pours from the walls of these unique structures. Adobe is a mix of earth and straw, the walls are thick and thus work well with the desert climate storing coolness in the summer and heat in the winter. The American Indians started building houses with adobe in the 1400’s.
In the 1920s, Santa Fe officials ordered that all buildings in the city be built with adobe in the Pueblo Indian style. The city also retains beautiful examples of Victorian, Italian, and Spanish architecture. It is this combination of cultures that helped give Santa Fe its most popular nickname, “the City Different.”
You immediately get the impression that Santa Fe, America’s oldest state capital, is inviting your exploration, whispering to you to come and enjoy its history.

The following morning having settled into our accommodation we set off to do just that. The starting point has to be the Plaza. This National Historic Landmark is a gathering place for the locals and tourists alike surrounded by historical buildings such as The Palace of the Governors and the New Mexican Museum of Art. It’s a small central park lined with grass, trees and benches. It exudes peace and on both occasions that I was there you could sit and listen to traditional Native American music being played by a solitary figure sat by the fountain.

All around the plaza are more Native Americans. They sit on rugs on the stone floor selling their jewellery, crafts, pots and rugs. The tribal community of the Pueblo people are amongst the oldest in the nation.

We venture further into the streets surrounding the plaza and immediately our impression of Santa Fe starts to alter. This is a city made for shopping!
You can wander up Lincoln Avenue to the west of the plaza to explore the many shops there, turn onto Marcy and there are even more. The area south of the Plaza — including Galisteo and Water Streets host even more shops. But this is not shopping for the everyday folk this is high class shopping. The windows are full of traditional American Indian jewellery, hand made rugs and pots. But take a look in the majority of the shop windows and you will see that the goods on display have no price tags!
Immediately the old montage “if you have to ask the price you probably cannot afford it” springs to mind. It begins to make me uncomfortable, maybe this isn’t the city I at first thought. These shops are not teeming with customers in fact the exclusivity in some respects reminds me of the scene in “Pretty Woman ” when Julia Roberts goes shopping on Rodeo Drive and no one wants to help her.

Amongst all the expensive shops the city seems to have more than its fair share of art galleries and further exploration of Canyon Road, a must see we are told in any guides to the city, just underlines this fact.
Further research reveals that the city is home to over 250 galleries, 100 of which are located on the winding half mile of Canyon Road. Santa Fe was apparently named the world’s best city for galleries and museums by an independent study in 2021.

My mind then switches back to the Pueblo people sat on the floor in the plaza. Why are they sat on the floor? It makes me feel uncomfortable that I am in effect looking down on these people as I walk by. Is there a hidden message here?

Further into our journey we venture north from Flagstaff up into Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon. This is the home of the Navajo who sell their goods on the side of the roads sat on chairs behind wooden stalls. They don’t chose to sit on the floor so why are the Pueblo people sitting on the floor around Santa Fe Plaza, why don’t they have stalls?

My inquisitive mind starts to question the disparity in Santa Fe. Is this another city where people are still not equal because of a default of birth? Where a shop owner gets to sell a Native American rug or piece of jewellery for thousands of dollars whilst those same Native American creators sit on the floor to sell their wares. This just seems like a city of contradiction?