Day 31
Wed 25th July
Had Rumsfeld’s house across the valley pointed out to us. Left Taos for the spa at Ojo Caliente, an astonishing drive down the Rio Grande through a landscape of delicate hues which rarely settle on a shade. The sky is vivid blue with crisp white clouds to our right and a deep grey to the left blending with the mountain - riven by a distant lightning strike. Deeper in the valley the road becomes narrow and faster with sudden curves marked by prettily decorated dedicated crucifixes.
We stop for lunch in a layby and sit in the desert sand imagining the time of Georgia O’Keefe.
Arrived at the spa and found an RV site. Water and electricity but no internet signal and one overflowing portobog. We checked out the hot springs and luxuriated between the soda, iron and arsenic baths and watched lizards hide. It was late in the day and the weather too cold to dry out the mudbath.
Just at closing time Lisa lost a glasses lens in the iron pool. I borrowed a torch hoping to catch a reflection in the murky depths but there was gravel underfoot and I had no luck. The portojohn was still too evil to use.