Day 14 - Albuquerque to Amarillo

Albuquerque to Amarillo - 33°c

For one of the first mornings on the tour, some of us managed to have a lie in to catch up on some sleep. There was an optional helium balloon excursion that several of the group signed up for that departed the hotel at 5:30am in order to catch the sunrise over Albuquerque. For those of us not signed up for it, we didn’t have to meet at the coach until 9:15am, which made for a good extra hour and a half in bed, which on this tour, moving at the pace we are, is something somewhat sacred!

After the night before where Scott and I were both still wide awake until around 3am thanks to the continuing bouts of laughter, the lie in was more than appreciated! Despite the very late night, I actually wasn’t feeling all that tired this morning, and after a good shower I was feeling pretty invigorated and ready for the day.

Today wasn’t going to be the most exciting of days so far, with a lot of travelling ahead of us in order to get to Amarillo, a few hundred miles away, there wasn’t much to do but chat, chill out, watch some DVD’s and listen to music on the coach.

Those that had managed to get up and head off out onto the hot air balloons filled everyone else in on all the details, and all said that it was a worthwhile experience and very beautiful to see the sun rising as they ascended to a couple of thousand feet above ground, and that the extremely early rise had been worth it.

A couple of hours into the journey we made a brief 20-minute stop off at a service station to stretch our legs, and buy some snacks etc. A couple of hours after that, we arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we had a 2-hour stop to have a look around at some of the sights, check out some shops and grab some lunch.
Santa Fe was a very pretty place, with nearly all of the buildings built to resemble Mexico. Tan-coloured buildings with flat roofs lined the streets, once again decorated and filled with bright clashing colours. Right in the centre of Santa Fe was an area called ‘the Plaza’, which was essentially an area of greenery filled with market stalls selling Native American jewellery and souvenirs. For a while, a band was playing in the centre of the Plaza and were really good, creating a great atmosphere while we stood around in the blazing sun.

Dozens of those on the tour bought some cowboy and cowgirl outfits from the local ‘Five and Dime’ store in anticipation of tonight’s Texan feast! I tried on several cowboy hats, and thought I looked ridiculous in all of them, so like several others I didn’t bother getting one. Not only that but with my case getting harder and harder to zip up with each passing day, frankly I don’t have anywhere near enough space to accommodate one either!

After our 2-hour stop off in Santa Fe, we boarded the coach again for another 2-hour journey, before making another brief 20-minute stop at a random roadside! Kristina explained that the reason we were stopping was because there was a tourist attraction in the middle of a field, a batch of 8 or so redundant Cadillac car carcases imbedded into the ground head first, tail end up in the air, by some millionaire who owned the land and encouraged people to go up to these Cadillac’s and spray paint them with graffiti in whatever way they chose. There were already several people there spray painting symbols, names and initials on them, and our entire coach party joined them, using spray paint cans Kristina had bought especially. It was quite surreal to be standing in the middle of a field spray painting cars that looked like they had crash landed there from space, but we each managed to spray something and I found room to write “Contiki ‘09” as hopefully a lasting impression of our visit (or at least until someone spray paints over it tomorrow!).

Another 30 minutes later on the coach and after an episode of ‘Friends’ on the on-board DVD system, we arrived at the ‘Big Texan Ranch’, our accommodation and restaurant for the night. We had around 30-minutes to get refreshed and meet down at the restaurant, and once there, those doing ‘The Big Texan Challenge’ stepped up to the podium!
Erica, James, Dave and Scott (Aussie Scott #2!) had earlier in the day agreed that they were up for the challenge, to eat a jacket potato, bread roll, prawn cocktail and 72oz steak in 60 minutes or under! It’s $72 a person, but if they manage to eat it all in the given time, they get their money back!
It was so funny having the entire Contiki group cheering them on throughout the hour, and since they were up on a podium eating in front of the whole restaurant (and on the internet since there was a web-cam pointing at them throughout!) it was funny for everybody to watch them struggle, aside from them of course!

For the rest of us, we had ‘smaller’ sized portions, which being Texas, were huge enough of course! As the hour was up and despite their best efforts, not quite managing to win the challenge, the 4 of them still got given a massive round of applause and a souvenir t-shirt of the occasion.

After dinner, we all headed into the bar area (aside from Erica who went back to her room to have a lay down) for a while and took loads of photos with all of the tacky Texas décor on the walls, such as the dozens of fake deer heads and bullhorns. (At least I think they were fake?!)
A couple of hours later around midnight, several of the group headed onto a local nightclub, while the remainder of us (including me, getting tired from the night before) stayed in the bar for a while before heading back to our rooms to call it a night.

---

Part of trip: Trip of a lifetime!

---