Gently floating over Albuquerque in a hot-air balloon is a unique experience that provides a fascinating view of the city.
PHOTO: RAINBOW RYDERS Patricia Ann McNair
S YOU FLOAT above the city in a hot-air balloon, everything below you
begins to wake up. You can see it happening: the interstates fill in with traffic, bodies scamper over sidewalks and trails. It’s starting to bustle down there, but up here, in a rainbow- paneled balloon high above Albu- querque’s urban grid, over the Rio Grande, eye level with the Sandia Mountains, everything is calm, tranquil, and quiet—unlike anything you’ve experienced before. When you first lifted off, your heart jumped and pounded with the balloon’s tug into the air; but now, in the light breezes of a blue-sky daybreak, you are floating, wafting serenely, enjoying the bird’s- eye view of the desert, the mountains, the river and valley, and the sprawl- ing city far beneath your feet. You can appreciate Albuquerque’s vastness from up here. This is the largest city in New Mexico, and it is
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home to approximately one-third of all New Mexicans. With its easy access to Interstates 25 and 40, Albuquerque is a gateway to just about anywhere in the state. This means that jaunts to Santa Fe (the state capital and the oldest seat of government in the United States) and Taos, Las Cruces, Carlsbad, Bandelier National Monu- ment, and all points between are convenient. However, you may decide to save those destinations for your next visit to New Mexico and to stay close to Albuquerque this time. There is, after all, plenty to do and see in and around this attractive, historic, and diverse city.
The first European to travel in the area now known as Albuquerque is said to have been Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. In 1540, he brought with him an army of soldiers, with the intent of claiming the land for Spain. The population then was Native American—Pueblo Indians farming
the land made fertile by the massive Rio Grande. Over the next century and a half, the interactions between the Spanish rulers and the Pueblo Indians were complex and often bloody. The Pueblo Revolt took place in 1680, triggered by the Spaniards’ violent intolerance of Native American religious beliefs and floggings of religious leaders. For a very brief time, the revolt was somewhat successful; Pueblo Indians occupied the Palace of Governors in Santa Fe, reclaimed bits of land, and inhabited newly abandoned homesteads. A few years later though, Don Diego de Vargas y Zapata Luján Ponce de León, governor and capitan-general of New Mexico, initiated the reconquest of the territory in 1692 by attacking one Pueblo settlement after another. By 1696, New Mexico was again completely under Spanish rule, and stayed that way for more than a hundred years.
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