Another beautiful day here. We are back on the sheep truck & saying Hoo Roo to Albuquerque this morning after a great stay in a really quirky town. As we are driving out of town we are seeing a bucket load of hot air balloons in the sky, this place is one of the worlds busiest hot air ballooning areas....amazing seeing them all. After our day in Santa Fe yesterday we finished off with a mountain tramway ride to the highest Mesa peak in the USA, higher than the Rockies they said. Followed by dinner at the summit's High Finance Restaurant. The tramway took us up over 10000 feet to the top of Sandia Peak in a cable car which holds about 40 or so & I of course suffer from vertigo....another WTF am I doing in this thing moments but I got there, coming down was easy with a belly full of some very nice Kenwood sav blanc! Sandia Peak is a very popular ski location in winter & hiking in summer & only a short trip from downtown Albuquerque & with an 11000 square mile panoramic view we were never short of awe factor! From the base to the top was 10,378 feet with almost 3 miles of sky-view looking down on the desert floor with its canyons & lush forests as we ascended to the top. This forest area is home to mule, deer, black bear, raccoons & bobcats in addition to squirrels & lots of bird species. The area has 25 miles of slopes & trails....pretty impressive! The Sandia Mountains have long been a landmark & backdrop for the people of the Albuquerque region, using the tramway we were able to experience this west face of the Sandias that previously had only been accessible to experienced hunters & rock climbers. Back in the 60's a plane went down in the canyon & some of the wreckage was still in view from the cable car. What was really quite strange was sitting in the restaurant with our panoramic view & watching planes fly past below us....very surreal to say the least. We had a really great night, sunset was beautiful but not as nice as Bali....sorry guys, I am being as objective as I can be & nothing beats Bali sunsets I'm afraid, well nothing that I have seen anywhere in the world that I have been to! Took lots of pics, hopefully I'll have access to WIFI for my phone tonight in Flagstaff to download pics that are now backing up....prolly take a few brews to get me thru the download! Just jumping back to Santa Fe for a bit, I forgot to mention that this was the centre of all things covert during the cold war times with the US base for all things nuclear passing thru the sleepy town. Amazing to know that 'those chosen ones' would pass through a shop front with a simple white door & into the deep undercover world of espionage, sounds like a movie script right? Well the 'Roswell conspiracy' hailed from within! So said our guide. We are now chuggalonging towards one of the 19 native Pueblos that are here in New Mexico, the one we are going to is of the Navajo people. About 60% of all native Amercans live on reservations, surprising number. About 3 million strong is the native people's population & apparently they originated from Asia, interesting fact! Another fact that Aussies prolly don't know is that the native Americans are the only ones to be allowed to build casinos in any state on native land which is why casinos can be seen everywhere. White Americans can only hold title to casinos in the state of Nevada. The Indians have a lot of casino dollars but having said that they do look after their own people's with education, housing & health so at least it's being put to good use unlike our native people! Be back later Hoo Roo