All About Albuquerque

Breaking Bad in New Mexico’s largest city

By Josephine Matyas & Craig Jones       

ALBUQUERQUE – NEW MEXICO’S LARGEST CITY – launched into the public consciousness through the wildly popular television series, Breaking Bad. Over the course of the series’ five years, the high desert city became a character in the plot and local tourism enjoyed a business surge as devotees make ABQ a stop on their travels through the Southwest.

But aside from a small screen setting, Albuquerque has a rich history that stretches back hundreds of years. In our search for significant Native American sites we drove 40 minutes outside of town to the traditional pueblo community at Acoma Sky City. It was the perfect follow up to our visit to Chaco Canyon, since the Acoma people have Chacoan roots – they settled here when the great houses at Chaco Canyon were abandoned around 1200 AD.

THE TOP OF THE MESA is a dry, windswept, largely treeless space (the one cottonwood tree is jokingly called the “Acoma National Forest”) but it is rich in historic buildings and cultural significance. It is peaceful and quiet; the smell of wood smoke drifts through the village’s dirt lane ways. Cliff swallows dart along the bluff’s edge and large black ravens ride the thermals.

The people of Acoma first encountered the Spanish conquistadors in 1540 as Coronado was searching for the famed Seven Cities of Gold and land to claim for New Spain. It is not a happy history. Coronado’s men thought the mesa rocks shimmering in the sunset was the site of a city of gold. They attacked, conquered and pressed many of the Acomans into slavery to build the enormous adobe San Esteban del Rey Mission Church.

“Our religion is connected to the land – rocks, trees, skies, birds, everything,” says Robert. “But the Spanish wanted to convert us to Christianity. The church’s massive ponderosa pine beams were cut and carried here on the shoulders of Acoma men. These beams are more than a foot in diameter and 40 feet long, but they were never allowed to touch the ground as they carried them from Mt. Taylor and up to the mesa top. Today we practice portions of both Catholicism and our own religion.”

AN ALBUQUERQUE PRIMER

TO DO:

You can tour many of the locations featured in Breaking Bad by trolley, RV, bicycle or self-guided in your own vehicle. Stops include The Candy Lady in Old Town Albuquerque who created the candy (meth) that became its own character in the ground breaking television series.

The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History tells the story of the Atomic Age and the Cold War. Some of the guides are retired engineers and scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and at Los Alamos producing the first atomic bomb.

EATING:

Albuquerque’s 66 Diner is a 50s-style blast from the past when Route 66 (“It runs from Chicago to L.A.”) was celebrated in song and folklore. The thick milkshakes (just milk, ice cream and flavours) have been voted ABQ’s best shakes eight years in a row. The walls and the menu are peppered with American nostalgia, from a collection of 500 PEZ dispensers to the popular Green Chile Cheeseburger.