I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque ... Oh, wait a minute, I did!

13 April - Rocicante Mk II proved to be slightly more comfortable than the first one sto sleep in, but not by much - and at the altitude we were at it was still freezing inside. In any event, we were up at 5 in order to catch the sunrise back at the canyon (and in order to skip out of the campsite without payingthe exhorbitant fee - we'd already paid for entry, what more did they want from us???). Headed back to the rim trail where the sun soon came up but we went to the wrong place and missed the actual sun coming over the crest by about 5m, which was a bit of a pisser. It must have been pretty inspiring because a couple asked me to take their picture with the canyon in the ckground and the girl revealed to me that they'd just got engaged. Oh really, just on this trip? No, just now! Awwww .... I bet the guy would regret his actions once he came away from such an inspiring view, maybe. Wanting to get a bit of a climb in before we left we headed down the Angel Bright trail which goes all the way to the bottom of the canyon but time was our enemy (they also warn against anyone trying to get to the bottom and back upin the same day - I bet I could do it though). Murat was fine coming down with me to the first checkpoint but couldn’t keep up on the return - chainsmoking all those camels probably didn't help. His next stop was San diego so I took him out to flagstaff where he planned to either find a ride or take the greyhound in a pinch and I got back in the car for another solid day's driving. Passed over into new mexico and hit Albuquerque, a place I was recommended not to stay in, so I turned left. after getting off the I25 to fill up with petrol it took me an age to find it again so I could head north into santa fe. Crossing into the new timezone (Mountain time) meant I miscalculated how dark it was going to be when I hit the town but eventually found the hostel, which was pretty amazing. Its a not for profit organisation and ty have free food (and good gourmet shit, not just wonderbread and margarine) ad you have to do a chore to earn your keep. I'm, not sure what i'll be getting but hopefully it won’t be too much of a strain on charlie (who also appeasr to be disintegratingslightly under the strain of travel). Was absolutely exhausted by the time I got there so after a little bit of a chat with some of my neighbours I crashed and burned (i probably shouldn’t have aimed to get so far after yesterdays canyon adventures but i'mhere there's nothing to worry about).