Las Cruces

On our way from El Paso we stopped by a placed called City of Rocks. This place is in the middle of nowhere so these rocks really stick out from their environment. We saw some crazy birds here who made the weirdest sound I have ever heard a bird make. I also was REALLY close to stepping on a snake as I was trying to get a picture of the birds. Continuing to Las Cruces we drove pass a prison and I noticed a sign on the side of he road which I would have loved to take a picture of. It said "Prisoner area. Do NOT pick up hitchhikers!". We didn't see any hitchhikers so we couldn't have picked anyone up even if we wanted to. In Las Cruces we took a little drive to an area called old Mesilla. This is basically the old town where the buildings date back from the 1800's (not very old compared to European history, but still). There were people selling all kinds of crafts here, for example some impressive hand painted pots that are iconic for some Indian tribes. The house where Billy the Kid was sentenced to death was also here, now a store selling everything from cowboy hats to bubblegum. We also saw some places where they had dried chili hanging outside of the houses. In the evening we had one of our best Mexican foods on the trip in one of the restaurants here.

The next day we drove to place outside of Las Cruces called White sands national monument. This place was amazing since it felt like you where in the middle of the dessert, surrounded by nothing but white sand. On our way there we had to stop by another boarder control. This time they looked for people smuggling so they looked underneath all our covers and the sofa bed. I would have been funny if we had a group of Mexicans and a donkey sitting around our table in sombreros. Or maybe not...?