Colorado, Durango: Mexican Food in the San Juans

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Our visit to Durango in Colorado would mark the 10th state that we visited during our road trip across the southwest United States. To get there, we had to continue driving north and west once we had left Taos Pueblo outside Taos, New Mexico; along the way, we had a brief and rather wet stop at the enormous Rio Grande Gorge before continuing towards the state of Colorado.

The landscape in front of us began to change during our drive through northern New Mexico and southern Colorado; the land became greener (proper grass!) and trees started to become abundant. Driving around the southernmost edge of the San Juan Mountains, we started to catch glimpses of the large and beautiful peaks that we would be exploring over the next couple of days, and we were happy for the change of scenery from the more arid and desolate New Mexico landscape.

Arriving at Durango was another late affair for us. What we mean is that, by the time we arrived, it was getting dark and we needed to hurry and find a place to stay for the night so we could try and see a little bit of the town that evening; we had only planned to stay overnight in Durango for one evening before travelling to Mesa Verde the following day, after our trip around the San Juan Skyway. We were overly ambitious that day and we also ended up really liking Durango, so we decided to add another night in town. It helped that we had found a clean and inexpensive room at a Budget Inn that was not too far from the historic town centre, even though some of the other guests there were a little unsavoury (read between the lines... they were kind of scary).

That night, we wanted to eat Mexican food because we felt as though we hadn't made the most of it whilst driving around New Mexico. We asked the clerk at the desk in our motel if there was a good restaurant nearby and she mentioned one that was only a few blocks down the road from where we were staying. Fiesta Mexicana Family Restaurant was the place she sent us to, an authentic Mexican restaurant that we were extremely eager to go to once we had unloaded our rental SUV and dumped all of our things in our room.

It had been a while since we had eaten authentic Mexican food and we were both still feeling a bit ripped off from missing out on a good meal at The Shed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a few days earlier. Since we both had huge appetites that required immediate attention, we ended up stuffing our faces full of tortilla chips and salsa as we waited for the food we had ordered to be delivered to our table. In addition to the vast amounts of chips and salsa, we also ate a large platter of queso, with many treats mixed into it, as well as a platter of enchiladas and chile rellenos, all of which we shared. Add to that a large "unlimited refill" Coke for Dan and a similar one in the flavour of Dr. Pepper for Kyle, and you easily could have found two happy guys, who had eaten way too much and had drunk way too many soft drinks before leaving the restaurant with delighted but sore stomachs.

Before continuing on with our tale, we wanted to lay out some facts about Durango for you. It was founded in 1880 and named after the Mexican town with the same name ("Durango", if you are thinking a little bit slowly today), whose name originated from the Basque word Urango, meaning "water town". The town was home to the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad and the railroad depot we saw there still looked the same as it had after it was constructed in 1882. We uncovered some interesting information when researching Durango as a place to visit during our road trip; we hope that you find the next paragraph as riveting as we did.

The downtown Durango area had almost as many restaurants per capita as San Francisco, the restaurant capital of the western United States! Anasazi Indians were the first settlers in the area but mysteriously vacated the Four Corners area around the year 1300; by the way, the term Anasazi Indians has been replaced with Ancestral Puebloans, but not by us. The ski resort in Durango was called Purgatory Creek, named after the legend of the Animas Rivers, whose official name is El Rio de las Animas Perdidas. Roughly translated, this means "The River of Lost Souls". The Spanish named the river after several explorers who had travelled on the river were lost, and their bodies were never found. Since last rites could therefore not be administered, the Spanish, being devout Catholics, believed that the dead mens' souls could not enter heaven and would be relegated forever to Purgatory.

In Durango, we found that the people living there were genuine, authentic, friendly and down to earth. It was a town with endless recreational opportunities, rich history, and modern day luxuries. During our time in the town, we didn't really have much time to take advantage of its many offerings, but we had fun there nonetheless. It was southwest Colorado's largest town, with a population of approximately 15,000 people and, from what it seemed, the people who chose to live there did so because they understood the meaning and importance of quality of life, which we saw as evident during our walks around town. The energy, contrast, and diversity of the surrounding geography was represented in the Durango community.

The town was near the Four Corners junction with New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, a place that was an absolute must on our itinerary after we first explored a little bit of southwestern Colorado. Durango was perched at 6,512 feet, nestled between red sandstone bluffs in the vast Animas River Valley. The peaks of the San Juan Mountains were to the north, rising to an average elevation above 10,500 feet. To the west were arid desert lands, and to the south was the southern border of the two million acre San Juan National Forest, and stark canyon country. We chose to drive the San Juan Skyway from Durango, which would take us through the San Juan Mountains.

The next day we made wraps for breakfast (brunch, really, due to the time we ate them) using the remaining ham and mustard that was in our cooler. We had planned our drive along the San Juan scenic highway for that day, a drive that was highly recommend to us from our Lonely Planet guidebook. The San Juan Skyway would take us through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the United States, passing some extremely tall mountains exceeding 14,000 feet in height.

Once we were on highway 550, we headed towards the mountain town of Silverton, nestled away deep in the mountains. The scenery at the beginning of the 60 mile drive to that town presented itself with rolling hills gradually growing in height until the road began twisting and turning through mountain passes over 10,000 feet high. The views across the valleys and the mountain peaks that we drove next to were spectacular, so awesome and beautiful. You will no doubt be as enamoured by the place as we were after reading our next three journal entries, which describe our day trip along the San Juan Skyway.

It was still early evening when we arrived back in Durango after 7 hours of driving around the San Juan Mountains. We wanted to check out Durango's downtown and main street area, and we had the excitement of our exhilarating drive to keep us going that day, even though we were a little tired. Hunger was creeping up on us when we got back into town, so we decided to find somewhere to grab a bite to eat; if possible, Mexican food again. Mexican food it was - we found a small fast food eatery that served a few styles of burritos. Nini's Taqueria was the fortunate recipient of our custom, since we couldn't resist eating more Mexican food. It was such a good decision to have food there; the large burrito we shared was delicious.

Feeling re-energised, we continued walking around the compact historic town centre of Durango. We both really enjoyed the sights in the old town, which had a great feel to it with its nice, laid back vibe and many interesting historical buildings that caught our eyes. You won't believe what we are going to tell you next, though. Not 30 minutes after eating at Nini's, we came across another restaurant called Tequila's Family Restaurant and we soon found ourselves sitting inside, eating a lot of tortilla chips and salsa, as well as some delicious white queso dip; of course, we also had our customary Dr. Pepper and Coke to drink with unlimited refills.

The main intention we had that evening after eating at Nini's was to find a small cafe so we could work on our travel journal. It was a Sunday evening and we had difficulty finding a cafe that was still open past 7:00pm, which was the time that we were walking around the town centre. We knew that choosing a Mexican restaurant would be good for our budget, since the tortilla chips and salsa were free and the soft drinks kept a comin'. The place was also located near our SUV, so we didn't have far to walk back to the parking lot (that's the same as a car park for the British people reading this) when we finished eating our second dinner.

After eating, we decided to go to one of the local movie theatres in town to see a new remake of the classic film, "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers"; the new version was simply called "The Invasion" and starred Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. We left the High Five Movie Theatre satisfied, even though the film has since received many horrible reviews and lacklustre box office business. It had gotten late by the time the movie was over and we went back to the Budget Inn to get some sleep.

On our final morning in Durango, we needed to get rid of the funky smells coming from our dirty laundry. Conveniently, there was a laundromat (that's the same as a launderette for the British people reading this) right across the street from our motel. For breakfast, we made peanut butter wraps, which we ate whilst waiting for our clothes to finish their wash and dry cycles. We ended up spending most of the morning hanging out at the laundromat, reading books until the clothes were finished. At least, Kyle read a lot of the new Harry Potter book whilst Dan attention was unfortunately grabbed by a very unusual character from none other than England.

One tidbit Kyle did get out of the conversation that Dan ended up having was that the English guy and his wife had slept in a bed in the back of their van overnight, and they were at the laundromat that morning to take showers, which were conveniently located at the back of the place. We learned that if you sleep outside a 24 hour Wal-Mart Supercenter store, you have all-night access to a toilet, and it beats paying for a motel room (we never did this, don't you worry).

A large group of Native Americans were also doing their laundry and they joined in on the conversation with Dan and a crazy English pensioner who had been living in Florida for the past couple of decades with his wife. The Native Americans were a friendly bunch and were very pleasant to talk to; they engaged in conversation with us first, and then the English guy (who sounded Australian, since his accent was now messed up) joined the conversation. It was when he started rambling on about his bicycle invention and challenging us to ride it for a few metres that Kyle sneakily ducked out of the conversation to continue reading about the young wizard.

Dan soon learned, on his own, that there was apparently a fair to be held in Durango a week or so later, and the guy was there with his bike to try and make some money; the bike was difficult to ride due to the nature of its design, next to impossible, actually, unless you knew its secret. Finally, the crazy old guy left and our laundry was finished, so we said farewell to the Native American group and then started our second trip to the mining town of Silverton, high up in the San Juan Mountains. We didn't mention to you earlier that we liked Silverton tremendously when we went there during our San Juan Skyway drive and that we had planned another visit there for the following day. Now that we have told you, you can read the next journal entry without feeling cheated.