Above all else, the central component of this balance between the modern and traditional can be seen

Imagine living in an adobe building on a plateau in the desert, one without electricity or heat. You spend half the year here, and the other half in a modern home, with modern appliances and conveniences. The cultural heart of Taos is the Taos Pueblo, the active community and historical home of the Taos Pueblo Indians. Though about fifty members of Taos Pueblo live year-round in the 1,000-year-old town of adobe buildings—considered the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States—most cheap travel members of the 2,800-person tribe split their time between adobe and cinderblock.
These Pueblo Native Americans are one of 19 pueblos still intact throughout cheap travel New Mexico, of an original 76 when the Spanish cheap travel arrived. It seems to me that this transition between modern life—electricity, TV, central heat—to life in the quiet pueblo would be jarring, but this physical transition between cheap travel homes is only one example of the convergence between traditional and modern that seems to characterize every aspect of the Taos Pueblo way of life.
April Winters has guided tours of the pueblo cheap travel for 15 years, and seems to personify this balance between traditional and modern. She joined us for dinner at The Bavarian and our llama trek into the mountains, and can speak passionately about her culture’s transition into the modern ecotourism market while clomping down a steep hill in snowshoes with a sneezing llama at her side. April lives in the town of Taos, though her family still maintains two homes within the pueblo, where she spent four years of her childhood. April’s grace in integrating these two worlds in her own life speaks to the community’s dedication to balance.
Balance between traditional and modern is felt throughout the pueblo. Religion guides daily life, but it is a hybrid religion, combining aspects of the nature-based religion of the Pueblo—Mother Earth, for example—with Catholicism—the Virgin Mary, her parallel—which was introduced to (or forced upon) the Pueblo in the 1500s. Every member cheap travel of Taos Pueblo has an Indian name used within the community as well as a modern, Spanish surname used for legal documents and life outside the pueblo. Food is still gathered in the mountains above the pueblo, and bread is still baked in free-standing adobe ovens outside, but many members buy their food staples at groceries in town. As are all the pueblos in the state, cheap travel Taos Pueblo is a sovereign nation with its own tribal government consisting of a war chief and a tribal governor.
Above all else, the central component of this balance between the modern and traditional can be seen in the community’s relationship to nature. “If you take care of the land, it will take care of you,” said April. She believes ecotourism is a way for the community to introduce their traditional cheap travel beliefs about ecological responsibility to a modern audience, to educate cheap travel them about her culture’s tradition of living in connection with the natural world—and about what it means to live sustainably, as the Taos Pueblo has been doing for thousands of years.