A Day in Albuquerque – New Mexico

Having arrived in Albuquerque after the drive from Colorado Springs https://shellsadventures.com/2023/12/03/on-the-road-from-colorado-springs-to-albuquerque-point-of-interest-rio-grande-gorge-bridge/ I was keen to see what there was to do in the area.

Being someone who is interested in learning more about the plants and nature of the area, I checked out the Albuquerque Botanical Garden early in the morning. First impressions I saw that the garden did a good job to showcase the plant species found in the Southwest of America, and has a good variety of exhibits like the Japanese garden, Mediterranean garden (I found some South African plant species which was quite interesting to me having come from South Africa) and a Desert garden.

It was a reasonably small botanical garden in comparison with botanical gardens I have seen, but even though it was compact I walk about a mile and a half through the paths through the garden. I enjoyed spotting the birds around the garden, trying to get a photo of a hummingbird was a bit of a challenge. There is also a BUGarium with insects that can be found in the area, along with blind mole-rats which were running very energetically through tunnels across the exhibit. The volunteers at the BUGarium were very enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the animals and happy to share what they knew.

Right next door to the Botanical Gardens is the ABQ BioPark Aquarium. I didn’t pay entrance to the Aquarium since I paid at the Botanical Garden which was nice. The great part about the aquarium was learning about the fish species from the Gulf of Mexico and South Pacific ocean. There were a range of exhibits including a 38-foot-wide/ 9-foot-high shark tank.

In the spirit of continuing to do outdoorsy things, next I went to Rio Grande Nature Center State Park. The visitor center features a gift shop and exhibits about the wetland, its plants, and animals, along with an indoor wildlife viewing area overlooking the pond. Outside, there’s an additional viewing area and 1.2 miles of trails throughout the State Park.