Photographs, as I noted earlier, do not - cannot - reveal the immensity of the surroundings in New Mexico, or the sense that any precipice one encounters is merely the visible part of an infinite chasm. I’ve driven on narrow, unguarded mountain roads before, but not since I was 24! Then, in Switzerland, driving on paved roads clinging precariously to the sides of the granite Alps, I thought how Darwinian those little concrete pyramids between the pavement and the precipice were, and how much the Swiss must trust the skill of their drivers! I knew then that I wasn’t going to even graze those lumpy warning devices. But, at 24 I had never experienced brake failures, or power steering hose failures, or having a little ledge at the shoulder defy my efforts to turn back onto the pavement.
Couple a more mature understanding of the frailties of motor vehicles with the omnipresent altitude effects, dehydration, the unfamiliar scale - and thus depth perception, and an unfamiliar vehicle; and those dirt roads running along sandstone cliffs often become uncertain at best. Part of the adventure.
If you want to see a truly tense, and excellent, film about roads, check out 'Wages of Fear' (1953). French, about a road trip in Central America. I guarantee you won’t ever forget the film.
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