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Cost effective does depend on you. If you have money earning 0.5% in a savings account, this is a smarter way to go. The return on investment is far better for most people than where they have their money stashed today. You _will_ get your money back, and then some; the question is if you want to wait 7 years to get it back and then double it after 14, guaranteed, or go with something riskier (like a savings account paying a lower rate than inflation).
Take #64 northwest past the Taos Gorge Bridge. About one mile after the gorge and before you get to the Earthships, take a left turn marked "Ojo Caliente and Pilar". Immediately after the turn, bear a hard right onto the dirt road. It is Sheep Herder's Road. (Ignore a homemade sign saying something else.) Stay on this road for several miles. It's washboard rough but quite passable. Eventually, you'll come to a grid of horrible roads with some of the funkiest residences you'll see anywhere. Some people live in holes in the ground, but most have fashioned homes comprised of old RVs or school buses with stovepipe chimneys and lean-tos made from wood skids and mud. Most structures of every variety and function are made from wooden skids. There are a few actual house trailers and real houses with walls and roofs. This is The Mesa.
I wandered in that area without knowing where I was. It was scary!! Spent a week in the Taos area and we just loved driving the roads to see what is out there. I like the earthship community but when I saw the area your talking about I knew we need to get off the beaten tract and back to Taos as fast as possible. Before being scared, I stopped at a scack selling "junk". They looked liked scary and had lots of dogs.
Pass; if I wanted to see that kind of living, I'd go to the shanty towns of Juarez.
Surely you jest. The shanty towns of Juarez are *crowded*... and those people are merely and actually very poor... while people on the Mesa are "odd" first and poor because... well, why not?
I've spent a fair amount of time hanging with homeless people in various places... sure, lots of addicts and psychologically challenged... but generally good people and generous, and few real philosophers who have chosen poverty and freedom instead of the rat race. The Mesa looks like a fine place to be "homeless" IMO.
And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if most of them are not interested in being a tourist attraction. I'd leave it alone unless you have a real interest in living there.
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