Nicole and Ingrid found themselves treasure hunters as they cycled through Arizona and New Mexico this week. All the valuable things they saw !

'Oh yes we are treasure hunters', Nicole laughs. 'We went to the Petrified Forest National Park. A dried out wood, so we thought. But it was great ! Very impressive. The park has the largest collection of petrified trees in the world. With immense shafts who used to stick out of the swamps and where dinosaurs lived. Now it is desert, bone-dry. But when the sun shines through the trees, the shafts look like jewels. It's incredible. A golden glow with rubies and sapphires ! Amazing !

They have now crossed the border with New Mexico, the next to last American state they will visit. 'We're on a camping place in Chimayo', Nicole tells us over the phone. A pilgrimage area. Thousands of crusaders visit this Indian village every year. Some of them are carrying ponderous wooden crosses on their backs, like Jesus. We met a 65-year old man who had travelled, by foot, hundreds of kilometers to get to Chimayo.

Nicole says Chimayo is the 'Lourdes of the South West. The place's full of wheelchairs and crutches. There are also testimonies of people who got cured by coming over here. It all started back in 1816 when Don Bernardo Abeyta (he was doomed) was making a hiking-tour. When he arrived in Chimayo, he suddenly got cured and was alive and kicking. He built a church here with a hole in the floor. You are free to touch the holy sand that's in the hole and if you want, you can take some home with you.

Nicole and Ingrid took some sand with them. 'We already have many good-luck charms which we used at some points. In Siberia, in Tibet and with the Indians. We are on our way with bag and baggage. You never know we might need this sand some day.