Thursday, 26 May 2016

The USA’s “Four Corners”: Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, Ute, and Zuni Nations.


2016 May 13-22

Nota: publicado en Inglés: vamos a editar e incluir versión en español pronto. 

We had for some time been contemplating a visit to the “Four Corners” area, and a business trip to the USA made this possible (a lengthy story: this started out as a trip to Texas, however mutated into one to California). Our trip to the USA was marked by an emergency landing in Panamá City when the aircraft decompressed, and we ended up arriving very late into IAH, resulting in arrival in SNA a day later than planned. We then spent a week in Los Angeles, enjoying The Markets at The Grove and The Broad, The Getty Centre, the Arts District, Veneice Beach in the evening, and time with Edgar, our Musician friend from Colombia. Following this we spent some time in San Clemente, focussed on the business element of the trip. Then at the end of this first week we flew to Albuquerque to start our exploration of the “Four Corners”.

This area of the USA has a long colonial history, dating back to 1610 (Santa Fe),  and 1706 (Albuquerque). Both of these lie along the Camino Real de Adentro from San Juan Pueblo (now and previously Ohkay Owingeh) to Mexico City. Taos Pueblo of course is much older, dating back perhaps a thousand years.

We started in Albuquerque, visiting the original colonial plaza, with a combination of a few stores with high quality artesanía, and a lot more with tourist souvenirs. It was good to see that the plaza retained a sense of history, and on a sunnny day it was a pleasant wander around.

We then headed for Santa Fe, which has the excellent New Mexico Museum of Art, and also has retained its colonial plaza, with a much greater range of arts and crafts stores operating. The quality of weaving and other crafts was generally high, as were the prices, although it has to be said that the quality and work involved justifies the prices.

 

We continued to Taos, staying at the “Historic Taos Inn” and wandering around the town in the evening. The following day took us to the Wild Rivers Recreation Area, through which runs the Rio Grande, cutting into the countryside in an attractive canyon. We enjoyed a walk down to the river and back, and also the fact that the area was quiet, with only a few other visitors.   We then returned towards Taos, and stopped at the original Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 















From here we headed west to Cortéz, passing Mesa Verde National Park on the way; this a very interesting area of Anasazi canyon dwellings, which aroused Marce’s interest, however Alan pointed out that it was not going to be possible to visit this time, in terms of the overall time available. We stopped for dinner in Cortéz prior to heading north to Moab. This stage of the journey revealed both that the planning had been complete, and that Alan’s memory has more gaps then we had thought. We had learned that it was necessary to eat at early in the evening, since restaurants close early, in Latin American terms, and that arriving at a day’s destination after 2100h and expecting to find a place to eat was optimistic to say the least. So, we stopped to  eat at a “classic” diner, which proved to be “classic” in appearance, however did not offer food to match the appearance. Our goal was to get to Moab that evening, which was a long run, and since we would be arriving late a short while after leaving Cortéz we called ahead to confirm arrival, during which call we learned that our booking was for the following night... So, given that the laptop’s battery was now flat, and that this was where the trip plan was to be found, we headed back to Cortéz to look for a hotel, since Alan could not recall the plan, although he was convinced that a booking had been made for every evening. We found a Holiday Inn, where the friendly guy at reception was happy to tell us that he had a room available,and that we could indeed plug in the laptop to see whether we had in fact a reservation somewhere. We did so, and once we had enough power, checked the plan to find that we did indeed have a booking for that evening, at…

… Mesa Verde, right inside the Park (!). So we headed back to the Park entrance and to the Far View Lodge.

The following day we spent the day in the park, visiting the Cliff dwellings and the Wetherill Loop, which gave an excellent insight into the archaeological value of the site. 
 


We then headed off again to Moab, through a variety of weather, including occasional "big sky" storms. 

 

On the way to Moab we took a minor road east of the highway through the Lisbon Valley, which was a beautiful eroded rock landscape, with no other traffic at all.   


 
We looped back to the highway, stopped (early enough to find food) at Spanish Valley, and arrived in Moab, where we spent the night.

Moab is the “Gateway to the Arches National Park”: we entered the park the following morning and spent an excellent day there. The eroded sandstone “fins” result in natural Stone arches (over 2000 in the park itself). 

 

 
We followed the main tourist route as far as this goes, to the Devil’s Garden Trailhead, and walked to the well-known Landscape Arch. Most visitors turn around and go back to the car park at this point, although a fair number add in the climb up to the Partition Arch and Navajo Arch, which we did. We then decided to continue on to the Double “O” Arch, which involves hiking along the tops of some of the “fins” and which is a beautiful walk. This day was an outstanding opportunity to see this singular scenery, and we had a great time. At the end of the day, having done some investigating into alternative exit routes from the park, we took the Willow Flats Trail west to the main highway, which was an excellent way to breathe freely, away from the main tourist trail. 
 

The latter was a continuous stream of traffic, once on the Willow Flats Trail we were alone, and enjoyed both the calm environment, and the challenge of the trail itself, which was not particularly difficult, although we did have to build up the trail at one point to match the limited clearance of the Pathfinder, which actually did a good job overall, depsite having less ground clearance and entry/departure angles than one would hope for in a 4x4.

We then left Arches N.P., with a resolve to return and explore further, as well as to explore Canyonlands N.P., which appears to offer a great deal as well.  We headed south, past the ugly town of Monticello, and on to Monument Valley. We stopped for another early dinner at Mexican Hat, and arrived at Monument Valley late in the evening. 

 

We stayed in a cabin overlooking the Valley, giving us an outstanding view in the morning. After breakfast we drove down into the Valley, driving around the main loop, and stopping frequently for photographs, including the mandatory “man on a horse” photo at the “John Ford Overlook”, although with a slight difference from the usual approach to this photo. 

To be updated....

We went to Oljato, on the north side of the highway, to do some laundry and find some lunch, which turned out to be surprisingly tasty, at Goulding’s.  In the afternoon we then explored the area to the north of the highway, which was tourist-free, and proved to be an enjoyable circuit around the mesa to the north-east of Oljato. At the end of the afternoon we went horse riding for a couple of hours, from a corral at the north end of the area, giving different views of the Valley, and an opportunity to appreciate the scenery and ambience in a different way. 

 

The following morning we completed our acquisition of a Navajo rug; an excellent example “Two Grey Hills” weaving, then headed west again, initially to the Navajo National Monument, and the non the Antelope Canyon. There are two options to visit this photogenic canyon: the North Canyon, which is accessible via 4x4 pick ups, which make a round trip to the North Canyon entrance, from where tour groups walk through the canyon and back. It was worth doing, however it has to be said that it was somewhat of a crowd and that we felt under time pressure, never a good option to appreciate nature. There are photographic tours available, although we had missed the last one into the North Canyon. We then went to the South Antelope Canyon; this proved to be a good experience: our guide, Sitting Buffalo (Tutungka), who was of Navajo/Sioux heritage, was excellent, with a good sense of humour, and gave us an unrished experience, with an opportunity to appreciate the canyon which was a lot more relaxed than we had experienced in the North Canyon. 

 


 














We then continued south to Marble Canyon, taking the time to visit the Navajo Bridge on our way to the Grand Canyon. As can be imagined, this was very different from any of the places we had visited since Albuquerque. The Grand Canyon receives 5 million visitors per year, and as one would expect has significant infrastructure, both in the Park and immediately outside. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has been a National Park since 1919. Bookings need to be made very early for the accommodation in the park itself, and we stayed in a modern hotel in Tusayan. On arriving in the park that evening, we noticed a few people who had set up cameras at overlooks on the east entrance road, and stopped to have a look. The view of the canyon in the clear moonlit night was impressive. 

 The following day we went initially to the Visitors’ Centre, then along the South Rim Trail to the Village. We chose to walk down into the Canyon on the Bright Angel Trail, and made our way down to the “2 mile corner” and back. 

 
Later in the day we went to Mojave Point on the rumour that Californian Condors could be seen nesting from this overlook. We were able to see some Turkey Vultures nesting and soaring, however no sign of the Condors. 

We then left the Grand Canyon for Sedona, arriving just in time (with some persuasion) to eat at  Mariposa”, which was very different from any of our dining spots during the previous week.

In Sedona we were able to find a replacement spare camera battery and in the same store there was a good range of Zapotec textiles. We then headed south to Phoenix, to meet Alan’s second cousin Mary, her husband Cliff, and some of her family. We were made very welcome and much enjoyed their hospitality. Alan and Mary had not seen each other for well over fifty years, however had been in touch, principally through mutual interest in genealogy (it has to be said that Mary’s (and Cliff’s) knowledge of the family tree and its branches is encyclopædic).


1) A footnote re this post is that we looked for an inclusive term to describe the original peoples in this área, and found that this is not easy. If this were Canada then the term “First Nations” seems to be acceptable, however it’s not used in the USA.

So, we have used the names which are commonly found for the peoples, and hope that this will not give rise to offence. The Navajo call themselves Diné as well (interestingly similar to the term “Dene” in Canada, with apparently the same linguistic roots.


2) Footnote re “grand” canyons:

·      Grand Canyon depth - 1857m
·      Chicamocha Cañon depth (Colombia) - 2000m
·      Colca Cañon depth (Perú) - 3270m (see http://suramericacontraelreloj.blogspot.com.co/2010/08/rumbo-juliaca.html)


Photos may be used for non-commercial purposes with credit to alanymarce@gmail.com

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