A Day At The Park!

Good Evening Puebloans!

The weather is still cooperating with us, which seems unreal considering that all around us here in Colorado and New Mexico it seems like the sky is falling down.

Cortez,CO, where we spent the night, was supposed to get several thunderstorms passing through, but thankfully enough, the guys at the weather service were wrong (so what's new?!?! LOL).

We left the hotel in Cortez at around 10.30AM, by the time we had breakfast and filled the tank at a local gas station, it was 11AM.

Our first stop of the day has been Mesa Verde National Park.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, just think about those cliff dwellings you saw so many times on TV, or better, on one of those National Geographic magazines; well, today we finally went to the beautiful park to experience first hand on what it means to be totally immersed in this beautiful experience, and step back in time eighth centuries.

One word of advice for those of you who wants to visit the park is to get there as early as you can. The reason for that is that you can only access the majority of the ruins on a guided tour with a park ranger, and every tour (they run every half hour) has a limited amount of tickets available.

The park is huge, we almost drove 80 miles one we crossed the park gate, and we spent there the almost totality of the day.

From the park entrance on US160 to the main Visitor Information Center is about 10 miles (think of a zig zagging road rather than the straight highway to Monument Valley), and from there it is another 25 minutes to visit Cliff Palace and Balcony House (the two most popular sites), and 50 minutes to Long House (not so popular but well worth the visit if you want to see something different and experience the magic of being in such an historic site).

As I said, you can only visit the ruins on guided tours led by Park Rangers.

Tickets are fairly inexpensive ($3 per person) if you think of the experience, and the knowledge that taking the tour with a park ranger will bring after you leave the park.

There's a huge line in front of the visitor center all the time, this is how popular this place is. The last time I've seen something similar to this, we were in a big city, waiting to get to a very busy attraction.

Tickets for Cliff Palace (the most popular of the sites, and also the most photographed) were only available for the 4.30PM tour, and so were the ones for Balcony House.

We decided to buy tickets for Long House at 2PM (it was 12PM when we bought them), and use the time available to drive down to Cliff Palace, get to the overlook, take pictures, and then drive another 70 minutes or so to Long House for our guided tour.

On the way out, I had to take a picture of a stuffed Mountain Lion, animal that has a significant presence inside the park. Here is the kitty cat for you to enjoy:

Here's what the Cliff Palace looks like:

And here's another shot:

Getting to Long House visitors will go through hills and passes that were once covered by thick vegetation. Several fires, all documented by road signs, remind the tourist of the damage wildfires can cause to the environment.

We were slightly early for the tour, so we decided to go for a short hike 3/4 mile to Vista House through a viewpoint. Here is what it looks like:

The tour started on time at 2PM when Corey, the Park Ranger in charge of our group made sure we all had tickets, and sent us to take a seat on the trolley.

Corey was very knowledgeable and very pleasant. He knew so much about these people, the park, Colorado (he's not from there), history and archaeology, that it makes me wonder if his academic background might be in one of these disciplines.

To get to Long House visitors have to be moderately fit as there are ladders to climb, and a short but steep trail to walk through.

Here is what Long House looks like:

And here is a picture that proves I've actually been down there!

Corey told us about the people who used to live in that place, he told us about their customs, their food habits, their physical characteristics, and the probable reason why they decided to leave the dwellings in the early 1300's.

Did you know for instance that if you would have lived at that time, you would have been one of the elders at around 30/35 years of age?

Yes, that was their life expectancy at that time, and he guided us through some of the reasons why life was so short at that time. Also, one thing that really got me was their height, as the buildings are impressive, but they do have small openings. The average height was 5/5.4 feet!

If you want more information, just visit the Official Mesa Verde National Park website at this web address: http://www.nps.gov/meve/

By the time we got out of the park it was 4.30PM already, so much for our plans to drive to Taos, NM for the day, and spend the night there.

We ended up driving to Durango, CO (that people compare to Flagstaff, but that in my opinion doesn't even come close), and then since we didn't really like it and hotel prices were more than obscene, we crossed the border into New Mexico on Hwy 550, and stopped in Farmington, NM for the night.

Here's a picture of "The Bug" crossing the border:

Farmington ended up being a great choice since we now have the chance to go straight down to Albuquerque tomorrow where I have prepared several different things we might want to do and/or experience.

The hike of this afternoon is really catching on me, I better get some rest to be ready for another day in the life of "An Italian Across America" tomorrow.

From New Mexico I guess it's all for tonight.

Have a good night and a great weekend,

Nico