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| Canyon de Chelly Tour |
At breakfast we were approached by a native, obviously under the influence, who tries to panhandle some money. We found some empty NyQuil bottles scattered about. NyQuil is a cold remedy that's mostly alcohol and, I guess, it is available in the town. The alcohol we were searching for last night is not available. The tribal lands in much of Arizona are dry.
We left our hotel in Chinle early in the morning for the Canyon de Chelly tour at 8:00 a.m. The vehicles for the tour are old World War II all wheel drive troop carriers. They are sturdy old army trucks and can travel almost anywhere. About 24 people sit behind a cabin in an open air area. Our driver is a young local native named Timothy.
As soon as we start out we immediately drove to and into the river. The river is probably 2 ft deep in spots. In fact, most of the driving was done down in the river (it dries up in July and August but this is April).
We rock and roll and are jolted around in the back of the truck and are expecting to flop over at any second. It was quite a rough ride. We did see a four-wheel drive jeep kind of vehicle stuck in the river mud but we managed to do the tour without any mishaps on our part. The treat of the trip, besides the truck and the scenery, was our guide who was a really nice person with a quick sense of humor. He was a local Navajo, born and raised in the Canyon de Chelly.
Some funny Timothy quips:
- When someone suggests that we should help out the guy who was stuck in the mud, Timothy says, "I didn't tell him to drive there."
- Pointing out one of the overlooks about 600 ft above us: first he described the overlook then he said, "I see a person up there. A woman. She has blue eyes."
- At a later overlook someone asked Timothy if there was a person up there and what was the color of her eyes. Timothy looks up, paused for a few seconds and then said, "She's wearing sunglasses."
- We went into this little rock area with the truck almost touching the roof. Timothy called it "Martini Rock because it has a big hangover."
The canyon walls have cliff dwellings from long ago. They were all built by the Anasazi — a race who lived throughout this area in the period 500 to 1200 AD. No one knows where they came from and no one knows where they went. They were also in the Grand Canyon. Timothy tells us they were short people, under 5 foot and they only lived to 30 to 35 years. Cindy thinks they probably died from lung disease due to the smoke in the caves and small adobe buildings. The cliff dwellings had small rooms and were built with stones and clay mud. All the dwellings were destroyed by the Spanish around 1600 or so who were looking for gold. One of the canyons is called Canyon de Morte (i.e. Canyon of the Dead) for the Navajo massacred by the Spanish in their search for gold. The Spanish never found any. The ruins you see today have been rebuilt by archaeologist but there are many you can see that haven't been rebuilt.
There are tons of rock carvings and paintings in the canyon. Those by the Anasazi can't be dated but there are some by recent Navajo, say from the 1850's. Those by the vandal hordes of the 1980's (tourists like us) have meant that a lot of spots, as in most, are protected and fenced off. The petroglyphs showing what looks like horses would have to be Navajo as horses only came to North America with the Spanish explorers.
There is a rim road around the top of the canyon offering scenic views from high above the river where we toured today. We should stay longer and do that next time.
At the lodge in Chinle we discovered that the Navajo rugs we admire so much are a little bit out of our price range. They seem to start at about $2,000 for a small one. Maybe we'll find a made in Taiwan imitation rug or something we can afford. We like them and would love to have one for our home, but not at that price. Reg has been trying to convince the girls that an Indian feather headdress would be a good deal for Pat given his love of hats. There's also a nice hat made of a fox/wolf pelt but we won't get that over the border with that! Obviously buying a fancy bourbon is out of the question in the Indian territory.
We enjoyed our tour of the canyon but are anxious to get out of this territory. Our drinks are gone and the no alcohol beer they serve is wretched. Our experiences on the reservation, apart from the liquor situation, have been great. The scenery is beautiful and the people are friendly. It's their beautiful land and they're rightly proud of it.
We drive the 300 miles to Santa Fe and cross the "Great Divide" (where water on the west side flows into the Colorado River basin and then to the Pacific while on the east side it flows to the Mississippi River basin and on into the Gulf of Mexico). The country is mostly pastureland, there's more water here and we're even higher up. We passed several active Pueblos on our way but have no time to stop — we will see one later near Taos.
The ruins in the canyon were made by the Anasazi. In New Mexico we see there are several pueblos which are still active but those are a different group of natives. Both were/are covered with a clay mud to make that famous smooth adobe look.
We arrive at Santa Fe with intentions of staying downtown in the "old city" where there's lots of adobe. The road into Santa Fe is like every modern city lined with shopping malls, car dealerships and fast food restaurants but the downtown is historic with a square and twisty, winding, one way streets. The first couple of hotels are full so Kate and Cindy set out on foot leaving Reg alone with the car. They return after a very long time with rooms at the historic St Francis hotel. I'm told we have "baby rooms" with the washroom down the hall. In fact we have washrooms in our rooms but the rooms are really small — there's barely enough room to change your mind! Cindy's room is the other side of the hall from ours.
The St Francis is a "refined, century-old Mission Revival-style hotel. 1 block from Santa Fe Plaza and 2 blocks from the New Mexico Museum of Art." [Google Maps 2021]
Cindy's mom, Myrt, sent a restaurant review, from the Globe and Mail, for the Coyote Cafe which is just around the corner from our hotel. The review raves about the New Mexico cuisine and we're convinced we ought to go. The cafe is upstairs and furnished with lots of interesting Mexican folk art. Over the stairway there are some Mexican paper mache figures to make up a Mariachi Band. The figures are all skeleton corpses as in the day of the dead celebrations. Over the open kitchen there are folk art animal figures that are also in paper mache: a coyote (of course), a panther, rabbits, and cute little prairie dogs. The tables are polished stone and the chairs are covered in cowhide.
Our waiter is from New York City many years ago. A fun, friendly and cute fellow with a ponytail. Ponytails seem to be "de rigueur" throughout Santa Fe. He appears to be gay, which also seems a fashion here, but he's not (there are a few in Santa Fe). He picks our Chardonnay — two excellent oak aged California wines at just a bit beyond $20 each. The first was more than enough, we drank a bit too much. The food met the extravagant Globe and Mail reviews — Kate had salmon which was not too hot, Cindy head chile rellenos which were hot, and Reg had jerk chicken which was quite hot. We shared a variation on the Caesar salad. Reg had several over our time in Santa Fe.
Our cute ponytailed New York waiter, who isn't gay since he mentions his girlfriend who also works there, stops by the table to chat after things slow down. From him we learned that the chef mentioned in the article, his name is Mark Miller, is off today opening a second Coyote Cafe in Washington DC. Mark Miller has also published some fairly well received cookbooks. Also, he tells us that Santa Fe is a wonderful place where there are more days of skiing than in the Swiss alps! And Kate thinks he was the one who told us that humidity was 5% there! Later, she saw on TV, that the humidity was 20% in Albuquerque. But it did seem more humid there than in Santa Fe. Anyways as we became accustomed to saying "it's a dry heat" and mostly it was.
Lessons learned today: in this part of the world book your tours and especially your accomodation ahead. And stock up on your liquor and alcohol supplies before you enter these dry counties.
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