Mesa Verde N.P.

For the second time in my life I visited Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. The first time was about 11 years ago, when I came together with Bob to the 4 corners area. Mesa Verde N.P. is a lot like Bandelier, it only has much more prehistoric sites and more impressive cliff dwellings. Although the rangers tell us every time, that the cliff dwellings are only of minor importance in the history of the Ancestral Pueblo people who made Mesa Verde their home for over 700 years, from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1300, the cliff dwellings speak the most to our imagination since they are so well preserved.

James and I took a few self guided and two ranger guided tours throughout the park. I visited areas that I hadn't visited the first time I was here. What struck us both was, how devastating the wild fires had been in the last years. Nearly all the trees in the park were burnt. The dead remains of them can be seen over hundreds of acres all over the park.

Last night we reached Kayenta in the middle of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. We had a quick and disappointing stop at the four corners monument. (We had to pay $ 3,00 each to see the place where UT, CO, NM and AZ meet and there was a Navajo market with T-shirts and pottery around it. It was so NOT worth paying the entrence fee!!!) We spend a wonderful night in the luxerious Hampton Inn (after we checked out the other two hotels in town: Best Western and Holiday Inn where we were treated rather unfriendly) and are on our way to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly N.P. now.