Friday Finale

After sleeping in, recovering from several early morning excursions, we packed up and drove a half hour north to Bandalier National Monument. The park is a wildlife refuge, maintains the cliff-dwelling ruins throughout the valley, and provides education about the history of the Native Americans who inhabited the verdant Frijoles canyon, which is in the middle of the dry New Mexican desert. After visiting the park one can imagine the people struggling through the piňon-pocked desert and then rejoicing upon finding this canyon teaming with wildlife and greenery, fueled by the stream trickling through its base. The contrast of the planet-of-the-apes-like desert that we drove through to reach the park and the green canyon below was striking. The Pueblo people set up homes both in a circular city on the canyon's floor and carved into the soft volcanic rock lining the sides of the Frijoles.

We hiked the park's main loop trail which started along the canyon floor leading us through areas where the people would have grown their crops and through the circular village where many of them lived. Small, also circular, underground buildings called Kivas served as the public and religious centers of the village and several had been excavated. The rooms of all of the shelters were also incredibly small, large enough only to lay down for sleep.

After passing through the central settlement we climbed trails to the nearby cliffs. The Pueblos built several story homes in front of the canyon walls and then dug extra rooms out the back of the buildings into the rock wall itself. The stone was called tuff and was comprised of volcanic ash from ancient eruptions that formed the landscape. Apparently the “tuffness” of the rock is pretty erratic and small holes had eroded all over the rock wall giving it a swiss-cheese look. The views were very beautiful, but there were a huge number of people visiting the park. It was as we were climbing in and out of the various shelters that we started to grow weary of all of the park visitors. Several families were letting their children run unchecked around the park and the kids lacked some serious turn-taking skills, at one point trapping Jason on a ladder outside the entrance to a small cave. Unfortunately this pattern would continue throughout the afternoon; we could hear people yelling over this otherwise peaceful landscape most places we went. We pressed on.

After making our way down the canyon wall the trail curved off to loop back to the Visitor Center but also offered an alternative trail to a cliff-side cave called “alcove house.” We hoped that the sign's promise of a dangerous 140 ft. climb up ladders and steeps stairs would scare off the young and loud so we decided to check it out. Unfortunately we were wrong. As we reached the top of the final ladder some kids were kicking dust around and yelling about how they were Indian warriors with invisible arrows, this in spite of the signs asking us to respect this spiritual place in silence. However, we waited them out and eventually they climbed down the ladders and we were left with a breath-taking view over the canyon and the peace and quiet that can only come from a ancient cave in the middle of the New Mexican desert.

After enjoying our time in the cave we climbed down, finished the rest of the trail through the beautiful forest and headed to the car. We drove back to our studio and tried to finish off all of the food we had bought for the week and the leftovers from our various food outings. We had tacos, hummus, chips, crackers, Thai veggies, figs, goat cheese, and some Chardonnay. Then we packed up and went to bed early in preparation for our 6am flight. It had been a delightful week and we truly enjoyed ourselves every day. We were looking forward to heading back to Philly and to seeing our animals at home.