4. Colorado
Wednesday 28th April 2010
Spent most of the day in a side trip to ColoradoLeft Monticello, Utah and drove east crossing the border into Colorado to visit Mesa Verde National Park.
Mesa Verde
Today we learnt about cliff dwellers in North America the Ancestral Puebloans who lived in the cliffs in these parts over 800 years ago, It was fascinating. The cliff dwellers built stone buildings in the alcoves of the cliffs, amazing to think about how they managed to get up and down the cliffs as well as how they built the houses. On the way into the park we stopped at a lookout (or overlook as the Americans call it) and pulled up behind a car. The couple got out and greeted us with an Aussie accent, we had met our first Aussies (other than the stoned young ones on the Tijuana trip). As it turned out they are doing a similar trip to us.
The Cliff Palace
View from across the valley
We joined a ranger-led tour to the Cliff Palace clambering up and down ladders and stairs to visit the ruins. Later we drove around a couple of the loop tours in the park before heading out to find accommodation for the night. The wind had picked up during the day and we ended up driving in a sandstorm, finally arriving at Monument Valley for the night.
