Monday August 10, Mesa Verde National Park CO

Got the chores done this morning as Julie managed to get an appointment for a haircut for me in town at 10 (Ian didn’t want one!!!), so we took her car, went to the supermarket and got supplies, then down town for a cut. Called into AAA and got some more maps for the trip ahead, delivered the car back to Andy and Julies without a dent! Sad saying good bye especially to Opal, whom we have fallen in love with! But hopefully we might see them in NZ before too long.

The drive through to Mesa Verde was arid and dry, feel like we are getting into desert type conditions. By 2 o’clock we had sorted out a campsite in the park, and headed off for the 20 mile drive through the park to the visitor centre and museum. Mesa Verde National Park has been created to preserve the cliff dwellings of the ancient Pueblo people which were built in about 1200. There is a route to drive where you can stop and look down upon the different sites, but we decided to take a guided tour down into the canyon to get a close up view of what they called the “Cliff Palace”. Our tour left at 5pm by which time the temperature in the canyon was 43 degrees+ (110), hard to imagine as we had woken to 5 degrees this morning. Had plenty of cold water with us to keep ourselves hydrated. We descended through narrow chasms in the rock to the site, fascinated with the Park Rangers descriptions of life during this time, the site is so well preserved. The tour lasted an hour, and we climbed out on a separate track, up a number of almost vertical ladder….but we survived!

Drove through more parts of the park, the late afternoon light was wonderful, and smaller villages could be seen in the canyon walls.

On the drive back to camp, passed quite a few deer casually wandering across the road.

A late meal tonight as it was after 8 before we had backed Ruakiwi into her campsite. Very peaceful.