Monument Valley

When we arrived to partake our lovely continental breakfast, Nick and I discovered that we were one of no more then 2 or 3 couples/families who spoke English in the dining room. Everyone else was speaking German. At first we thought maybe there were all in a group traveling with some bus tour. Yet there was no bus, and from eavesdropping on their conversations we determined that none of these people have ever met each other, and that they were from different towns in Germany.

We drove out to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park again. Compared to last night, the park was very busy. Friendly Navajo men, dressed in cowboy attire, hailed us from their little booths trying to get us to go on a guided bus or ATV tour with them, or else go on a horse ride. A lot of RVs and motorcycles were parked in the lot. I suppose you might want to avoid driving an RV or a motorcycle on the scenic drive loop where the road is not paved and full of holes. We watched one rented RV—as the family got out and locked the car, two labs promptly took the driver and the passenger seats. Both dogs had that look of importance on them, and were ready for their ride, wondering why no one was taking them on one.

We headed for our 3.5 mile hike around the West Mitten, which allowed us to get very close to the formation. Many of the rock formations, including the Mittens are shaped like a fin, meaning that they are very thin. We were the only hikers on the trail, our shoes took on the red color of the sand, and we felt as if we were all alone in the wilderness surrounded by the red rocks. The desert was still in its spring colors. Most of the grasses and shrubs were very green, and some even in bloom.

We had lunch on the terrace of the visitor center. Again we were surrounded by Germans. These Germans, however, were all on motorcycles. Judging from the fact that a multitude of motorcycles in the parking lot were identical, the Germans must have rented them in the same place somewhere in US and then traveled to the Monument Valley. I cannot imagine these people traveled all the way to US only to see the Monument Valley, but Nick and I could not deduce where else they were traveling to since we definitely did not see such a concentration of Germans anywhere else we visited on this trip.

After lunch we drove around the scenic loop again stopping at a few lookouts we skipped the night before because it was getting too dark. The sparse green shrubs merged together in the distance producing a variety of colors all contrasting with the stern redness of the rock formations. We have decided that the Monument Valley is truly monumental.

We got back on the main road, but drove away from Kayenta, following Route 163 marked as a scenic byway in our atlas. Various rock formations marched along the road. As we neared a little town called Mexican Hat, the cliffs on the right side of the road have become much lighter in color, but stricken with strands of darker reds and purples. They looked like something from an impressionist painting. As we were leaving the town, we saw the rock which must be responsible for the town’s name.














We ended up driving to the Goosenecks State Park. A thousand feet below us the San Juan River was meandering back and forth for five miles while crossing only a mile of land. The silence together with the flatness and bareness of the ground around us made the site breath taking.

While driving along Route 163 we noticed many little wooden stands, sometimes with flags flying next to them. Last night they were empty, but today as we drove to the Monument Valley we saw some people there, laying out their goods. These little booths were trading stands the Navajo craftsmen use to sell their work to tourists like us. We stopped in a couple places as we drove back towards Kayenta.

Across the road from the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, there was a Navajo market -- a concentration of several booths in a row. Seeing many cars parked in front of the booths we decided to do our souvenir shopping there. Judging by the number of cars this was a good place to shop. As soon as we got there, we realized that we were one of only two couples currently shopping in this entire market. All the cars belonged to the people running the little stores.

Nevertheless we walked through all of them. It was extremely awkward to walk into the darkness of a little booth, being clearly a tourist. As we encountered more talkative tradesmen we became more talkative as well. It seemed like these people were pretty bored sitting in their booths by themselves with no potential buyers coming by. They wanted to talk even when they did not initiate the conversation. One lady with heavily painted eyebrows had a lovely little dog with her in the store. The dog promptly plopped onto the ground and presented me her round little tummy for scratching. Two ladies from two neighboring booths were chatting. One of them was bragging about her the new house she was building because the old one burned out. She was pointing out her new house to the other lady through the binoculars.

Some started telling us about a special 25% off sale today only—they really wanted us to buy something, as the business seemed very slow. I bought a little silver bracelet with a “sunrise” design and red corals from the lady with a new house. She said it was her husband who was the craftsman making all the jewelry in her store.

We grabbed fast food for dinner and headed back to our hotel for a quiet evening. We were planning to do laundry, but we were too late, so it would have to wait till tomorrow. We will be camping for the next two nights, so we would need some clean clothes for that.