25 Sept: Monument Valley

We’ve left Page on our way to Monument Valley. We needed a pretty hearty brekkie as our Valley tour goes over lunch and the early afternoon - so no doubt, we’ll be starving when we are done. we stopped off at a little cafe called The Ranch Grille Cafe. It was a really yummy brekkie but for the very first time in America, the eggs were undercooked. In general, food here has been pretty amazing. Big, but pretty amazing. We had people tell us to just order one meal and share, and that’s pretty much the case. Each place we visit has ‘Christmas Globes’, baubles you hang on your Christmas tree and this cafe had lovely ones that were sand paintings by local Navajo Indians. If they weren’t so delicate, I’d have wanted one to take home. 

The road out of Page reveals stunning view after stunning view. It’s hard to take your eyes off the scenery - all the reds, oranges and yellows, dotted with green shrubbery here and there. We pulled over at one of the Indian trading spots that are alongside the road. It’s so hard to make choices when there are so many beautiful jewellery pieces. The turquoise is especially stunning. I really couldn’t decide between some pieces, so we made a deal and that was that. They even take credit card! We’ve ended up with quite a few lovely necklaces and some little pressies to take back home. Back on the road to Monument valley again - this time, the scenery changed back to no greenery (pretty much), just red, earthy, ochre colours with big rocky outbursts. There were bits of stone jutting out of the earth, all angular and stacked on top of one another. It was very rugged. 

We came to the pay station, paid the fee, crossed the line, and voila, we were in Monument Valley. We followed the line of cars up and as we walked to the visitor centre, the buttes that you see in movies were right there, just in front of us. It was almost like an alien landscape - all red dirt with these huge things just sticking out of it. (Descriptive hey?). It’s really very hard to describe, and the photos we have don’t do it justice - story of our nature trip life. They are enormous, beautiful, angular, worn down, real (as in the ancientness of the place is palpable), and you are surrounded by beautiful earth colours. 

We arrived with only half an hour to spare before our tour. We met the tour guide in the lobby of the hotel there (the only one) and she was a young Navajo girl. I still don’t know her name as she was a little shy about that side of things and mumbled out a little of her history. We jumped onto the jeep - there were only six of us; Mark and I (obviously), a young German couple (who turned out to be pains in the ass - what is it about Germans on holidays? Nice people until they go on holidays and then they turn into arrogant obnoxious people who think they are the only people in the place and are entitled to everything. Can you tell how annoying these two were?), and a lovely 94 year old Californian with his sister-in-law. We were suitably impressed with how much the old guy got into, especially getting in and out of the jeep. His sister-in-law just wanted me to keep talking as she loved my accent (what accent?) and was very apologetic about Trump. LOL. The jeep turned out to be just as bumpy and dusty as the one for Antelope Canyon, but add in sunburn and windburn and that’s what it was like. Not that we complained - the view was worth it all. 

Our first stop was to see the buttes that we could see from the visitor centre, just from down below rather than up top. These things are just magnificent. Honestly, I can write about the names of what we saw, but you just need to look at the photos to understand the majesty of the place. We stopped at ‘John Ford Point’ which was the film directors’ favourite scene shot. This is the one you see in all the old Westerns with John Wayne. There was a guy with a horse so you could have your photo taken sitting on the horse, looking all Magnificent Seven-ish. I don’t think I could mount a horse (give me a bull, no problem!) so we dipped out of the $5.00USD fee. We stood there and gazed in amazement - again, there are no words. 

She took us into the ‘back country’ which is Navajo tour only. We saw some more buttes and a few natural arches. One was meant to be like an eagle, but I guess my imagination just isn’t that good. There was a large curve of rock arcing from the bottom to the arch, and she had us lie back on it to look up at the arch. It was one of those moments. It was a little surreal and again, you could feel the spiritualness of the place - the ‘ancient-ness’. While we were all laying there looking up (including the most impressive 94 year old) she played a flute - it was a really special moment.

Back up and off to visit a hogan. Navajo do not live in teepees, that’s the Indians who live further north. Hogans are their homes, built of sticks, covered by bark and then packed with mud that bakes in the hot desert sun. After monsoon season, they re-mud the areas where they see bark, a nice indicator that it’s time to cover up again. We went inside one, and it was about 10, maybe 15 degrees cooler, even though it was sitting in the sun with no shade around it. A small hole at the top lets the hot air out (logically) and also any smoke from cooking. Inside were rugs on the dirt and skins on the chairs (no backs, more like short and wide stools). A lady gave us a spinning demonstration and taught us a little about the designs on rugs. Aside from the symbols meaning different things, anything without a ‘spirit line’ (a type of patterned border woven in) is probably made in China (she said). We talked a little about the types of plants and stuff used to dye to rugs their beautiful colours. They are expensive though, and understandably so when one about a metre wide and 700 high takes around 6 months to make if you've made the design many times. 

On the road again to see another couple of arches and buttes. One of the arches this time was called ‘the eye’ and it really did look like one with eyelashes provided by dark streaks in the rock face. The guide took some really good photos for us all here. Our last stop was to look at the ‘totems’ and she pointed out the four figures to the left of the totem that were shaped like people facing over the land. These shapes are what appear a lot in the paintings and weavings, as they are the spiritual beings protecting the land (“watching over us, protecting us” she said). While you can drive around the valley yourself on the dirt roads, I’d recommend the Navajo tours because 1. you help support them, 2. you get all the back country and 3. the stories and significance of things. Oh, and the occasional prairie dog - at least, we think it was a prairie dog. It may very well have been a chipmunk sitting up having a look around. 

Tour over and done with, we headed back to our hotel room to wash off the huge amount of dust we were covered in. I’ve never enjoyed a shower and hair wash so much before. We hit the restaurant for dinner, which was surrounded by huge glass windows looking over the buttes. What a great place to eat. The food was a little hit and miss, I guess we’re just not quite used to it. We had some Indian fry bread, which was very yummy. A flour mix that is fried up and then you put some honey on it. I liked that. We tried the ‘Navajo sampler’ which had red chilli with beans, green chicken chilli and a mutton stew. The red chilli was way too hot for me but Mark liked it. The chicken was the best I think and the mutton stew was very strong in flavour. There was also a Navajo taco which was really quite nice. A million times better than the bloody silly Taco Bell one. I should mention that I ordered a lemonade. Lemonade is actually lemonade here, not fizzy like Sprite (if you want that, it’s called a sprite, go figure!) and I had ordered one for dinner. We both laughed at the enormous cup it came in, but, after the chilli, it was needed!

After dinner we hit the gift shop as we had a $20USD voucher and a 10% discount as we were staying at the hotel. We bought a beautiful sand painting that had four figures that represent balance. Hopefully it makes it home in one piece. The sun was setting, so we raced out to grab some photos and sit on our balcony watching the colours change. I guess it’s a little like Uluru in that regard. Again, even the photos don’t do it justice.

We were both totally buggered and sitting on the balcony was absolutely freezing (even with covered ankles and wrapped in a blanket) so we headed in for a reasonably early night. We really wanted to get up for the sunrise…. but only one of us made it.

Photos here…(many, many photos).