Grand Monument Valley Tour
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2010
1
3
8
Trip End
Sep 25, 2010
Where I stayed
Goulding's Campsite
Goulding, Utah
Monday, September 20, 2010
My tour leaves around 9 am, so I went over to the Goulding general store waiting for my tour to leave. Interesting I was the only person from the campsite doing the full day tour, while everyone else is doing half day. My friendly Navajo tour guide David loaded up a whole day of food and drove me over to the Lodge area whole a whole bunch of people board the tour trolley. Our group consists of Americans, British and few Colombian Americans. Today the weather is quite good slightly windy with shade of clouds, very pleasant to be out and about.
For the morning , our guide David took us the the southern part of Monument valley called the Mystic Valley for the tour. We climbed some red rocks, saw some interesting hole and arches as well as Anasazi Indian dwellings in the caves. There were some very interesting petroglyphs as well. The Anasazi Indians lived in this area around 700 to 1300 AD. They started off as nomads subsequently settled down as farmers. Their primary source of food is corn and bean. Due to the fact that the area is very dusty and windy, the food such as tortilla is usually covered with dust and sand. According to the autopsy of the remains of Anasazi Indians it shows their stomach is full of sand. This also explains why they have short stature of 4 feet in height and short live expectancy of 30-40 years. There was a period of drought followed by starvation and there were absolutely no food. As a result, the Anasazi 's had no choice but to practice cannibalism. Very gruesome indeed . Judging from the bite marked on human bones.....
We arrived at the valley area where David cooked us Bar-B-Que lunch. I chatted with a group of American travelers and one lady recommended me to visit Slot canyon which is supposedly very beautiful full of colors.
In the afternoon, we left Mystic valley for the bumpy ride down the canyon of Monument valley. We drove around several stone formations like the left and right Mitten, Snoopy rock, 3 sisters, and more mesas. Every turn there is a new view of the stone mesa formations, just simply spectacular. Only problem is the red dust blowing everywhere by the end of the trip we were covered in dust. I quickly jumped into shower before I met up with one of our fellow trip mate for dinner. Tonight I ordered beef stew with Navajo flat bread and free salad bar. Then we saw a movie about History of Monument Valley before I hit the sack.
