ANASAZI VS THE DUNES

22 May 2013: Day 8 of 43 – Mesa Verde National Park & Great Sand Dunes National Park COLORADO.
Overnight in Walsenburg COLORADO.
Today 642km, Total 2,913km. 

Today began our new found and improved schedule of leaving as early in the morning as we can, seeing our sites and making it to the next hotel around 3-4pm at which time Gump can go for his run, Thelma and Louise can go shopping and Paris can hot tub! Worked better the day before rather than a later start and getting into town around 6pm. Today we left at 7am after wrestling a bus load of Japanese to the breakie table. Gump had to eat his cereal over the toaster since one Northern chap tried to pull Gump’s bread out of the toaster! Mesa Verde National Park contains archaeological sites of the “Anasazi”, a Navajo word meaning “the ancient foreigners”. Anthropologists consider the Anasazi to be the descendants of the later Puebloan Indians hence the alternate term of “Ancient Puebloans” for the Anasazi. We had to back-track from Durango to enter the park and then it is a 20 mile (36kkm) winding drive up and up and up to 7,000ft (2,133m) inside the national park to get to the digs. 

Our first stop was a typical Anasazi “pithouse” or below-ground dwelling dug into the mud and covered in tree stumps, thatching and more mud on top to hold it down. There was a central hole in the roof and a ladder going down into the dwelling. This was done to shield from wind and trap the heat of the internal wood fires inside. We saw a series of dwellings dating from 550AD to 1200AD and noted that at around 880AD the pits stopped and above-ground dwellings started, eventually finishing with stones and mud mortar. The Anasazi also built entire towns (5-10 dwellings) in the cavities of cliff faces to protect them from wind and intruders. We saw several of these cliff dwellings in the Mesa Top Loop. Sadly there is no trace of the Anasazi past 1300AD – no one knows why. Our 200 mile (322km) journey west towards our overnight stay of Walsenburg took us past the strange Great Sand Dunes National Park – 

a huge 55 sq mile (142 sq km) expanse of sand dunes at the foot of the Colorado Sangre de Cristo and San Juan mountains. This place is famous for sandboarding with the tallest dune reaching 700ft (213m)! In summer the sand dunes can reach up to 54C! When we arrived there were several old fashioned orange school buses with a ton of kids playing in the creek that runs past the dunes. What a strange sight – a huge mound of sand at the foot of snow covered mountains – the theory is that this sand is the result of the same winds in the same direction sweeping up sand from surrounding farmlands over many hundreds of years. Our stay in Walsenburg was at two separate hotels (could not get two rooms in one place at time of booking). Thelma and Louise dropped us off at ours, about 4 miles before town. What a place. I wanted a Psycho-style inn and that’s what Bubba Gump got! 

Wacky Wallace checked us in – he looks like he hasn’t taken a bath in 2 years and speaks a brand of USA that is tough to decipher!We knew we were in trouble when he pointed out the free popcorn machine in the lobby and told us that he basically lives off it because he does not get paid much! The other coffin-sealing comment was "we ain't got a hot tun because someone tried to steal the other day..." How is it possible to steal a hot tub - I turned to Bubba and told him - we are going to die tonight!!! TheThe hotel looked like it had not been refurbished since 1950 but at least the rooms were large. I had to sit outside later that night with blankets on to post this blog since the Wi Fi could not pass through walls! There were more dogs at the hotel than people! Apart from us there was a lady next door covered in tats and four dogs! We were outnumbered.  We then met the owner. Forgot his name but he had a handlebar moustache, weird limp and an awful wheeze as if he was breathing his last. Downtown Walsenburg was a ghost town. We met a street guy called Daniel who gave us a brief history of this mining town. We had a fantastic Mexican fiesta that night drinking wine from little airline-style bottles-for-one poured out into glasses with a cactus for a stem!  The food was great but the chilli sauce was nowhere near hot enough – even Bubba gulped it down thinking it was soup!