SouthWest USA - Part 5 Canyon De Chelly

Saturday 26th May we traveled from Monument Valley to Chinle. What a day, it rained, it snowed, we had wind, sun and sleet.  Chinle may well be a town for lost aliens. It was tiny, remote and spooky. As you looked out on the horizon all you could see were electric lights which seemed to set a pattern reminiscent of a landing strip for spaceships. 

We were there to see Canyon De Chelly (pronounced Chay).


                   

                                                                   Canyon De Chelly


We were mesmerized, enthralled and excited. Percy, a local Indian who had done everything in life you could possibly think of, was our guide. He was excellent. The Canyon has been inhabited for 5000 years and shelters many old Ancestral Puebloan dwellings built into the alcoves. As the land has been eroded these dwellings are now halfway up the walls of the Canyon.

                                                             Old Ancestral Puebloan dwellings

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                                                        More Old Ancestral Puebloan dwellings.
            These dwellings were once on the floor of the Canyon. Subsequent erosion has resulted in them now      
                                                        resting halfway up the wall of the canyon.

If the walls could talk they'd tell stories of great violence and tragedy against the Navajo Indians. In 1805, Spanish soldiers killed scores of Indians. In 1864 the US Army, led by Kit Carson drove thousands into the Canyon, starving them into surrendering and forcing them to March 300 miles - the Long Walk - to Fort Sumner in New Mexico. Four years later the Navajo returned.

                                                   Long forgotten Navajo homes, now in ruins.

Percy embodied all this history in his demeanor and the emotional telling of the stories.