The spirit of Canyon de Chelly (AZ)

 Monday --
She was honest, articulate and fascinating.  She had so many Navajo legends to share with us - but I'm ahead of myself.  Monday, our first day arriving at Canyon de Chelly (on the Navajo Reservation), we spent the afternoon driving the south rim.  There are 5 overlooks to explore.

 Spider Rock, towering above full size trees like a giant skyscraper (and not looking like a spider at all), got its name because weaving tools were once found at the very top.  Navajo legend considers Spider Woman to be the greatest weaver of all - she weaves the web of life.

Tuesday --

We researched Trip Advisor and picked the top rated jeep tour into the canyon.  Our Navajo driver and guide, gave up her management position with a major  jewelry company in Santa Fe, NM, to return to the reservation to care for her elderly mother and join her brother's tour company.

   We hired her for 5 hours to drive us 28 miles up Canyon de Chelly and 5 miles up Canyon Los Muertos.  All explorations down into the canyons must be done with a qualified guide.

 Along the way, she told us dozens of Navajo stories, histories and legends about the area and her people.  She used a stick to draw and explain some of the 1,000 year old symbols and figures we would see on many of the rock walls.

She drove us through the area where Johnny Depp and crew spent 3 weeks filming parts of 'The Lone Ranger'.

As we bumped and clunked along the dusty canyon floor, she drove skillfully through sand that looked nearly as deep as her tires and splashed through dozens of shallow rocky creeks until our fillings felt like they would be history too.  After several hours we were covered with dust and had grit in our teeth but the legends and history continued to fascinate us.

   We explored dozens of ancient dwelling sites and all of us perhaps reflected on our own lives and how they might compare or not.  I noticed over the hours and after many of our questions, her reminiscence became more personal - cultural concerns about a 17 yr old daughter and especially a 24 yr old son - she told us how the clock struck midnight of her 18th birthday and not one minute later she fled the reservation - how at 22 she climbed to one of the dwellings (hundreds of feet up) with her 68 yr old grandmother (who lived to 104) - using only the ancient toe and finger holes in the rock, a rock face of 7 degrees off vertical!

   Talk turned to taxes, regulations, government - hopes and dreams.  She told us of her mother's Ph.d in education and how they took in a young cousin because her relatives were insisting she was to only be "educated" to become a shepherd.  She told us of the many men her brother trained as canyon guides who went on to start their own tour companies and now won't even talk with him.

 Navajo of certain families can live and farm in the canyon.  Other artists and craftswomen set up tables for the day.  I bought a painted rock with 3 turquoise kokopelli's,  from Colleen.

   After 5 hours we came away with so much more than just a bumpy tour through an unbelievably beautiful place.  We came away with a heartfelt glimpse into a culture struggling with the future and tortured by their past.

This morning at 8 am. as we were packing up to leave our motel, blocking our parked cars, reservation police had apprehended 2 young men - hauled them off and prepared to tow their car.  I asked if they were driving a car they shouldn't have been and the policeman answered, "It's a DUI".  I replied, "At 8 in the morning!?"  and his reply was . . . ."All the time!"