day eight: acoma pueblo, new mexico

acoma pueblo, nm, originally uploaded by isabelle gr.

There is a lot of sky out here. In fact, the people that live out here built their cities up on top of mesas to be closer to the sky. Acoma, known as Sky City, sits 400 ft above the rippling desert floor on a stone pedastal.

After paying $10 dollars to assuage the photo copyright gods we travelled by minibus to the summit of the mesa. They don't let the white man roam over Acoma freely anymore (The Duke filmed some bad westerns up there), so we attended the tour, led by Gary, of the Eagle clan. Gary was great, he was pious and insightful. Acoma is the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement in North America. They are a city state with their own symbols of hard-won religious freedom: the white painted ladders lead to the next mesa, invisible.

We also met Gary's friend Rupert, a local dog who had a crush on us. After the tour we climbed down the 1000 year old stone steps all the way to the bottom of the mesa (if mesas have bottoms) and we walked together to the visitors center where Rupert boarded the minibus and rode back up to the top.

You should visit Acoma. Here's the wiki on Acoma.