22 SEPTEMBER 2012: CASTLES AND CACTI

Day 6:

Early start: bags out at 6.45am, on bus at 8am.
First stop an hour and a half away.
Route today: Sonoran Desert - Verde Valley - Colorado Plateau - Grand Canyon.

Sonoran Desert:
What do you think a typical desert cactus looks like? A long central stem with 'curved arms' growing from it? That describes the  Saguaro cactus and the Sonoran desert is the only place on earth it grows. Growth is slow as it only rains twice a year on average, so after 15 years it is only 1 foot tall. It doesn't start to sprout its distinctive arms till it's 75' lives till it's 150 then just keels over and dies!

Montezuma's Castle:
'We are not building this country of ours for a day ..... it is to last through the ages' : Theodore Roosevelt (1903) on the creation of  Montezuma's Castle as a National Monument.

First stop of the day, and a total misnomer: it's NOT a castle and has NOTHING to do with Montezuma (the Aztec emperor). What it is  is a 5 - storey, 20 - room limestone apartment-style shelter built by the Sinagua indians. Montezuma wasn't even born till 100 years later.
The signs here call it 'prehistoric', which as Brits we found funny as it dates from 1000 A.D., ie 66 years before the Battle of Hastings!

Alongside, there's the remains of a larger building dating from c.1200 to c. 1450. No one knows why these buildings were abandoned.

Sedona and Red Rock Country:
We continued our drive across the Colorado Plateau to the town of Sedona which sits at the base of the plateau, surrounded by towering rocks which were once part of the plateau. They've been eaten away by erosion and stained many shades of red by the high concentration of iron - oxide.
This is really the stuff of cowboy movies. You can imagine Clint Eastwood riding over the horizon . Steve and I are old enough to remember watching 'Rawhide' on TV and it could have been shot here.

BELL ROCK

Sedona is renowned, if that is the word, for its 'vortexes'. A vortex is a place with special energy that are supposed to make visitors happy and fulfilled. The town is full of them, as it is full of clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, crystals etc. The 'Vortex movement' started in 1987 when 5,000 true believers descended on the town, and they've been flocking-in since. 

We thought it was a pity because the scenery says it all about this place, but I suppose there has to be somewhere for tourists to stop and eat.