Cliff Dwellings

We’re in New Mexico again, but now in the northern half.  It is full of cliff dwellings and pueblos.  This stop is Bandelier National Monument.  Millions of years ago volcanos erupted dropping LOTS of ash.  This changed into a rock called tuff.  The rock now has a Swiss cheese look to it.  The Pueblo people lived in some of the larger openings in 1200-1400 CE or so.  The rock is fairly soft so people were able to enlarge an opening or add holes for beams for extra buildings in the front of the cave. Instead of calling them caves, they call them cavates since they are fairly small and more of a ledge. 


They also lived in rooms along the river.  All the rooms seem very small.  Some were used for sleeping or storage.  Some of the larger rooms or kivas were used for community activities including working on a loom making cloth. 

The park is nice in that they preserve the majority of the cavates, but have ladders to allow you to crawl into a few of them.  Some of the ladders are high (MUCH taller than the one pictured).  At one point we watched a dad crawl down a ladder helping his frightened son who was right above him and with a young daughter in his backpack.  The things parents do!

There are petroglyphs above many of the cavates.  Here’s proof positive of the existence of aliens!  To the right of the opening is the drawing of the alien head. (Just kidding!)

As we drove back to our RV, it started snowing.  Wahoo!