Sedona and Tuba City (Day 5 - 2/1/14)

Hopi petraglyphs at Sedona

Sedona is such an amazing-looking place that you can almost forget the heavy sheen of tourism that coats it like an obscene varnish. The rock formations that surround this desert holiday village look like the bizarre, misshapen surface of an alien planet in a 1950s pulp sci-fi film: all curvy red columns and blond overhangs. We take a tour in a pink jeep to see some Hopi pueblos (ruins from the 13th century). It's a bumpy ride that jolts my broken shoulder a bit but is still a whole lot of fun.

Sedona - town of the desert

Our guide is an amateur anthropologist and avid hiker who slowly reveals to us over the course of 3 hours the full gamut of his personality. He recommends a restaurant that serves elk and bison meat but then later tells us he is a vegan. He also disputes the naming conventions used by scientists when classifying Native American cultures, lectures us about the pointlessness of Western medicine, and tells us that he hasn't "travelled much" before listing several other countries that he's been to. We also learn that he is divorced, spent 4 years in the navy, and was born in Texas.

It's interesting how much of a person's life can be distilled into just 3 hours; the contradictions in a personality and the passions that form an identity. I couldn't even tell you this guy's name, but we got to know something about him, and about the Hopi ruins too - crumbling stone edifices built into the high shelters provided by the intimidating red rock formations.

This Hopi ruins are about 700-800 years old.

Duck and I have a late lunch at a high end 'cowboy' restaurant (yeah, the one the guide recommended to us) and we try bison and rattlesnake meat. The bison tastes just like beef, but the rattlesnake is really nice - a dry combination of fish and chicken. We also eat delicious fries made from prickly pear cactus.  

By late afternoon it's time for us to move on and head up to the Navajo Reservation to stay with the Duck's friend, May, a school teacher. Two years ago, the Duck did some volunteer work at a Navajo boarding school and made friends with this teacher. They've been in communication via email since then, like pen-pals, leading us to the main purpose of our visit to Arizona. The main township on the Reservation is called Tuba City (despite me asking the Duck over and over again - each time as if I hadn't asked before - I couldn't get an answer why the town was called this). Duck warns me not to mention eating rattlesnake as the Navajo regard all snakes as taboo.

Heading to Tuba City we find ourselves driving at an increased elevation. It kind of sneaks up on us as it doesn't involve any more clifftop driving. The plateau in the north of Arizona is 12 000 feet above sea level, something we notice immediately in the sharp decrease in temperature and the hard deposit of snow that law heaped upon the landscape like Magic Ice topping.

We stop at a gas station and run at the snow, both kicking at it in excitement, hoping for it to powder the air like a fluffy white explosion of frost. The flannel-jacketed guy in the pick-up truck parked next to us looks at us like we're the biggest morons in the world as our feet connect with solid rock-hard ice. OW! There's no powdery softness like on TV - it's pure frozen, dirty, rainwater ice. 

After the the sun begins to set the plateau around us is thrown into a beautiful half-light, huge golden shadows falls over the pine-dotted, snow-capped mountains on either side. Duck begins to worry about driving on the Reservation at night, something that she had been warned against as there can be drunk drivers and such, plus we are a very small white minority in a community that harbours a justified resent towards white folk. It's okay though, a sighting of a Navajo police car helps assuage her anxiety.

 

Tuba City Trading Post, 145 years old and still trading.

We meet May at the Hogan Restaurant, a Navajo venue that serves local dishes as well as American and Mexican food, and named after the traditional hexagon-shaped hogans that some Navajos still live in. I order the most Navajo dish I can find: roast beef on fry bread with chilli and beans. May asks me what other foods we have been trying.

What do you think comes out of my big fat stupid mouth?

"Rattlesnake".

The Duck jabs me hard in the side and glares at me, and I suddenly realise my faux pas. I could have crawled right back into myself like a snail into its shell.

May doesn't seem outwardly offended but I quickly move on and talk about something else, sensing a certain iciness in my mistake. I am so embarrassed. 

After dinner we go to May's house and we meet her husband, Floyd, who is an active member of the Navajo community in a political capacity. Much later I find out that he is actually the President of his Chapter, but he is far too humble and polite to tell us this outright. We chat for a bit and he tells me about tanning, which he does whenever he gets the time - mainly turning deer into buckskins, a skill that has been passed down to him through his family. We are warned to lock our car due to hooligans who walk the streets looking for opportunities, but aside from that all is well. The house is very nice - a homely mix of Navajo artefacts, home-made skins, and cosy furnishings.

Oh, and theirs' is the first normal toilet I've seen since coming to America.

The Seal of the Navajo Nation

This is my only photo of Camp Verde (I think). The huge cut-out of the figure playing a flute is Kokopelli, a trickster god of the Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Southwestern peoples.