Both of these treasures are located in northern New Mexico. Bandelier is actually located in Los Alamos while the Aztec Ruins are located an hour south of Mesa Verde, Colorado. We would have loved to get a tour of the military base where the atomic bomb was first created but they only open the Manhattan Project area twice a year for tours. Maybe next time.
This is a picture of the Long House at Bandelier. No tours here but what a view of the spaces that the natives lived.
This is very unfortunate in this day and age. We did find many more holes in the wall to crawl into.
With my aching back protesting I did crawl up into this fabulous space with a view to kill.
Cannot believe we are going to climb 140 feet of ladders to check out this space. Some of the ladders are visible in this shot center left.
Don’t look up and don’t look down!
This is the first exposure we had to a room called a “Kiva”. This should have a teepee style roof on it where you enter in through the same hole in the ceiling that the smoke from the ceremonial fires escapes. We found many, many of these sacred rooms at each different ruins sights.
We did not see the birds that call the nest in the hole home but the spot seems like a fabulous choice on the birds part. This squirrel on the right was very friendly but….no food for you. Many signs alluded to the fact that many visitors have been bitten by seemingly friendly but evidently aggressive squirrels.
The park service employees did what we might call the best job building a bridge with materials found at the job site we have ever seen. They actually did 3 of these bridges this year. We could even see the pencil marks tracing the curves that would need to be cut.
Not sure who the art teacher was that assigned this class project. Anteater?
We cannot believe these are still the same timbers that were used in the construction over 700 years ago.
We opted to be dropped off by the shuttle bus at the top of the campground to hike the 4 mile trail down into the visitor center and ruins area. Good choice!
From the Los Alamos area we traveled a bit west to see the Aztec Ruins National Monument in the town of Aztec, New Mexico.
Seems like each national park or monument, as Aztec Ruins is, has a nicely done metallic overview of what the park looks like from above. We were informed that the natives who lived here were not actually Aztecs. The Spanish explorers lumped them together with the natives living in Northern Mexico. Nice way to start a visit.
This is a reconstructed Kiva. Cool windows and pits for ceremonial fires etc.
This Kiva was left without a roof. Not as large as the reconstructed one but cool to see the original stone and mortar.
Many of the structures had water collectors built in to their walls to catch the rain that falls very infrequently around here. A bit confusing as at Bandelier some “chutes” that look just like this were for allowing cool air to come in to push the smoke and hot air out the hole in the top. Maybe it was dual purpose?
We had a fun time imagining what the village would look like when it was hustling and bustling.
The literature here claims that there are a number of these ancient gems of a city still buried in the area. Maybe someday they too will be excavated. The people that occupied them did not just disappear. They simply migrated to nearby spots with better water and food sources. We noticed that the terminology is changing a bit, they now refer to these as ancient spiritual places instead of ruins.
It is exciting to think that we are only a few days drive from the “mother” of all ancient dwellings in the southwest…Mesa Verde, Colorado.