Day 6: Sunset Crater National Monument and Wupatki National Monument

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Upon leaving Flagstaff, we drove north 30 minutes to Sunset Crater National Monument and Waputki National Monument, both of which are on a 34 mile scenic loop road "that takes you from open meadows and the beautiful Ponderosa pine forests surrounding Sunset Crater, through Juniper grasslands and view of the Painted Desert, to the open red rock landscape of the Wupatki Basin" (NPS.org). In other words, it's beautiful.  
We entered the south side, which is close to Sunset Crater, a volcano that erupted around 1065 and left massive lava flows extending several miles in each direction. The lava flows really took me by surprise, as they look like someone tore up a massive street and left all the piles of rocks behind. In my mind, I always pictured lava flows more like dried rivers, but that was not the case here. There are a few trails through the lava flows, but David and I were content to walk about 20 meters and take a few pictures. Let's be honest: it doesn't vary much.



We ventured further into the park, and since the roads were long and empty, David decided he was ready to try driving. It's important to know that David had not driven in about 10 years!!!  All this by choice, since Bogota is a terrible place for driving, and then he did his PhD in England and did not have a car there. Since I was nervous to be the only driver on the trip, he renewed his license before we left. He did great and only made me shriek with fear about 4 times in the first 15 minutes. He insists he is an excellent driver, but we still need to work on turning, haha.




Anyways, after 15-25 minutes of nail-biting inducing peaceful pastures, we arrived at Wupatki National Park, which is full of Native American ruins from Ancient Pueblo people. It is believed that the eruption of Sunset Crater forced the people to move to this inhospitable area, and the fact that they were able to force a life from the land is really interesting. There are several structures of various sizes across the land.  Our favorite was the first one, Wukoki Pueblo. It's located off the main scenic road, and we had it largely to ourselves. It's interesting because it was built on the tallest part of the land, and may have acted as some kind of lookout. The views were great, but the visibility could have been slightly better. We were barely able to see the Painted Desert in the distance.

Wukoki Pueblo

Wukoki Pueblo

Wupatki Pueblo

We then went to the Wupatki Pueblo, located right by the visitor center. It's the largest of the structures and by far the most popular. We walked around briefly, but because we were losing daylight, we wanted to keep moving on the road to Page to see more views.  The last remaining structures located right off the scenic drive are very small and less impressive. If you only have a short amount of time, focus on the two I mentioned.


Driving up 89 to Page, Arizona was a nice drive. We could see the Painted Desert to the East, but it was still a bit far to be able to see the specific details. If we had had more light, we might have taken a detour to see them better. Another stop that I didn't know about beforehand (as told to me by my Uncle Dick and Aunt Stella) and would have liked to have seen was Coal Mine Canyon close to Tuba City.


The drive is mostly desolate, and when you do see any buildings, the majority are abandoned and in decay. Right as the sun was setting, I happened to look left out the window at an empty Native American craft stand and saw what appeared to be grafitti by my favorite Colombian artist, Stinkfish. I yelled "Holy shit, that's Stinkfish! Pull over!" David was like "What? How could you tell? Are you sure?" Turns out I can spot a Stinkfish in the literal blink of an eye! The pure randomness and luck at looking out the window at exactly the right time made my entire day! 

Apparently, Stinkfish was part of an art initiative called #painteddesertproject and once I knew that, I could see how many of the abandoned buildings had been beautified with purposeful art and graffiti, not just tags. After that, I kept my eyes peeled for more.


We arrived in Page, which is a pretty small and quiet town, especially in winter. Many restaurants were closed for the season, and the ones that were open were not that appetizing. After a somewhat disappointing and pricy dinner, we decided to make use of the microwave in our hotel room for the next couple of dinners. It was not an ideal situation, but we really hate to waste money on bad food when there are so many other better things to spend it on!

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