Arizona, Canyon de Chelly: Beautiful Navajo Sandstone

Driving further into Arizona from the Four Corners area at the Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico state borders, we found ourselves ready to explore the 11th state on our trip to the United States during the summer of 2007. Even though the sky was darkening, we saw some beautiful red rock scenery as we drove through Chinle Valley in northeastern Arizona. The dramatic change in US landscapes once again amazed us, moving from one type of topography to the next in a matter of miles.

As darkness grew, we were granted views of a spectacular sunset over the horizon, which glowed with a wonderful mixture of reds and purples, creating stark silhouettes of mesas against the sky. Our mission that evening was to travel to the small Arizona town of Chinle, which was situated inside the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation, the largest Native American reservation in the United States. Consequently, the reservation happened to spread across three different states.

Chinle was a small town nestled in the middle of the desert, far from any large cities. Upon arriving at the town, we made the decision to check out the Holiday Inn, which was apparently the best place to stay, according to the large billboard we saw driving in on the highway. Before trying the Holiday Inn, we first checked a different motel that looked less expensive, but actually ended up costing over $65 for a room for the night. We asked the woman working at the reception desk if there were any other options in town and she grudgingly pointed us to the Holiday Inn, which she reassured us would be more expensive.

Somehow Kyle managed to get us a room at the government rate; he subtly passed on the fact that his stepdad worked for the military to the friendly woman at the check-in desk and she ended up giving us a lower rate without any problems; it was only $60, or £30 for a room! Even though that rate was almost double our accommodation budget in the US, we decided to take advantage of the luxury. Plus, the room had free wireless internet access, which was a great added bonus. Of course, we were also in the middle of nowhere with no other options apart from the first place we had checked.

The room we were given was large and modern with two double beds, cable TV, a large clean bathroom and the free wireless internet we mentioned. It was nice to be spoiled every now and then. We worked on our travel journal that night and watched a little TV before getting some shut eye for our early start the next day, during which we had planned to explore the beautiful Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "shay"), as well as Arizona's Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, both of which were around 100 miles south of Chinle. To add to that, we wanted to drive to Phoenix after visiting red canyons, fossilised forests and strangely coloured deserts, all in one day. Read on to see if we accomplished all of that, since we definitely had our work cut out!

We ate breakfast the next morning at Holiday Inn because we wanted to make sure we started the day with good food in our bellies, ready for the drive around the very little known Canyon de Chelly; unknown to us, that is. In the restaurant, Dan ordered an omelet with bacon, sausage and cheese whilst Kyle ordered scrambled eggs, hash browns and pancakes. The food was good despite our waitress being slow and completely uninterested in us. She was really not with it at all, with her head in the clouds when she took our order or talked to us during our meal.

When we finally managed to get the bill from our indifferent and somewhat ditsy waitress, we headed back to our room to pack our things and load our rental SUV so we could drive to Canyon de Chelly, which was conveniently adjacent to the town of Chinle. We were both excited about the day's itinerary, with Dan being more excited about visiting the impressive canyon and Kyle very eager to eventually see the petrified trees in the next stop of the day. The Painted Desert was an added marvelous attraction that we were both wanting to explore and, of course, we were both looking forward to meeting up with Dan's friend, Lee, and his family in Phoenix late that evening, since it had been a few years since we were all last together in London.

The entrance to Canyon de Chelly was a short drive from our hotel and it wasn't long until we arrived at the visitor centre. We decided to avoid stopping there to save time, so we continued into the Canyon towards the overlooks where we would stop and take photos of the canyon. We had been given a map of the park at our hotel and we didn't feel the need to go to the visitor centre since all they would do was point out the various stops we already knew we were going to make. Since we had purchased a US National Parks annual pass, we also didn't need to pay an entrance fee; that meant more money saved for our tight travel budget!

Looking at the map that was given to us, we found that the canyon had two branches with overlooks, the North Rim (5 main overlooks) and South Rim (7 main overlooks). Due to time constraints, we chose to drive along only one side of the canyon, the South Rim. Luck was with us that morning because the sun ended up being behind us at nearly all of the overlooks, giving us great lighting for the pictures we snapped. We didn't feel the need to drive along both sides of the canyon because the main point of interest for us in the canyon was the beautiful Spider Rock section of the canyon, located only in the southern branch.

The round trip along South Rim Drive was around 30 miles, a perfect amount for the morning of a day with a packed itinerary. The first vista point we stopped at was the Tunnel Overlook; in the parking lot (that's the same as a car park for the British people reading this) there, we came across several Native Americans selling different types of trinkets and arts and crafts including various sizes of flat sandstone pieces that had been hand painted with scenes depicting various Native American topics, both cultural and historical. At each of the stops we made, the Native Americans explained the meaning of the pictures painted onto the rocks, which was quite interesting.

The arts and crafts were very impressive, but although we were keen on purchasing something, we were conscious of our travel budget that day. We are beating ourselves up that we didn't end up buying anything that day because we hardly saw any similar pieces of art at other stops during our road trip. Our thoughts were that we would see something as good as we saw at Tunnel Overlook during our canyon drive, but that didn't happen either, even though we still saw some very nice pieces, and we lost the urge to buy something once we passed the overlook again upon exiting Canyon de Chelly.

The view from Tunnel Overlook was not far at all from the space where we had parked our car; we were impressed with the view there, especially knowing that the scenery would become grander as we drove further into the national monument. That was true at the next few overlooks, including Tseyi Overlook, Junction Overlook, White House Overlook, Sliding House Overlook and Face Rock Overlook. At the next stop we made, we walked a little way out onto the rock surface of the canyon, following a cute little white dog that wanted to be our guide to the edge. The dog reminded us of our little friend Willie in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, who also similarly led us along a trail in the forest there back in February.

The final overlook was Spider Rock, well known for its large rock formation in the middle of the canyon. The colours in Canyon de Chelly were mostly deep shades of red and the majority of the rock inside the canyon was Navajo sandstone that had been weathered over millions of years to provide a unique appearance to visitors. We finished our tour of Canyon de Chelly within an hour and headed out of the national monument to get gas (that's petrol for the British people reading this, not flatulence) before heading out of the Chinle area.

In Chinle, we bought gas for the long drive south; at the gas station there, many Native Americans approached us in a friendly manner, saying hello and complimenting us on our SUV. A few of them also stared directly at us, but then smiled once we had caught their eyes observing us. We thought back to our time in China earlier this year, when people on the street would continually stare at us, either from a lack of tourism in the area or from our paler skin and hair colour. It was a little weird to experience that in Chinle, but we guessed that the locals hadn't seen many tourists at the gas station that we chose to stop at before driving out of town; we probably stuck out like a sore thumb.

By the end of that day, we would have driven 368 miles, but we first had to get to Petrified Forest National Park to see the fossilised trees there as well as the Painted Desert. Then we would head to Phoenix to go to Dan's friend Lee's house, where we would stay a couple of nights with him, his wife (Kelly) and his son (Jack). During the drive that afternoon, we saw some of the most spectacular scenery that we came across in our entire time in Arizona, and you really must read our next journal entry to see for yourself how beautiful Arizona's Painted Desert and Petrified Forest both were to us.