by Luke Maguire Armstrong
Mesa Verde is a place where natural beauty mixes with history in a uniquely dramatic way. One finds the earthy splendor of the American Southwest and a window to one of North American’s most unique groups of indigenous people—the Anasazi. Regardless of the current state of accomplishments in our modern American culture, the Anasazi still have one up on us since they lived in cliffs. Why do we live in houses when we could be living on the sides of cliffs?
Ancient Pueblo peoples, as their progenies prefer to be called, inhabited what is today call The Four Corners, which contains portions of the intersection of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Each state offers a first hand glimpse of what remains of this intrepid culture. Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park features some of the finest places to see their intact cliff dwellings from the Pueblo III period between 1100-1300 AD.
Evidence of settlement on the Colorado Plateau only dates back to AD 550, but signs of human presence on the plateau go back at least 10,000 years to the Paleolithic Age. For much of the known history of these people, they existed as tribes of wandering hunter gathers. Forging for food is easier than farming.
Corn and squash entered the picture as early as 1500 BC. Long before it had been domesticated in Mexico. Slowly these two staples spread to the Southwest of the US.
While historians are not sure what led to the people of Mesa Verde settling down after millennia of roaming, what is certain is that for over seven centuries their culture flourished in Mesa Verde. They worked together to maintain a water distribution system, divided labor, hunted, gathered, cultivated crops, made clothes, baskets, and everything else they needed to live and thrive.
The Anasazi are rich in history. What is emerging is from the archeology work is a complex and, somewhat egalitarian, society. They succeeded to thrive for millennium in a sparse land with harsh winters. The archeological evidence of the Anasazi date back to 1200 BC—a time known as the “Basket Making Era” since they had baskets, but no pottery, and lived in camps or caves, surviving off a staple of cultivated squash and corn.
They continued to develop and by 900 AD had large villages and a complicated trade system. Then in 1100 AD they took to the skies and made their villages on the faces of cliffs. The cliffs offered a variety of advantages from a tactical standpoint, and as protection from cold winds, which swept the valleys in the winter.
If you’re coming from Denver, you’ll enjoy the scenic, mountain-carved route along US Highway 160W and US 285S. I drove in from Grand Junction, along US 50. If you can do this drive in the fall, roll your windows down and you can smell the yellow and red leaves bursting in bright patches amongst ever-steady green pines. Carved cliffs of rock will add earthy tones to the pallet, and blue sky might cause you to turn the radio down so as to let the evolving panoramic fill your senses.
When you enter the state park, there will be plenty of places to stop along the way. There’s a lot of history burned into these hills from the seasonal wildfires. The Bircher Fire of 2000 ignited 23,000 acres. Evidence is everywhere. Sometimes the landscape will give way to dead forests with subtle green underbrush re-emerging under a skeleton forest.
If You Go:
♦ TripAdvisor’s Mesa Verde Page has plenty of reviews of the various sites to see and places to stay.
♦ Visit Mesa Verde has plenty of resources about treks within the parks.
About the author:
When he’s not traveling or getting mauled by rodents in the jungle, Luke Maguire Armstrong (TravelWriteSing.com) spends his time being rejected by girls in bars in Antigua, Guatemala. After taking the wrong lesson from Into The Wild, he took out a student loan and planned to hitchhike from Chile to Alaska. He stopped in Guatemala, where he spent four years directing Nuestros Ahijados’ health and education programs. He has been interviewed by Christiane Amanpour and featured on ABC News 20/20. His is the author of the travel anthology The Nomad’s Nomad.
All photos are by Luke Maguire Armstrong.
In San Ángel, the two artists fed, and bled, off each other. Medical problems plagued Frida, and her third pregnancy ended in yet another abortion. Diego had affairs, including one with Frida’s own sister, Cristina, resulting in a temporary separation. But Frida’s artistic and intellectual power also grew during this time, not only thanks to her husband, but also to the circle they drew around them. There, the surrealist André Breton recognized Frida’s talent and offered to show her work in Paris. Not long after, she gave her first solo exhibition at Julien Levy’s gallery in New York City. The San Ángel house was an incubator for both Frida’s talent and her misery. The two went hand in hand, as she painted portrait after portrait of herself in the form of an invalid and scorned woman, sad and withering away just as her star began to grow. Yet, through all this, Frida was slowly, but surely, becoming recognized for something more than her marriage to Diego Rivera. She was an artist in her own right, standing on her own two, albeit crippled, feet.
Plaza San Jacinto is a popular gathering place, especially on Saturdays, when a giant arts and crafts market, known as El Bazaar Sábado, takes over. It’s a place to buy handcrafted jewelry and ceramics, wooden trinkets and textiles—giving off a flavor that’s a bit more ‘artisanal’ than the art you might find on the walls of Kahlo’s San Ángel house (now a gallery). Not that that’s a bad thing. Handicrafts (known as “artesania”) are a staple of Mexican culture, and influenced Frida greatly. Like Diego Rivera, she strongly believed in the connection between Mexico’s cultural past and its artistic present, and much of her inspiration (in color, dress and style) was derived from the work of the street artists and indigenous people who surrounded her. Many of the objects sold at San Ángel’s Saturday market are timeless, the very same things Frida must have walked past so many years ago: colorful skulls for Día de los Muertos, embroidered blouses, and molcajetes (mortar and pestles) made from the volcanic rock of nearby, smoking, Popocatépetl.
While Plaza San Jacinto is the neighborhood’s most popular outdoor space, the neighboring church (of the same name) provides a much more beautiful and calm place in which to rest. The Iglesia de San Jacinto was built in the 16th century, and feels almost lost in time. Both the building and its garden predate the Great Fire of London, with an architecture and sensibility that might be more at home in Italy, or France, than Mexico. The cloister feels Tuscan, the sanctuary Spanish. The garden is wonderfully wild, almost English in style, hidden behind large stone walls, yet easily accessible through both the church and a stone archway. It’s one of the most serene places in Mexico City, a beautiful spot to rest and contemplate, and begin to understand how truly ancient this country is, even in its colonial manifestations.
Frida’s painting, The Two Fridas, tackles that very same subject, and dates from the years in which she lived in San Ángel. In the double self-portrait, a European Frida holds the hand of an indigenous Mexican version of herself. Even more importantly, their bloodstreams are connected by an artery flowing from heart to heart, bleeding out one end. In many ways, The Two Fridas is about acceptance – of Kahlo’s ancestry, and of Mexico’s—though it’s also about struggle, both in her understanding of her own personal identity, and of her marriage. It’s no accident that Frida needs to hold her own hand in the picture. The Two Fridas was painted just as her marriage was falling apart, and she divorced Diego for the first time.
Despite the tragedy that surrounded their relationship, Frida’s San Ángel house is not an inherently sad place to visit. It’s architecturally interesting, and provides a hands-on, visceral glimpse into the two artists’ lives—a chance to see the furniture, books and giant papier maché dolls that filled Diego’s studio, and the ghosts that are left behind in Frida’s. Outside, tall cactuses grow like relics of a great pre-Columbian past, and purple Jacaranda trees frame Frida’s part of the building, which like her house in Coyoacán is painted a deep, vibrant blue. For all the pain and hardship she endured there, her resilience shines through.
Our journey to the isle, first recorded as Savary’s Island by Capt. George Vancouver in 1792, began at the ferry dock in Comox, Vancouver Island. An hour twenty later we were rolling off the Queen of Burnaby into Powell River back dropped by the serrated teeth of the majestic coastal mountain range. A half hour north landed us in Lund, a village dating from the 1880s when the two Thulin brothers from Sweden set up shop and named the community after one back home. Free parking is at a premium here but paid parking is available for daily fee of $7.00 at Dave’s parking lot. Savary emerged, a rich green line across the horizon, as we strolled the village boardwalk. Then we were off to our evening abode; a bed and breakfast south of Powell River.
Stretched along the south shore, where we came ashore, were a line of substantial homes bordering the dirt road which we learned ran the length of the island, about 7.5 kilometres (.8 to 1.5 kilometres wide). Vehicles crowded a haphazard parking lot though few were to be found trundling along the low maintenance dirt roadways with the waning of summer. Admiring homes we walked as far south as the road allowed, drinking in views of beach and mountain. Perhaps appearing a tad bemused as we poured over a brochure we were rescued by a local resident who filled us in on the what’s and wherefore’s of Savary. She and her husband were just closing up their home for the season as were many of the locals; however there are a solid few who call Savary home full time and garner the fruits of civilized solitude in this stunning setting.
She told us of the Savary Island B & B; a single floor sprawling log building we had just passed and admired. There had been a couple hotels on the island – The Savary, built in 1914 survived until it burned down in 1932 and the Royal Savary Hotel at Indian Point which was demolished in 1982. Now B & Bs, cabin rentals and a lodge offer accommodation options. The listed permanent population of 100 balloons to a couple thousand in the summer.
A black dot on the water proved a large curious seal. Masked Killdeer complained as they wheeled about behind us and, usually solitary, Loons swam about in a group. We wore no watches. Time took on its own rhythm. Afterwards we sat on a log gazing towards the sea and enjoyed a snack. Never ceases to amaze me how food tastes better in such settings.
Striking out for the north beach and Mermaid Rock we returned to the dirt road, gloriously titled Vancouver Boulevard, running the spine of the island, and climbed to the height of land which was to take us through a protected and treed sand dunes section, devoid of development due to its fragility. Few cars and people frequented the roadway which felt much like a shady park walk.The takity takity tack of a noisy Piliated woodpecker echoed through the still forest; proving so intent on attacking his tree he took no notice of us. The protected zone is home to 10,000 year old sand dunes. The island is eroding steadily at both the north and south ends.
Before reaching the protected zone we came across Rigger’s Pub/Bistro which was partially open; that is the manager was out back, the door was open and the coffee was on. We learned the bistro was the central gathering place for the island and serves alcohol, though it is not formally considered a pub. Of atmosphere it had plenty to share. Among the eclectic adornments of the walls was an old newspaper account of the aforementioned murder of Jack Green. Not far from the bistro stood a multi-denominational chapel peaceful and secluded amid the trees, open to one and all.
Jerome’s fascinating history began in the 1880s with the arrival of people from many parts of the globe to work the lucrative copper mines that brought its investors billions in profit. In its copper mining heyday, the population of Jerome swelled to over 15,000 and by the 1920s it hailed as the fourth largest territory in the state. Diversions for the miners’ long work hours were many and in the boisterous spirit of the West, lawlessness reigned. A New York newspaper dubbed Jerome “the wickedest city in the West.” The town boasted numerous saloons, Chinese restaurants and laundries and during Jerome’s more decadent times, brothels and bordellos.
Just as Jerome precariously clings to Cleopatra Hill, the town desperately clung to life. It has survived, despite a long history of tragedy. Fire destroyed large sections of the town on three separate occasions, but Jerome always rebuilt. Devastating landslides and land shifts caused by hundreds of miles of unstable, honeycombed mine shafts under the city itself wrought more damage. An underground blast in 1938 rocked the town’s center, toppling the business district down the mountainside, including the city jail, which slipped 225 feet. Ghostly remains of these structures can still be seen today, some, a hundred yards or more from their original foundations. Untold human tragedies in the form of mining accidents, gunfights, opium overdoses and the flu epidemic killed hundreds. Yet Jerome stubbornly continues to survive.
Over time, the population dwindled to a mere fifty residents and became a virtual ghost town. It was the Jerome Historical Society in the 1960s who saved the town from extinction through its preservation efforts and its proclamation that Jerome was America’s newest and largest ghost city.
In the 1970s small groups of free- spirited artists arrived, restoring abandoned buildings and transforming parts of this ghost town into an arts community. Today, the thriving town with a population of almost 500 is home to quaint bed and breakfasts, restaurants, saloons, art galleries and unique, whimsical boutiques with colorful names evocative of the town’s history, such as Nellie Bly, Ghost City Inn and The Asylum Restaurant. Most of these businesses are located in buildings that date back to the 1800’s, forging an unforgettable link to the town’s storied past. No trip to Jerome is complete without a visit to the Douglas Mansion, home of the Jerome Historic State Park. The interesting exhibits in this stately home bring to life Jerome’s mining heritage and offer a unique glimpse of its glory years.
At almost a 5,400 feet elevation, Jerome Winery provides astounding views of the Verde Valley that go on forever. Visitors of today wonder if the town’s residents of the past were as awed by its striking vistas. But it is ultimately the sloped buildings perched precariously on the hillsides, dramatic switchback cobblestone streets, and abandoned ruins that the story of Jerome is told. It doesn’t take much to imagine miners walking the streets, hear the tinkling of a piano or the loud, raucous laughter emerging from the saloon and the occasional sounds of gunshots.
In the Cuban Club we climb tiled stairs, woven with ornate wrought-iron railing to the second floor lobby. An expansive area with inviting overstuffed chairs nestle in one corner; plaques honouring past leaders dot the walls. Sunlight splashes through aged curtains lighting the white with gold trim bar. Cane chairs are stacked on the bar’s carved wooden ledge; mirrors behind, fogged and cracked with age.
Our eager guide escorts us to the two-level 450-seat theater, ballroom, cantina and salon. Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey’s big bands once played in the grand ballroom here. Now it’s primarily a wedding reception venue; not what it once was, but still alive and thriving.
Besides a Cuban social club, Ybor has several others: Italian, Spanish and German. These mutual aid societies provided educational, social and medical services for their ethnic group. Two of them had hospitals; some had boxing and dancing lessons. Tabaqueros (tobacco workers) paid weekly dues for each family member for these services. Social clubs enriched Latinas’ lives during those years.
Continuing along La Septima we amble past storefronts noting a variety of cigars offered: doble robustos, torpedos, Churchills and even orange, coffee and strawberry flavoured. We stop to watch some cigar makers rolling by hand using a cutting board, Chavata (knife) and shaping tools. About one hundred years ago, factories were filled with more than a thousand cigar workers (tabaqueros). The final steps were completed by the highly skilled and well paid torcedores. Lectors read to them to lighten the tedium of the task. Most made decent wages as they were paid by piecework. And, yes, a few women were among these workers.
All this walking wakens our appetite. Lunch is at the oldest restaurant in Florida, the Columbia Restaurant, founded in 1905, the cigar industry’s zenith. This one-of-a-kind eatery consumes a whole city block, contains fifteen dining rooms and a lavish bar worth the visit to see. Patrons line up, some coming on bus tours to enjoy this gem of culinary history. The menu offers a variety of Spanish, Cuban, Italian, and fusion selections: Spanish bean soup, Cuban black bean soup and the award-winning ‘1905 salad’ Columbia’s original, along with a mixto (Cuban sandwich) a multi-cultural mix of ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese and mustard on Cuban bread. A pitcher of Sangria or Mojitos goes well with most menu items. Flamenco dancers perform nightly.
Another historic building where one can feast is Carne, located in the former El Centro Espanol (Spanish Social Club). A red-bricked edifice with white stones accenting arched windows, hosts this restaurant. Cast iron balconies and a simple, but formidable Moorish-style archway, add to its unique French Renaissance Revival architecture. Now it’s home to shops, businesses and Carne, the restaurant where previously we enjoyed the early bird prime rib dinner and Finlandia Martinis. Both meal and beverage were bargains, generously portioned and palette pleasing.