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Cliff Palace October 16, 2008 |
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The day started in line buying guided tour tickets for Cliff Palace.
We had considered doing several cliff dwelling tours, but were soon glad we hadn't.
The only cliff dwelling you can tour by yourself is the one we saw yesterday, the Spruce Tree House.
For the rest, a ranger tour guide is mandated.
Our belated ranger was on his last day before returning to Texas and proceded to do an annoying slapstick comedy routine, to which our crowd of tourists responded on demand. After pretending to try to scare us away from attempting this bone-breaking expedition down the cliff and back up again, he had us perform some social exercises to demonstrate the communal mindset of the ancient inhabitants of the pueblo, on which he later commented proudly. The amount of useful information transmitted, however, was small, be that because the lecture was tailored to the stereotype of the expected audience, because his expertise was casual, or because there simply isn't that much more to say on the topic. I think though, that ten minutes on wikipedia will yield more information than was presented on the tour. Of course, we were actually able to see - and stand amidst - the ruins. |
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