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Ok, now this is on my way up to a hot spring. The first pics is this cool rock formation that people climb, called something like ship rock or steamboat rock or something like that. I had to go around it and hiked about 3 miles or more to the hot spring. I thought it was supposed to be almost a mile, WRONG!!!! I was totally lied to by the guide book. So, the day was hot, I was ready for some water and not the hot kind, luckily there was a river nearby too, so I got to soak my feet in cold water before I got up too high. It was a pretty hike but really long and I was having a hard time breathing. I was up alot higher altitude wise than I was used to so I got tired alot more quickly than I normally would have. I'm at sea-level at home and even when I was in Albuquerque it was hard to breathe sometimes. Along the trail I stopped for water and to pose with the cool rocks. There were these very cool huge obsidian boulders all around. The middle pic I was trying to follow the curve of the boulder, it was hot too, yeeeoowwwwyyyy!
THE HOT SPRING, FINALLY!!!!!!! The water actually wasn't that hot, it was luke warm, which was good. There were all these little fish in it that kept biting at me too, they bugged me, that's why I kept my suit on. There were 3 pools and each fed into the other by a nice waterfall, then the water went down the mountain into the river. I could see the spring water bubbling up in the bottom of the first pool, that's just so neat. I liked the second pool, where I am here. I sat under the water for a while, nice massage. It got a little cool in the shade, but was still nice.
This is the place I stayed for 2 nights by the springs. It was 2 floors, had a full kitchen, it was like a small apartment, very nice, for 57 a night!!! Kick Ass!!! They had candles and incense for you to use, so I did. The upstairs had like 3 beds and was very cool. What a deal.
The next day I left and stopped by this mission/Indian ruin. It was a monument and I had to pay to go through it and had to follow a path and stuff, but it was cool. There was stuff to read along the way and I saw lizards, some cool birds and lots of butterflies. I bought a little handmade clay snake from a very nice Indian woman selling her stuff there, I wanted a souvenir.
These cool cactus were flowering all over the place.
After this I went to the popular mineral/hot spring spa in the area, Ojos Caliente. It was very nice actually, had lots of different pools and things to do. Different minerals did different things so you went from pool to pool soaking it all up. The fun part was the mud bath. I wasn't too keen on it at first, but I know how good the stuff is for your skin and it was still warm so I went for it. I covered my whole body with mud and then baked in the sun till it dried. You had to wear a bathing suit, but the mud doesn't stain. It was weird when it was all dry, it cracked as you bent and moved, and it was hard to move too, it was like your skin didn't stretch anymore. It was kind of freaky, I played with mine, making it crack and flake off. Then there was a pool to rinse off in, that took a while, but it was nice and warm. My skin felt so soft after that it was amazing.
Next I started driving toward Sedona.
This is The Chaco Nation National Monument. A really big preserve with lots of ruins, incredible.
You paid at the entrance and they gave you a map of the area, it's all one way so if you go in you're stuck and have to go through it all the way. It got really hot and I was glad I had air conditioning. I stopped at this one place that had pictographs, (painted pictures) on a big rock face, it was a hike in the hot sun, but worth it.
The architecture is incredible, so many rocks piled together, held together with mud, huge structures too, and there didn't seem to be any water anywhere either, how did they do it???