We set off on a 6.5 hour drive to The Four Corners, the point where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet. I went there 16 years ago on a family holiday to see our dreadful.... I mean lovely cousins. The physical four corners I remembered well but had forgotten the little jewelery stalls surounding the edge with beautiful American Indian cocapeli (unsure of spelling for that one) pendants, earings, bracelettes and rings. I did well to only buy a gorgeous bracelette, which was sold to me for $5 less than the asking price beause I told the man I had just blown my spending money on cowboy boots.

We stopped for lunch here where my cous cous salad went down exceedingly well with the rest of the group and then headed to Monument Valley, stopping for photo's on the way which included one of the point where Tom Hanks stopped running in 'Forrest Gump'.

Monument Valley had completely changed since my last visit. Obviously the big old rocks are the same but I don't remember a massive visitor centre being there before with a huge gift shop. I got Danae (group member) to take a photo of me sitting on the wall where i have a picture of mum and dad sitting back in 95' looking all youthful ;)

Next came the exciting stuff. The Navajo Jeep tour! The 8 of us were loaded on to a open air jeep along with a small French family who our French group mate Sophie chatted to, and then were driven in to the depths of Monument valley. It was undescribeably beautiful and I was much more in awe of the place than I remember I was last time. We had several photo stops at some literally breathtaking rocks and shouted in to them listening to and eery echo. We were untroduced to rocks known as 'The big Chief' and 'The Sleeping Dragon' which certainly did look like their description. We then ran barefooted in the desert sand, a type of sand I've never encountered before. Its so soft, and very very orange. It felt great under foot.

Our Navajo guide led us to a sort of cavern. A round open hollow in one of the rocks about 50 feet in circumfrance and a hole in the top about 40 feet up. We climbed the sides of the cavern and were told fmto find a comfortable spot (difficult on an almost vertical wall!) we all found an odd ledge to pirch on, and as we got comfortable out guide started to play a hand crafted Navajo flute. Everyone shut up instantly as he played the instrument with such skill practiced clearly over many years. He played for for about twenty minutes as we lay on the rock looking up in to blue sky through the gap in the rock. I went in to a bit of a trance rather like i did the time i watched sea gulls fly along side a boat in Greece whilst listening to live Greek music. It was extremely relaxing and calming. To top it off, as if they knew it was there queue, 4 curious wild horses and a foul walked right in to the cavern and joined us. They couldn't have timed it better. The whole thing was rather emotional. Myself and new pal Danae were welling up and another Girl couldn't fight off the tears! At the same time however, our Iranian groupie Kian farted and Sophie fell in to fits of giggles as a result. There's always one!

Back in the Jeep, we drove through the beautiful landscape to camp where we ate freshly made tacos with beans, tomatoes, lettuce, onions and steak cooked on the camp fire. It tasted great! We then had an evening of entertainment with navajo stories and dancing and ended with everyone joining in on a traditional pow wow dance which was immensely entertaining.

When we thought the day couldn't get any more perfect we got in to our sleeping bags and slept underneath the stars. It was a perfectly clear night. Warm but with a cool breeze - perfect night weather. No light polution and no clouds allowed us to see the sky over monumnt Valley in all its glory. The only sky I have seen which equals it was the one over the Ngorogoro grater in Kenya and we saw 7 shooting stars before settling forthe night. At about 3am I was woken by howling cyotes and couldn't back to sleep due to the moon being insanely bright. Instead I sat up and looked around me. Our little hogan to the left which we all chose not to sleep in due to it being so warm, our trusty van, and then just monument valley flooded in moonlight. That is a sight that cannot be described.

I haven't seen much of the world but I can say that Monument Valley has to be one of my most beautiful places on the planet!

After a sensational sunrise, we headed for The grand canyon.