So for the first time this trip we woke up on the east side on the county and would be finishing the day in the west crossing the New Mexico - Colorado boarder. So after a slightly later start of 10am we packed up the mobile sardine can and headed for Mesa verde.

After 3hours of driving we pasted through a town called Durango. It was beautiful, small country town with wooded log fronts and large shop signs above the windows planted perfectly between two sets of rolling hills. Heading into to town we crossed a mountain river filled with trout and so cold and fresh it could have been sold anywhere. The town itself only had approximately 5 streets with all types of shops souvenir, sports, coffee and even a small bike shop. We could have camped there but instead grabbed our lunch and headed back to the van.

We continued through the mountains until we arrived at Mesa Verde national park. It appered on the horizon like a small scale grand canyon. The large canyon looked like a rip between the mountains carving them apart. At the top of the hill was the information station where we stopped to grab our maps and booklets. Our first stop was the cliff dwellings, based in the canyon wall. We drove to the entrance and the guide explained our route and what we are going to see. None of the group realised that we would be crawling through small opens or climbing wooden ladders so were all wearing flip flops. We decended down the canyon wall before we faced our first 20ft ladder made from telephone poles and lasted the face with rope. At the top was a large room carved our of the rock with kivas (ceremony pits) cut out of the rock. It was amazing how much effort these people had gone to cut he buildings out the face so knowone could get in it. Go get out we had to crawl through a small tunnel and then climb another ladder. With a couple of it feet and bruised knees later we all arrived at the top again. We then continued to the over side of the canyon where we could take photos of the whole dwelling in the bright sun light.

For once we had had a lazy evening after cooking dinner as a group but unfortunately the rain caught up with us again so before bed we took shelter in the camp sites lounge room. This gave us a chance to catch up on tv and charge our phones an iPods before a wet nights sleep.