On Our Way

we were on our way to Monument Valley, driving all day through very dry and rocky landscapes. suddenly the surrounding changed to green forest but with really small trees. we were following the signs to San Juan where we booked the night in a motel. after an hour of drive through the trees we were told to turn left, so we did. speed limit went down to 5mph here and we were told that the road would be steep. nothing new for us, we've been following roads like that many of times, but what we saw was something that we didn't expect! this road was steep, very windy and… had no hard surface, it was a dirt road! we were quite surprised but we decided to follow the signs. with this road, a completely new landscape opened up, very suddenly. the green flat land turned out to be a plateau and the road we were approaching was a link between the top of it and the extreme desert at it's bottom. the view from the top was announcing the Monument Valley with flat, hot desert and lonely mountain-like rocks sticking out from the landscape. It took us almost an hour to get down the road, worrying not to loose out suspension (we were only driving a ford focus!). The sun was going down, and as we got to the proper road, there were no signs for San Juan. We started to worry as there was no one (absolutely no one!) around us to ask and there was no way I was going back up that road! but after few miles we saw the signs we were looking for and after half an hour we finally arrived to our motel in San Juan. it would be worth mentioning that this town consisted of petrol station, 2 motels, general store and few houses… our motel was run by Navajo family so we had a chance to try their food, it was really good! from there we went to the Monument Valley but that's for another post..

jadac do Monument Valley, podziwialismy rozne odmiany krajobrazu pustynnego, ale po jakims czasie sceneria zmienila sie zupelnie, na zielony, karlowaty las. kierowalismy sie na San Juan, gdzie mielismy zarezerwowana noc w motelu. pogodzinie jazdy przez ten las, znaki kazaly man skrecic w lewo, wiec tak zrobilismy. ograniczenie predkosci spadlo do 5m/h i pojawily sie znaki uprzedajace, ze droga bedzie stroma. nie byla to dla nas zadna nowosc, ale to co zobaczylismy mocno nas zdziwilo, poniewaz droga, na ktora wjechalismy nie miala nawierzchni! co wiecej, okazalo sie, ze ten karlowaty las byl czescia plaskowyzu, a droga, na ktora wjezdzalismy laczyla jego krawedz z polozona u jego stop pustynia. widok z gory zapowiadal nam Monument Valley plaskim krajobrazem pustynnym, z gdzieniegdzie wyrastajacymi samotnie ogromnymi skalami. po godzinie jazdy, ciagle bojac sie, ze zgubimy zawieszenie (jechalismy fordem focusem!), dotarlismy do normalnej, plaskiej i prostej drogi. slonce zaczelo zachodzic, a przed nami nie bylo zadnego znaku na San Juan! troche zaczelismy sie denerwowac, bo dookola nie bylo nikogo i nic, tylko pustynia, a ja za skarby swiata nie chcialam wracac sie ta kreta droga! na szczecie po jakims czasie pojawil sie znak na San Juan i po pol godzinie dotarlsmy do naszego motelu. watro dodac, ze miasteczko skladalo sie ze stacji benzynowej, sklepu i dwoch moteli... nasz nalezal do rodziny Navajo, wiec mielismy okazje sprobowac ich kuchni. wbrew pewnym obawom, opartym na doswiadczeniach znajomych, jedzenie bylo pyszne! no i stamtad nastepnego dnia udalismy sie do samej Monument Valley, ale o tym, to juz w nastepnym poscie...