This day we were unfortunately not waked up with sunshine, but this didn't break our high spirits. After a tasty breakfast in the condo we started today's part of our journey.
After driving across beautiful nature we soon reached Mesa Verde. In serpentines we entered the mesa, up to the Visitor Center. There we bought some tickets for a guided tour to the ruins of the pueblo Indians.
We still had two hours remaining, so we decided to take another self-guided tour, which led us to Spruce Tree House, the best preserved ruin throughout the park.
Then at Cliff Palace our ranger-guided tour to the biggest ruin in the park started, around 200 Native Americans lived here at that time. It was really interesting, but even exhausting to climb narrow sandstone stairways and steep wooden ladders at about 85° to 90°F. But we managed it without bigger problems.
On the tour to the park exit we stopped at Far View Terrace, a neat but expensive cafe, and at the adjacent gift shop. Of course we got some more souvenirs here...
At the end of this day we arrived in Cortez, a small, but nice town. Dinner we had at Nero´s Italian Restaurant where it looked exactly as it did 17 years ago when we were here for the first time. And it still tasted very well.
