Taos Pueblo

Through the back blocks of South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico the majority of the houses we saw are built from pine and chipboard with a tar paper roof and none of them seem like they have anymore than a few years left in them.
Whenever you see footage of a tornado going through the United States showing toothpick splinters that were once houses flying through the air it appears that, that tornado is one powerful sucker. Maybe so but it’s more likely the houses had the same structural integrity as the cardboard box your white goods came in.

The opposite of these buildings is the Taos Pueblos. This place of mud brick structures has been standing for over a thousand years.
It’s built in a beautiful setting and a river runs through the settlement providing their water.
This river starts as a spring up in the mountains that fills a lake, that overflows and that is where their river comes from.
The descendants of the original people still live there, this is not a theme park.
Their mountains are logged and they were forbidden to visit their spring and lake for about 65 years.
Visiting these places was very important to them, it was the basis of their spiritual beliefs which is the basis for their lives. After being done over since European settlement they have since regained a lot of what they originally owned.

What the anglos did though was nothing compared to what the Spaniards did before them, their treatment of these people was horrendous. It has been one long history of hideous abuse so to meet these friendly welcoming people was a surprise because if I was in their shoes I’de be throwing rocks and hurling abuse at anyone who came near the place.Lue lisää