Pineapple Sacrifices at Chaco Culture NHP Eclipse

It’s 4:30am when I start the bus, ready to head out to see the Chaco Culture NHP eclipse.  Normally when I’m making sure everything is stowed away it done with the assurance of complete daylight.  Right now the starts are still bright and sharp in the night sky.  My headlights help guide me out of the wash, about a quarter mile away from the highway between Cuba, NM and Chaco Culture National Historical Park.  In the dark, the bus threads its way through the emptiness of north west New Mexico. 

The lights of Albuquerque glow beneath clouds behind me until the light changes, soft and lavender as night becomes dawn.  Before long, the sky is on fire and the land around me is golden.  A few minutes earlier and I might have missed the turn.  The sign is small, bent and beaten.  I turn off on the road and remember what the ranger told me at Aztec ruins when making the approach from the south.

“The road is going to be pretty rough for the first four miles in. Do you have four wheel drive?”

My first indication that the road would be rough is a stairstep of rock that serves as the road, climbing up to the first cattleguard.  State road 57 is as rough as any county road back home. Recent rains have washboarded it and I slow it down to maneuver through the deep ruts in the loess and dried mud.  I pass by an old RV with an ancient woman fishtailing at five miles an hour.  I’m trying hard not to make it a race, but I know that there’s a chance even after all of this driving I won’t get in.  

The Pueblo Bonito ruins at Chaco Culture National Historical Park have carried a reputation of being a sort of Pre-columbian  stonehenge.  From what I remember from school and my own studies, it was platted to exact degrees when it comes to solar alignment.  There’s evidence of it being an observatory, where poles were set into place to measure off important astronomical events.  The annular ecclipse is sure to be a draw for people to experience such a rare event at one of the most ancient observatories in the Americas.

After an hour of rumbling down the damaged road, the rising sun hits right through the windshield.  A wall of dust covers the valley floor up ahead.  Boondockers are parked on the side of the road.  They are starting to move, like snakes uncoiling in the warmth of the morning sun, slowly at first.  Just another nine miles and I’ll be to the park entrance.  I reach a dog-leg in the road, a right angle turn which takes me to a short patch of pavement.  A ranger stands there, waving me through.  Not far up ahead are more rangers walking the road by a roadblock leading to the ruins.  They wave me in to the parking lot at the visitor center.  

People are milling around, setting up tripods and impressive zoom lenses and 4K camera bodies, all pointing at the bluffs to the east.  A beat to hell Toyota 4 Runner is parked next to me.  Old Navajo rugs and a pair of Nikes which haven’t been their original white in years are airing out on the hood.  Inside, I can see the telltale signs of a boondocker.  The plywood bed and cargo frame.  The piles of tents and clothes and utensils.  An orange sleeping bag and odds and ends used to make life on the road a little more comfortable.

The rangers give me the look long before I can ask the question.  They are already shaking their heads.

“Pueblo Bonito is full.  You’ll have to stay here until people leave.”

“How long with that be?” I ask.

“Probably after the ecclipse is over.”

That doesn’t do me a lot of good.  Just as I’m about to turn and head back to the bus, I hear a voice on one of their radios.

WE’VE GOT ROOM FOR SEVEN MORE.

I turn back to the rangers who hand me a card to put in my dash. “Just show this to the guys at the gate and they’ll let you in.”  I thank them and hurry back to the bus.  Again, if I had left any other time, I wouldn’t have gotten in.

I hear a voice from behind me.  A young guy with ratty hair and bare feet.  Presumably the owner of the Nikes.  “Hey man, I like your rig!” he says.

“Thanks.  I like yours too!” I have no idea really what to say.  To me, my rig is my home and all I can think of is how rough those roads were coming in.  Even his 4 Runner is looking better in some ways.

I drive up the winding road towards the ruins.  Some people have decided to hike in from the visitor center along the paved road. It skirts along the edge of a mesa and I can already see people standing on the edge of the cliffs, setting up their cameras.  The ruins appear just at the base of them, blending in well with the sandstone rocks and boulders.  Like so many other ruins in the Southwest, the first thing that strikes you is the shape of the windows.  That tell-tale keyhole t-shape.  Honestly, the ruins are a lot smaller than I had imagined.  In school, they made it sound like a half-moon shaped city that spanned miles with streets and avenues radiating out from it.  It’s not much bigger than what I’ve seen at Aztec and Mesa Verde already.  

I park and get my camera and tripod, my backpack, and jacket.  It’s chilly this morning, but the sun is still barely above the horizon. Within the ruins, dozens of people are setting up their cameras, aiming them at the sun.  A ranger is handing out eclipse glasses and pinhole camera cards for safe viewing, along with the usual lecture to not look directly at the sun.

I stop to make conversation. I mention the rough roads and she tells me about how her husband is bringing in a whole van full of Boy Scouts and wonders if he will be able to make it on time. The US Government and the Tribal government are at odds about grading the road and who should pay for it.  The roads have been bad all summer but they might have something figured out soon. It seems some things never change.  A young woman is walking nearby, taking pictures and talking with people.  She tells them she’s from the New York Times.  I think maybe there’s some traction with this story if the NYT has sent someone on assignment.

“How do you get on top of the mesa?” I ask the ranger.  She directs me to a trail loop and tells me its a difficult trail, but it should take about 45 minutes to get to the top.  I start walking with my gear in hand.  By then the eclipse will already have begun.  I’m in a race with the sun once again.

The trail threads its way up through a keyhole path in the cliff and then along the rim, there are little cairns and signs which show you aren’t lost.  Fossils of chrinoids and sea anenomes rise up from the stone as well as potholes where the Chacoans set observation poles. Just before the end of the trail, I step down and a man neaby greets me with a question.

“How was your hike?”

“Good,” I answer. I’m sweating and out of breath.  “A couple spots in there were pretty hairy, but otherwise I’m good.” We make a little small talk and I mention the girl from the NYT down below.  I tell them I’ve got a much better view.

The man is holding a pineapple and a large folding Buck knife. “We were just about to sacrifice this pineapple to the sun god. You’re welcome to join us!”

This is the story I’ve been looking for.  The good thing about an eclipse is it doesn’t happen instantly.  It’s a process which takes hours.  Lots of staring up at the sun through protective film, alternating between that and looking at pinholes cast on the ground through fact-filled cardboard cutouts dispersed by the rangers.  We fill up the time until the event with conversation. They tell me about their camping adventures and I tell them about travel writing and living full-time in my skoolie.

Joe is the man with the pineapple and his silent friend Jared are also down from Colorado.  Joe is a professor at Colorado State University.  I discover that he used to work at the same university I worked at for nearly twenty years.  He and his buddy Jared have been boondocking together and taking weekend trips for years.  Jared doesn’t talk much.  I can tell he’s the type who does say something it’s usually pretty profound and people stop to listen.

Joe explains to me the story about the pineapple as he sticks his thick-bladed knife into the side of it.  Over the years, the narrative has slowly been changing around Chacoan culture.  He tells me that some new theories suggest that Pueblo Bonito was once an outlying palace of some royal in the culture.  Intersecting roads come in from as far away as Mesa Verde and artifacts have shown trade with the Aztec empire in what is now Mexico.  Non-indigenous locals often have stories about entire macaw feather robes and items their forefathers scavenged from the ruins when they came to the area.  These things aren’t discussed in mixed company because of the continued impact it has made on the indigenous culture of the area.

As with medieval European nobility, and even historical accounts of diplomacy to Asia, travelers were shown hospitality, especially if they could provide exotic gifts from great distances. Some ruins have shown evidence of parrots being kept as pets, seashells, and precious stones and gold brought in from great distances.  Even then it was all about clout.  The ruler with the most toys won, and a civilization with enough wealth and leisure time to set up a palace in the middle of the desert, with enough resources to start taking notice of astronomy was definitely on its way up.

“I can’t imagine a more exotic gift than a pineapple to these people out in the middle of the desert, “ Joe says.  “I mean the carbon footprint alone to get one here for us is just crazy!”

He cuts the pineapple with his knife on a cutting board and we season it with grapefruit margarita salt.  My fingers are sticky from the juice of this perfectly ripe pineapple.  As we watch the moon make its transit across the face of the sun, the land dims, the shadows become strange.  A chill returns to the air as the sun is blocked and through my eclipse glasses I can see a perfect ring of fire that only a few along a pathway will be able to observe today.

A young man is making the rounds from group to group.  He tells us it is his fourth or fifth eclipse in a few years.  Today he has come all the way from London where he is going to school to witness it.  In a few months he will be going to South America to see the total eclipse. He tells us about the petroglyph by the visitor center which depicts what could only be a total eclipse, with the flames extending out from the corona.  Long ago, such an event would have been celebrated, recorded, and probably predicted. It’s a whole other vibe from the Navajo Nation, which has called off school and warned their people to stay inside during the eclipse.

As the eclipse reaches its apex, a hush falls across the land.  The visitors are all silent except for an indigenous man who is sitting on a column of rock at the edge of the cliff.  The sound of his wooden flute echoes hauntingly, resonating against the canyon walls in the stillness of the moment.  He plays for a little while and somehow it feels like everything is set with such precision.  His tune is contemplative, respectful, and evokes a story told without words.  It trills off into a sharp note and the silence hangs for a second before people start clapping.  The warmth begins to return as the moon continues its path.  Today, somehow, like the motion of gears and springs in a watch, everything has fallen into place at exactly the right time.

I say goodbye to my new friends and by the time I make it back down to the bus, the eclipse is nearly completed.  The cameras are all packed away already and a caravan of visitors are beginning the trek home.  Eventually I point my bus north and head towards US 550 in hopes that the road will be kinder.  It isn’t.  It’s much worse. 22 miles of washboard roads level the inside of my bus and I stop off at a Sinclair station halfway between Cuba and Farmington for fuel.  My nerves are wrecked.  I eat an icecream drumstick in the wake of destruction inside my bus.  I head back to my campsite outside of Cuba for a few more days and question my life choices.  I hope if any of those ancient gods are still watching, they look kindly at us for the gift of that pineapple at least.  I can use all the help I can get.

Know Before You Visit Chaco Culture NHP

Here are some things you should know first before checking out Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

The Road to Chaco Culture NHP

This road to Chaco Culture NHP, also called Chaco Canyon, will beat the hell out of you, regardless of what vehicle you drive. And even though the eclipse is over, Chaco Culture NHP is still an incredible sight to behold. Take your time, slow down, and drive safely. I do not recommend a sedan or low-clearance vehicle any more than I would suggest driving here in a pusher RV or similar bus would be advisable. Until disputes between the US Government and Tribal governments can be resolved, the roads are going to be rough, and nearly impassible in some spots.

Seeing the Ruins at Chaco Culture NHP

Unlike the eclipse viewing, Chaco Canyon is still remote enough that most of the time if is not going to be packed full of tourists. Accessibility and its remoteness make for a very peaceful experience. Though much of the ruins have been restored, you still get a sense of remoteness and grandeur that the original inhabitants must have experienced.

Unlike Mesa Verde, which is a very “look but don’t touch” experience nowadays due to visitor impact, Chaco Canyon still allows visitors to enter some areas of the ruins, either with self-guided tours, or with the assistance of a park ranger. Chaco Culture NHP plays a vital role in preserving everyone’s cultural past, much like other protected indigenous sites such as 9 Mile Canyon.

Weather

In milder weather, the temperature fluctuates much less, but you should still be prepared for extremes. Appropriate clothing for extreme temperatures changes, sun, and precautions against dehydration are vital. Bring lots of water. Drink lots of water.

Pets

The park is somewhat pet-friendly. The park map will let you know which trails are okay to walk your pets on. Just remember to clean up after your pets and leave no trace.

Culture

Please be respectful of the people who value their connection with the Chacoan culture. Don’t remove any artifacts from the site and…jeez, I shouldn’t even have to remind people of this…don’t deface or damage the ruins. The actions you take now impact whether or not our national parks can be enjoyed by future generations.

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If you’d like to see some of my other adventures as I travel across the country in my skoolie, check out my YouTube channel! If you have any suggestions for places I cannot miss, please let me know in the comments or email me. Thanks for reading!