DAY 1: Visit the Hopi Reservation, North America's oldest tribe, with its ancient, still inhabited dwellings (pictured below). Learn about this unique Native American Pueblo and how they still preserve their ancestorial spiritual heritage and prophesies today.

On the way to Monument Valley (pictured above), pass through Tuba City, a major town on the Navajo Indian Reservation with the scenic pastel colored Painted Desert in the background.

Overnight at a hotel by Monument Valley.

DAY 2: Tour of Monument Valley with 4x4 jeeps and a Navajo guide, entering this majestic land with its impressive red rock formations that have been used in hundreds of commercials (Jeep, Marlboro). Learn about the life, customs and spirituality of the Navajo, the "Dineh", the keeper of this sacred, healing land in Northern Arizona.

$449.00 per person (minimum three people)
Includes hotel accommodation, lunch on the Hopi Reservation, all entry fees,
local Native American guides and jeep tour.

DAY 1: Passing through the Navajo Reservation, visit the Hopi with its oldest, still inhabited dwelling (pictured above), and learn about their life, history and how they preserved their deep spirituality to this day.

Travel on the Navajo Reservation to Chinle, a Navajo city by Canyon De Chelly.

Overnight at a hotel in Chinle.

DAY 2: Enjoy a full day at Canyon de Chelly (Spider Rock, a place of great vision - pictured below) with a local Navajo Indian guide, going deep into the Canyon on a 4x4 vehicle, visiting Antelope House and White House Ruin - ancient dwellings of "The Ones Who Came Before", and Spider Rock, a great place of vision for the many.

$398.00 per person (minimum three people)
Includes hotel accommodation, entry fees, jeep tour with local guide and lunch.

I have been inspired to write about Arizona one day.
So here I am!

The inspiration came just in time when I was feeling great heaviness in my heart, thinking of my Navajo friend who was on the Navajo Reservation.

I love Arizona! I always say on my tours, “Life starts north of I-40”. I-40 is the interstate that travels east to west, passing by Flagstaff, north of Sedona, in northern Arizona. Flagstaff borders the Navajo Reservation, America’s largest Native American reservation. As soon you pass Flagstaff, going north, you enter the Reservation and you immediately feel the vastness and power of this land! This is truly where the vast turquoise-blue sky touches the abundant red earth, where everything ends ... and you begin!

You can drive hours on this land, only seeing a few trailer homes at the distance, separated from each other miles apart. The Navajo homes on this land look like the “House On The Prairie”. Navajo’s need a lot of space and it is wonderful that way. Why do we have to live on top of each other like sardines, anyway?

There is an infinite peace and quiet on this land that makes one silent. I observe on my tours that as soon as we enter the Land, people become quieter and more contemplative. It is good so! The jokes and small talk slowly die out, and there is silence in the van, accompanied by a soft flute music playing on the CD. Some people go into deep, peaceful sleep; some watch the beauty of this vast land and the turquoise-blue sky with the puffy pink-white clouds spread out like a painting in front of their eyes. We watch with awe!

As we drive, the scenery changes and we pass Painted Desert, with its pink, red, purple, yellow sand dunes. What a feast to the eyes! What peaceful, powerful beauty! It is amazing that we drive through vast lands, not seeing any other cars or people on the roads ... and we feel safer and more content then ever! There is a feeling of peace, and comfort ... as though we just came home. Yes, we do come Home: this is where it all started ... everywhere. In the peaceful, abundant land, wherever it was ... in Europe, Africa, Asia ... there was always this peaceful, abundant land ... until we came and built upon it, more and more ... until you cannot see any land anymore, just asphalt.

Houses, asphalt, stretching miles and miles in front of our eyes. Noise. A lot of noise.

So we drive, silently for a couple of hours until we get to the Hopi Reservation. The Hopi Reservation is an island in the middle of the Navajo Reservation. There, the scenery changes completely.

Hopis live on three ridges called "mesas" (mesa means 'table' in Spanish). Hopis have lived on the same land for thousands of years. Hopi villages such as Oraibi and Walpi are the longest still inhabited villages in North America. These villages are a sight to be seen! You will want to grab your camera, wanting to capture these ancient villages, with their stone houses, ladders, kivas (ceremonial dwelling built into the earth).

The bad news is that there is absolutely no picture taking allowed on the Hopi Reservation. You get used to it. You get used to taking a picture in your heart, and it is good that way!

The scenery on the Hopi Reservation is breathtaking, with huge boulders and impressive mesas. Once on the mesa, the vast land is spread out in front of us.

We continue driving back into the Navajo Reservation. We drive on Indian roads. We drive through an 8-mile dirt road and get to a remote Navajo Village where the Navajo Medicine Woman lives. She lives there with her family. She welcomes us and invites us into the hogan (a home that is also used as a ceremonial dwelling). She does a ceremony for us in the hogan and blesses us for a good life, so that ‘we can go on again’. Her ceremonies are soft but very powerful. It fills our heart to hear her chant and say prayers in Navajo language.

After the ceremony, we are happy, at peace and even more quiet, going deeper and deeper into the silence. We arrive at Chinle, the town by Canyon de Chelly early evening. If we are lucky, we arrive there just before sunset to watch the majestic red rocks of Canyon de Chelly glow in the golden light of sunset.

Canyon de Chelly’s majestic, steep walls take our breath away! Spider Rock, a great place of vision just stands there, centuries after centuries, in deep silence, inviting people to come. 'Honor the sacredness of this place' it says. Honor the silence, the stars at night, the wind, the land. Come and be silent. Pray, meditate, enter the silence and receive your vision, whatever it is that you have been asking.

The vision will come: It will come in a dream, or it will come as a ‘knowingness’, or it will come as a picture in your mind’s eye ... but it will come.

This is the gift of the Land. This is Arizona.

Written by the Founder of Sacred Land Tours & Red Earth Adventures

Please inquire about our other combination trips to
Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park,
and white water rafting on the Colorado River.
Custom and group tours available as well as Vision Quest trips.