Montezuma's Well and Castle

We met Dave and Thadene and went together to Montezuma's Well up in Verde Valley. Here's Thadene in front of a plant the Indians called the scratching bush because that's what it did if you got close. All parts were used for wood, food and  other needs.

 This is a limestone sink, formed many years ago, still fed by continuously flowing springs which forms the lake and lush vegetation in the middle of this desert.
This is in a National Park, very well maintained and posted with excellent informative signage.

  The Southern Sinagua natives irrigated crops with these waters.  In some spots you can see traces of lime-coated irrigation ditches. There is a pit house high on the wall, which was from about 1050. 

Their dwellings ranged in size from one-room houses to large pueblos. Between 1125 and 1400 about 100 - 150 people lived here

Next we went to Montezuma's Castle.

 The local Southern Sinagua farmers built this 5 story, 20 room dwelling sometime between 1100 and 1300. It is up high in a cliff recess about 100' above the valley. 

 Early Americans thought it was Aztec in origin, thus the name Montezuma Castle. It was once an imposing five-story apartment-like building with about 45 rooms.

 The occupants found reliable water in the creek below and fertile land on the valley floor for farming. No one knows why these people moved away in the 1400's - overpopulated, depletion of resources, disease, conflicts within or between groups or spiritual beliefs? Many stayed in the Verde Valley and returned to hunter-gatherer ways.They had been preceded by the Hokokam natives between 700 - 900, growing corn, beans, squash and cotton using canal irrigation.
There was a huge Arizona sycamore tree out front.

We finished our day at Babe's  BBQ.

 A huge BBQ was smoking in the front yard, the smoked pork was good and the inside was rusticly decorated.