Run away, I hear banjos!

From New Mexico we journeyed northward into Colorado and straight into the jaws of banjo hell. We arrived in the cute mountain town of Durango to stay at the beautiful historic Strater Hotel. Unbeknownst to us, our visit coincided with the start of the annual “Bluegrass Meltdown”, with our hotel being Ground Zero.  The hotel was full of men with pony tails and sandals playing all manner of bluegrass instruments in little groups all over the place. If you stood in a spot where you could hear more than one band at time, it just did your head in. As far as I could tell, they played the same riff over and over and over again without variation, probably kept going until some-one’s dog died (or am I getting mixed up with country music?) We felt like extras on the set of Deliverance.   Our room was on the fourth floor so we thought that would be far enough away. Ha! A group decided that the area outside the lift, just a few metres from our room, was the perfect place for a late-night hoe-down. At 11 pm I finally had to go out (looking a picture of loveliness in my jim-jams) and savage them. 

Apart from this, the town of Durango is quite lovely nestled below the San Juan Mountains which still have snow on the peaks. Our main reason for being there was to take the Silverton Railway, a steam train into the mountains. Because it is too early in the season, the train didn’t go all the way up the mountain to Silverton, but stopped a bit more than halfway at Cascade Canyon.   The train trip followed the Animas River through steep gorges and forest, and was a very scenic journey. In the early part of the trip the tracks were lined with prairie dog burrows, with many respectfully standing to attention as the train passed. Mike wanted to get some photos of them, so I told him to gopher it.

On our second day, we went to Mesa Verde which is a national park full of ancient Pueblo Indian cliff dwellings. We did a guided tour of the Balcony House which involved climbing giant ladders and squeezing through tunnels. Amazing how they built these structures! We also did a tour of the Cliff Palace which is a much larger group of buildings, with Ranger Jo who was absolutely hilarious and brought the tour to life.

Back in Durango it was Prom Night as well as Bluegrass. There were many beautifully dressed young girls in the street who looked very cold in their strapless dresses when the temperature was near freezing. Ah the joys of suffering for fashion. So in addition to our personal hoe-down band who only played until 10 pm outside our door, we were blessed with a rendition of Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes at 12.30 am in the street outside. Oh dearie me.

Some great quotes from Durango:

I dream of a world where chickens are free to cross the road without their motives being questioned.

If God wanted us to be vegetarians, he would have made broccoli more fun to shoot.