page, AZ

dear diary,

after mapping out several national parks and sites, we had to take a day off. page and lake powell seemed a perfect site for this kind of unactivity. in fact, our day off turned out to be fairly adventurous and also somewhat luxurious. here's what happened…

first thing in page, arizona, the visitor has to check out the antelope canyon. this well hidden, sandstone crack in the surface of the desert is a bizarre underground fault. we wandered back and forth in the canyon contemplating how perfect it is that mysterious forms of this kind were discovered by a 13-years old navajo girl herding sheep in 1931. although the popularity of the site forced us to share our experience with several other tourist (this usually allows for a lot more estranging encounter), we were able to appreciate the compelling beauty right in front of us.




antelope canyon in 1997 was the wrong place to be for 8 western tourists. after sudden rainfalls in the surrounding mountains, the few feet narrow crack filled up with water in just a few minutes. apparently all of them were warned about the danger and told to leave by the only local navajo person on site. they didn’t do so and sneaked back. the rushing waters trapped all of them. standing in the canyon we tried to imagine those moments: trying to fight millions of gallons of rainwater in the surreal valley.


















later we simply had to submerge in the atmosphere that dominates page: large motorboats ripping up the surface of lake powell, which is very extensive system of canyons (carved by the colorado river) filled up by a huge dam. glenn canyon now is only accessible via water, so we took that route.















for a few hours, we rented a powerful motorboat, flew up the water-valley. after reaching an amazing side-canyon with a few hundred feet tall walls, we stopped (in order to achieve that, captain laszlo submerged the anchor with one elegant move. only later did he realize that it was not tied to the body of the boat). and went swimming into the clear-blue water.





while i will admit that the huge and powerful motorboat was a lot of fun (big toys for big boys), the best part was that this vehicle took us veery fast to a spot that would otherwise have been out of our reach. kayaking would have taken about 2-3 days longer.





the rental place took back the big toy after a while, so all there was left for us to do was to enjoy the late afternoon arizona sun and watch navajo kids play in the water until sunset.