The buildings are all mostly one level, flat and huge. Which means they are spread out, there's so much room in between , it's crazy, but it means Flagstaff looks big and is big to walk around luckily there are also a lot of buses fairly priced. There are so many places to eat its crazy, and a massive Wal-Mart that dominates down town. But with all of this, its surrounded by the mountains and dessert so its very pretty, and there's usually beautiful blue skies and sunshine during the day. As soon as ths sun drops however, so does the temperature, and the lack of humidty (around 20%) means your skin, lips, hands, and even eyes feel quite dry which takes some getting used to. Plus we are some 7000 feet above sea level.
Soon I found myself with details on the first volunteer project I would be working on. Wupatki National Monument is the remains of a community dwelling used by native Americans and dates back to about 700AD. In the surrounding area there are lots of artifacts such as pottery remains, and for some reason, protected 50+ yr old trash cans (maybe left by old cowboys or something?!). Anyway, these artifacts (and old trash) needs to be protected by wandering nearby cattle, hence the need to build the fence. So we left on Tuesday, backpack in tow to drive the 1 hour jpurney out of Flagstaff. Driving through strange dust clouds and real tumbling tumble weed (for real) to our campsite where we each set up our tents and headed out to the worksite for a safety briefing and to start work. However, it was so bitterly windy that day that it didn't start well and we ended up first visting the vistor centre before going back to the work site and simply carrying out barb wire fencing from the work site to the truck for the rest of the day. To and fro we trekked over dusty, windy, rocky, dessert. The land is protected so you have to follow a path of foot prints which is difficult when you are walking by yourself and you come to a junction with footsteps going off in two directions. But after a mild panic I found my way and heaved the load back and forth against the wind, and enduring the prickles of the barbs sticking into my legs and arms until it was time to call it a day. We went back to huddle in the truck at the campsite with fish and rice (with plenty of ketchup for me) while watching an episode of Friends on our Supervisor Max's laptop, before going to bed at 8pm.
By Friday we were all exhausted as well as bruised, aching and lacking blood from all the barb wire scratches, plus in great need of a shower. When we arrived back in Flagstaff, unloaded and washed the truck there was just time to grab a shower (it felt like the best shower in the world) and a bite to eat before I was out for the count, but at least I managed to stay awake til 8.30pm this time.
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