Mads's aunt and uncle live just outside Bluff - the small dry town surrounded by ancient rock-art and hidden cliff dwellings.
We were bid welcome with lunch before a tour of the area. Mads's uncle knows all the spots to view the ancient culture with a burning heart for it. Going down a dirt road in the back of a pickup, everything the color of sand - the baking sun above and soft cliffs and canyons to the sides. Suddenly we break. "Up there - below and to the left of that peak". To the naked eye I see nothing but a barren landscape - rock and suffering bushes. Handed a pair of binoculars I point them in the direction. And like a chameleon disguised in jungle, an ancient dwelling comes into view.
We were guided into a canyon that ends in a cull de sac, here too is another dwelling, but this one we can walk right up a touch. Corn cobs over a thousand years old are still on the ground. The walls of the canyon painted with images depicting animals, humans and plants. But the most impressive are the hand prints - perfectly shaped prints, the size of a child's hand - having been dunked in a bucked of paint and placed on the wall - a relic so familiar and common. Strange feeling of deja vu.
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