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HIGHLIGHTS

Best Historic DreamscapeVisit beautiful and mysterious Canyon de Chelly National Monument (p 209 ), a sacred foot-print of a vanished people – the Ancestral Puebloans – and a living monument to the trials and survival of the Navajo Nation.

Best Photo Excursion Gaze at the golden light that pierces the sandstone slot at Antelope Canyon Navajo Tribal Park (p 206 ), one of the Holy Grails of land-scape photography.

Best Hollywood FantasylandGet your John Wayne on at Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park (p 207 ) where staggering crimson buttes stir the soul no matter how many times you’ve seen them on screen.

Best PartyJoin the thousands who descend upon Win-dow Rock in early September to eat, dance and watch bronco riders at the Navajo Nation Fair (p 203 ).

Best Crafts ShoppingPick up a one-of-a-kind souvenir at one of the small shops scattered throughout the Hopi Reservation (p 213 ), featuring locally carved kachina dolls.

John Wayne galloping into the sunset amid fiery red buttes. The Marlboro Man gazing toward a horizon of towering cliffs. Forrest Gump running along a lonely highway. Even if we’ve never been there, images from this region have been deeply etched into our collective memory. Few places so instantly evoke the mystique of the American West.

The northeastern corner of Arizona is something of its own country – or really three countries: the United States and the Navajo and Hopi Nations. The high desert scenery here is raw and otherworldly yet surprisingly familiar, thanks to its frequent use as a backdrop in movies and TV. The rugged grace of the terrain rarely leaves travelers untouched.

Navajo and Hopi cultural traditions – some of which are visible to visitors, many of which are not – make this a particularly unique American destination. Luxurious amenities in these parts might be few, but you’ll find some of the finest craftspeople in the world working in silver, clay and wool.

Navajo & Hopi Lands

201© Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd

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NAVAJO RESERVATION pop 205,700 At 27,000 sq miles the Navajo Reservation is the country’s largest, spilling over into the neighboring states of Utah and New Mexico. Aside from the pine-forested Chuska Mountains along the Arizona–New Mexico state line, this is largely a land of sand and sage, dust and rock, where desert flats are gouged by dry washes, blocky mesas are hewn into the horizon, and undulating walls of petrified dunes are rounded and scored by the wind. Crimson red buttes blast from the earth at Monument Valley. Cliff dwell-ings are tucked into varnish-streaked caves at Canyon de Chelly and Navajo National

Monuments. Elsewhere you can walk in di-nosaur tracks or be mesmerized by the shift-ing light of hauntingly beautiful Antelope Canyon.

While it’s true that this remote north-eastern corner of the state embraces some of Arizona’s most photogenic and iconic landscapes, not everything about the place is pretty – unemployment here is around 50%, the per capita income is less than $8000 a year, and domestic violence rates are troublingly high. For many years, min-ing of uranium and coal have been major contributors to the reservation’s economy, producing myriad health and environmen-tal problems for numerous communities. Today, the reservation is avidly if gradually

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