Tour Acoma Sky City. A Matter of Respect. Take Money.

We visited Acoma Sky City a few weeks ago. Sky City is the mesa—a rock, really—that still is home to a few Acoma People and draws hundreds for feast days, dances and other ceremonies. Sky City is located about 15 miles south of 1-40 and is reachable from exit 108 on the west and exit 102 on the east. Check www.acomaskycity.org for details such as tour times. Tours are competently run, informative and not exactly cheap at $25/person regular price. For romantics there is plenty of opportunity to partake of the Native American ethereal and spirituality. The Sky City brochure quotes a woman from Florida, “What an eye opening reverent moment.” OK.
Sky City is a 700-year time warp or maybe 900 years. The rock has no plumbing, no running water and no electricity except for propane.
A few highlights were unexpected simply because I hadn’t given them a thought. Sky City is a shopping mall. The tour is circle around the top of the rock. All along the route Acoma craftspeople have tables with their stuff, nice stuff. The vendors must be paid. We used cash. Others paid electronically using what I took to be a wireless device the size of a smartphone. The payment was inserted into one end of the device.
The tour buses climb a road that was cut 20 years (or so) ago to transport movie filming gear to the top. A newish, 4-door silver BMW was my first sight after our bus left the road. Note this, not a pickup truck, though we a saw a couple of new looking, large and brightly polished pickups, but a Beemer, baby. Cool.
A New Mexicans should take the tour. It’s a matter of respect.