We arrived in Cortez on Friday evening. With only registration on Saturday and the formal ride starting on Sunday, we had an opportunity to tour Mesa Vera National Park. It is one of the few parks in the United States that was created to preserve artificts of past civilizations rather than the land itself. At its zenith, circa 1200 AD, over 50,000 native americans lived on the plateau overlooking Cortez.

A distinctive feature of many of the dwellings located there was the Kiva. A Kiva is an underground ceremonial chamber typical of the Anasazi and Hopi nations. A village may have several kivas. They were used for community gatherings and religious and spiritual purposes. This Kiva, built around 400AD, predates the cliff dwellings by 800 years.