Wendell T.
May 21, 2022
This tour by Kialo Winters is a life changing, mind bending experience.Kialo is a great storyteller. He is part Pueblo and part Navajo. He gives his perspective which is one that is rarely taught in mainstream history classes: the great Chaco civilization wasn't vanquished by Europeans. It decided to close down and move on and split into northward and southward migrations. This extremely organized culture thrived for 500 years. The descendants are alive and well in the New Mexico region.Kialo is also a great listener. Great storytellers are by definition great listeners because they pick up on whether the audience is getting it and makes adjustments as needed while they are talking. Kialo wanted to know where everyone came from and remembers names and calls on you during his talks. In a nice gentle polite way.I personally learned a lot about my own peoples' history by listening to Kialo's. From his perspective, all these different people came to North America and mined and pillaged and tried to make the existing people vanish. I was inspired to meditate on how my people, an ethnic group in China, had to leave the land every few hundred years and settle in new places. Resources would dry up, too many people starving or at the top, profiting excessively.By learning about the Pueblo peoples, who kept things small, the pueblos are only a few thousand people big. The Pueblo a managed to organize and live on extremely inhospitable lands for centuries, thereby forestalled cultural extinction.IMHO the land and the people weretoo tough for other Native American tribes to take over.The people were too smart and wily and resourceful for the Spanish and the churches to dominate.I strongly recommend this tour. Well worth the price given it's 4 or 5 hours of standing in the desert and turning your mind upside down, confronting our biases due to the poor history we receive in secondary schools. Bring a hat, lots of sunscreen and water.
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Scott R.
Jul 15, 2023
Absolutely one of the best photographic/adventure/cultural trips I have ever been on. Kialo and Gilbert were the best. The places they took me were magical. But the best part is that these are really decent people who want to share their rich culture and heritage while showing you places that are so unique and beautiful. I did 4 private sessions with them. Not only was the photography great, learning about their way of life was truly a humbling and amazing experience. They explained the geology of the land, the history of their people, and shared about their life, family, and experiences. I want to thank both of them for an experience that will be with me forever. I have been on many photo tours and can honestly say this was really in a league of its own. At the end I was sad because I felt I was leaving a very special place and two friends.
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