Montezuma's 'Revenge' - Our Home Has 6 Wheels

(Just kidding!)

April 4, 2015

Montzuma’s Castle, Montezuma’s Well & Old Towne Cottonwood

Just off I-17 at Exit 289 just South of Sedona is a National Monument called Montezuma’s Castle – and close by is Montezuma’s Well. I don’t know the significance of the names …. as Montezuma apparently was never there!

Montezuma’s Castle is an amazing ruin – 4 stories of cliff dwellings! It’s a short walk there and you can only just look at it now … up to the 1950’s you could go in and look around; but people back then thought that taking away chunks of the walls and scribbling your name on other walls was cool, so they finally restricted access to preserve the site. It’s really something to see and imagine people living and thriving there 1,000 years ago!

Montezuma’s Castle

Montezuma’s Well is a giant limestone sinkhole with cliff dwellings and a lush oasis! It’s a beautiful place and well worth a look!

Montezuma’s Well

Dwellings at Montezuma’s Well

Montezuma’s Well – Irrigation ditches dug out by Hohokam & Sinagua people to irrigate their fields

After tromping around those sites for the morning, we headed into Old Towne Cottonwood, which sounds cooler than it was. If you’re looking for some interesting restaurants, wine tastings (and olive oil tastings!) then it’s great … but not too many little shops with interesting (local) stuff to sell. It was still interesting and we ended up finding a trail that was supposed to run along the river but ended up going off in all directions. We didn’t really get lost … just momentarily directionally challenged!

Old Towne Cottonwood

The Jail Trail River Walk

Back to our campsite and opted for an easy supper … there was a Mexican food truck about 150 feet from our campsite so we ordered a plate of Nachos for 2 and washed it down with Margaritas! Very pleasant!