We are with the Navajo-indians, in their reserve in Arizona.  For a whole week, we cycled through a bone-dry, semi-desert, full of red table-mountains.  We are grateful to God that the winter is on its way, because in the summer  temperatures overhere can reach +55 C° !

Distances between villages are enormous as well as their colourful names like Chilchinbito, Kykotsmovi etc.  Not to mention the slang used by the Indians.  During the war, the Navajo-indians were 'used' to pass on secret information and till today there isn't a living soul who understands their language/slang.

Just like in the cowboy-movies, there are huge hay bales on the dusty roads.  Nearby the hamlet Indian Wells, an Indian passed us in full gallop on a mottled stallion. He nearly fell off his horse when he saw us.  Never before he had seen such awkward bikes. "Ladies', he yelled at us, "what is this" ?  "Recumbent bikes", we screamed back.  "To me, he said, it looks like a bed on wheels".  Bo Joe, was his name.  He jumped off his horse and wanted to tame our bikes !  Over and over he kissed the soil.

He was so vivid and he invited us to spend the night in his modest, wooden cabin.  There, the wind was playing through the many cracks and holes.  We all sat on a hide of animals in front of the open fire.  We rolled out our sleeping mattresses.  Without knowing, we were amongst a very important family, an artistic family.  Bo Joe moulded/shaped christmasballs out of clay as well as dolls.  His wife twined carpets with animal motives.  Bo Joe's mother baked the most delicious pumpkin biscuits.  In the touristic season, she sells the cookies to the tourists.  They didn't want their picture being taken and we respected it.   Indians are strong believers.  When you take a picture they believe that their soul is being captured.

All night long, Ingrid tried to bake the biscuits in the clay-oven, but it turned out to be a complete disaster. The cabin almost got on fire !  Nicole took over but she was even worse. The clay went all over the place and instead of producing a nice Xmasball, a tiny thimble was the poor result....

Indians live on barren spots and they can hardly survive.  They drink a lot to forget about their problems.  But this proud family proved it shouldn't be necessarily like this.  We will never forget their hospitality !