Acoma Pueblo (Sky City)

National Historic Landmark; Sovereign Land Of The Pueblo Of Acoma. The Mesa Top Village Is Reached Only On A Ticketed Tour Booked At The Sky City Cultural Center · Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico

Acoma sits on a sandstone mesa that rises 367 feet straight out of the valley floor, and people have lived up there since at least the 1100s, which makes it one of the two or three oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America. Until a road was cut in the 1950s the only way up was a hand-and-toe staircase worn into the rock. Around thirty families still live on the mesa full time, with no electricity, no running water and no sewer, exactly as the community has decided. The enormous San Esteban del Rey Mission, finished in 1640, has adobe walls ten feet thick and roof beams of ponderosa pine carried on foot from Mount Taylor thirty miles away, a detail that says more about Spanish labour demands than any plaque does. Visitors reach the village only on a ticketed tour from the cultural center below, led by an Acoma guide, and that is the correct way round: this is a home, not a site.

Haaku Road, Sky City Cultural Center, Acoma Pueblo, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, 87034, United States

The Sky City Cultural Center at the base of the mesa opens most mornings and runs shuttle tours up to the village through the day, with the last tour well before closing. The village is closed to visitors for ceremonial days through the year, sometimes at a day or two of notice and sometimes for several consecutive days, and the whole operation shuts on some major holidays. Always call ahead. Tours can also be cancelled for weather.

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