3rd August 1997

On the Wild West Trail - Part II

Away from the big city din and bustle

By Anton Gunesekera

Around sunset, we arrived in Sedona’s Redrock country. A bright-blue sky greeted us as we stepped out of our station-wagon to take our first glance at the world’s most enchanting spread of mountain range.

After one hour of driving through the Apache Indian trail there was not a single homestead in sight other than the magnificent line of cliffs which are part of the vast Mogollan Rim (pronounced here as Muggy-own).

Our thoughts went back to the spellbinding Sigirya Rock. In our tiny island which can boast of rugged landscape and the practically insurmountable terrain of tea-topped plateaux, we have a bulk of luxurious land which had been the envy of yesterday’s conquering colonialists.

There is though, a significant difference. Beneath Kasyapa’s rock within the serenity of Sigiriya, governments of our day and time have never given sufficient thought to a restoration proper of those historical monuments.

The Dambulla Rock-just another shadow of a Sinhala kingdom of yesteryear-simply stands there neglected-only to be trampled by the footsteps of the wayside wanderer.

This is the dividing line between our awe-inspiring Sigiriya Rock and the tantalizing terrain of Sedona’s redrock country. Millions of US Dollars are being spent to keep Sedona’s glory alive.

At the Redrock Inn, where we lodged, the visitor is inescapably drawn to the many memorabilia adorning the walls, which reflect the painstaking efforts of US and foreign investors to preserve the redness of the Redrock mountains, the reminiscence of the Apache and Navajo Red Indian mulemen who trekked the mountain and sun-valley desert tracks add to that.

The US Federal government sets apart an annual money-allocation so as to ensure that the Sedona Redrock skyline and the Zane Grey trail (highway) are kept in place.

Our countryside roads stand in shame-as we traverse these beautifully-carpeted, unlittered roadways of the once Wild West.

Sedona was a tiny agricultural community just 25 years ago. But its planners quickly developed it into a flourishing art centre, a tourists paradise and a spiritual retreat, away from the big-city din and bustle. The Information Office showed me the computer screen which confirms that 1.2 million tourists from all over the world had visited Sedona during the period, September, ’96 to end April this year.

After a full day of sightseeing in this redrock mountain range cum valley, we drove to the picturesque Oak Creek canyon - the miniature Grand Canyon, just three miles away from Sedona.

Here, we saw the prettiest sights that nature offers a foreign visitor. Dramatic rock formations adorn the lofty canyon walls, while dense forest, strewn with giant saguaro and bighorn cactus, stand neck to neck with tall ponderosa pine trees. Multicoloured flowering plants stud the walls as if carved into them.

We cooked rice and curry, along with a chunk of elk (you could buy any form of fresh meat, including mountain deer at the Sedona marketplace) which Lima barbecued at our place of rest - the Oak Creek Terrace Resort. But before lunch, we took a ‘shower’ at the creek waterfalls and wended our way back to Phoenix, with one consolation in mind - that nowhere in the world could a discerning tourist marvel at the wondrous terrain at Diyaluma, Pidurutalagala and Sigiriya which only mother Paradise can boast of.

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