The walking tour will take about 45 minutes to an hour. You will be able to enter a beautiful Spanish-style church devoted to San Esteban del Rey, the patron saint of the Acomas since the l600s, when the first missionaries arrived. You will see a huge vigas, these are logs forming the roof of the church. There are natural cisterns on the mesa that trap water from infrequent rains, providing drinking water for all the people who once lived there. Today there are about l3 or l4 families who still live on the mesa.
Life is very primitive,with no running water and only outdoor privies.
Digging a pit toilet in the sandstone is obviously impossible, so the toilets are set 20 to 40 feet down, over the edge of the mesa. Most of the people now live in the communities of Acomita and McCarty on the lower level of the reservation. You will also learn that the ownership of the homes atop the mesa are passed down along youngest daughters of the owners. But there are certainly strings attached. The youngest daughter must take care of her parents until they die before she has untrammeled use of hte property.