Acoma Sky City

Acoma's Sky City is a village on top of a sandstone mesa that rises about 365 feet from the desert floor west of Albuquerque, a place Acoma people have occupied for centuries and describe as one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the country. The summit holds rows of adobe houses, many without running water or electricity, and the San Esteban del Rey Mission, built between 1629 and 1641 after the Spanish conquest era, its timbers carried up by hand from Mount Taylor. The mesa is not a monument to a vanished past: Acoma families keep homes here, potters sell their work along the tour route, and the pueblo's civil and ceremonial life continues below and above the rim.

Visiting works entirely on the tribe's terms. Tours run from the tribe's own Sky City Cultural Center and Haak'u Museum, are described by the pueblo as privileges granted by the Acoma Tribal Council, and are led by Acoma guides; unannounced cultural events close the mesa without warning, and the rules are strict about conduct, dress, and above all photography, which requires a purchased permit and is forbidden in the church, the cemetery, and during feast days. The honest frame for a visitor is that this is a home first and a destination second, and that the access rules are the pueblo's expression of its own governance, not a concession stand's.

Visiting

The Sky City Cultural Center and Haaku Museum runs the tours: open Friday through Monday 10 am to 4 pm, tour times 10:30 am, 12:30 pm, and 2:30 pm; call 800-747-0181 before visiting. Reported pricing is $25 adult / $22 senior-military / $17 child-youth, third-party and worth confirming with the Center. Camera permits are purchased on site; no photography in the church, the cemetery, or during feast days. The Cultural Center is at 1232 Haaku Road, 15 miles south of I-40 Exit 102.

Photo: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:50_Acoma_Pueblo_from_ground_level.jpg))