Horseshoe Bend and Antelope Canyon are simply stunning places to visit. Our guide Steve drove us from our hotel to a moderately authentic trading post and to lunch and he also drove us to Horseshoe Bend. While understanding that this is a narrated tour, I do feel that a bit of his coverage was just mundane chatter. I would have liked to have learned more about Navajo Nation and the people who live there. Steve was polite and friendly and gave good sightseeing advice.
Steve took us to a truck stop where we met Nate, our guide for the Antelope Canyon tour. Antelope Canyon is a magnificent wonder of nature. Nate was friendly and eager to please and knew where to stand to get the best photographic shots. Much of the tour was spent with Nate collecting the ten cameras from people on the tour and doing the photos for everyone. This got to be cumbersome and took away from the experience slightly because after ten- fifteen steps or so of walking and marveling, it was time to play musical cameras again. But Nate took great pictures and everyone was happy with them. I would suggest more walking and less stopping however so we can truly take in the wonder of the canyon and be present- not just have fantastic Instagram pics.
Steve drove us back to our hotels after Nate completed the tour of Antelope Canyon. They were both good guides who were eager to please. Something that bothered me was that when we booked the tour it was stated that the groups were smaller and masks were required because of Covid. Many native reservations stated they were not medically equipped to manage Covid in their communities and outbreaks could be devestating for them. We saw a lot of postings and articles about this everywhere. A lot of things were closed for long periods of time on the reservation as a result. But ultimately the Native American communities opened back up to tourism because of financial need after lengthy closures. Tourism is a significant source of income for the tribes. Steve was unmasked and there were only three empty seats in the tour van. This wasn’t as many as I expected. At close to $500 a couple, I think a few less people so we could have been spaced out a bit more would not have broken the bank. In addition to this, Steve did not enforce the wearing of masks as was advertised which I found to be extremely disrespectful to the people whose land we were visiting and they had plainly stated the reasoning of not being equipped to deal with Covid in terms of availability and distance of medical facilities. I was disappointed in my fellow group members and guide in this regard. It was flagrantly disrespectful to fellow tour members and to the Navajo Nation.