The Aztecs never came anywhere near Aztec, New Mexico. The ruins here were named by nineteenth-century settlers who assumed, wrongly, that such impressive buildings must have been made by the famous people of central Mexico. In fact, they were built by Ancestral Puebloans between about 1100 and 1300, as part of the great Chacoan world centred on Chaco Canyon, sixty miles to the south, and they are included with Chaco in the UNESCO listing of the Chaco Culture.
The West Ruin is a great house of around four hundred rooms, with original wooden beams still in place in some ceilings, preserved by the dry climate, and walking through its low doorways and dark rooms is an atmospheric experience. The Great Kiva, reconstructed in the 1930s by the archaeologist Earl Morris, gives a vivid idea of what these ceremonial chambers were like when in use, with its roof, benches and central fire box. The site is compact, easy to visit and has a good visitor centre.
The town of Aztec is a small, friendly place on the Animas River, with fuel, food and lodging, and the larger city of Farmington is nearby. North, across the Colorado border, the old mining town of Durango is the starting point of the Million Dollar Highway, one of the great mountain roads of the American West, climbing over high passes through the San Juan Mountains toward Silverton and Ouray. Mesa Verde National Park, with its cliff dwellings, is also within a day's ride.
The riding around Aztec is a mix of open highways across high desert and mesas, river valleys with cottonwoods and farms, and, to the north, the mountains of Colorado. Traffic is light outside the towns, but watch for oil field trucks, livestock and wildlife, especially deer at dawn and dusk. Weather can change quickly, with afternoon thunderstorms in summer and snow in winter.
Local food includes New Mexican dishes with green and red chile, enchiladas, burritos and sopaipillas with honey. Late spring and autumn spare you both the summer furnace and the winter snow. The Great Kiva is cool and dim even on a hot afternoon, and a few minutes sitting on its bench in silence is the best rest stop for a hundred miles.