Flickavoyages: Day #91. September 17.

Up early and away to explore this magnificent place.

Day Break in Organ Pipe

First up, Alamo Canyon. We drive five miles on gravel road to the only other camp site on the Monument, for tents only.

Alamo Canyon

The hot, dry desertscape is embellished with these magnificent, old wizards.

A Saguaro 'Wizard'

The Saguaro can live up to 200 years and reach skyward to 45 feet.

Dancing Saguaro

An Old Organ Pipe Sage

I can't get enough of these organ pipe cacti. Individuals live to be 150 years old on average. The thing does not even flower until its 35 years old. Before the government protected this area by establishing the Monument, Southern California scavengers were digging up these plant and others to sell to the hoards in LA.

Bizarre Organ Pipe Growth

We head to the border to port of entry Lukeville, AZ (population 35) where we drive north on South Puerto Blanco Drive, but not before a border patrol office gives us a stern warning not to talk to anyone we may see in the area.

We drive on dirt, gravel road for a few miles toward the Quitobaquito Hills and start thinking abut what it would be like to break down here, which prompted an immediate turn around. Along the way we see parts of an existing border wall, but President Bone Spurs is going to fix that sucker up.

Us and Them

Next up, Ajo Mountain Drive, a twenty-five-mile, dirt, gravel, washboard road eastward toward the Tonohono O’Odham Indian Reservation.

For thousands of years, The Tonohono O’Odham Indians lived throughout the southwest in an area now on both sides of the US Mexican border. Turns out, imagine this, the Indians are social beings who like to visit their friends, following religious and cultural traditions engrained in their DNA.

Big Problem, especially in the current political climate in American. The U.S. Border Patrol , especially in recent years, detains and deports these people regularly as they cross the border in these remote places. The Indians say the Border Patrol has occasionally confiscated cultural and religious items, such as feathers of common birds, pine leaves or sweet grass. Sweet grass?