After leaving the magical desert of Big Bend left behind small-town Texan Alpine, Fort Davis and Pecos. Circulating oil wells that seemed to hammer the floor between the state of New Mexico, arid territory that was once the Spanish province of Sonora. By state 285 atravesé Loving, ugly people beautiful name. I stopped at Carlsbad to make a Mexican burrito and drink some water to dilute the deposited road dust in my throat. Hice noche en Roswell, which ensures a UFO crashed in 1947. It is said that the event silent army and hid the recording of the alien autopsy Youtube circulates freely. How could it be otherwise, the locals have made lucrative business of urban legend. But if there are Martians in New Mexico, are flesh and bone.
I went west on the 70 toward a rather curious name: Picacho, as the Japanese cartoon character. On mountains populated by conifers was cold despite the sun polar. It was the Indian Reservation Mescalero Apache. When down came a plain of white sand that looked like snow. It was the White Sands National Park and Alamogordo, where the humanitarian tested atomic bombs that ended World War II. The signs warning of radiation danger. Others were almost more disturbing: "Pick up hitchhikers prohibited, prison in the vicinity ".
When evening arrived in Las Cruces, city ??on a plateau. Steep and barren mountain ranges rising to the south. The next day I left El Paso and went back to take the interstate 10. In Deming me detour south for warmth. The land is desolate, yellow, dry. Just cows and green cars of the border police. I came across a gang of cowboys gathering cattle; carried with them a three-legged dog. I stopped to refuel in Hachita. A Mexican told me that the teacher hit them when they spoke Spanish. Almost on the border with Mexico, Columbus appears, a tiny village that had its moment of fame when Pancho Villa made in 1916 one of their raids. The raid would bring death. The Americans organized a hunting party that was passed by lining the Mexican sovereignty. The photos of his body, lying naked on a stretcher, resemble those of Che Guevara died in Bolivia.
In Deming me detour south for warmth. The land is desolate, yellow, dry. Just cows and green cars of the border police.
I entered Arizona through the Coronado National Forest. Little by little, The road became a dirt road that climbs the steep mountainside. The posters announced that they were 19 Millas the rough road. Ascended to the 7.500 feet by a steep and rocky path that sometimes turned into thick mud. After two hours of driving we arrive at an enduro yellow trail soon brought us to the asphalt. He no longer felt the cold. From the plains of New Mexico and after this last mountain, the decline has been continuous. It was much closer to sea level and the thermometer gave me a break.
In the southern state is the town of Tombstone and then Tucson. These are names which recall the films of the conquest of the West. But by the time John Wayne was set in this epic, the West and the Spanish had conquered less colts and guts. The real conqueror of these wild lands was Juan Bautista de Anza, born in 1763 in the current Mexico, near Arizpe. Anza was the first white man who managed to enter by road from southern Arizona to the Pacific Ocean, in Alta California, an odyssey 1.200 you laugh kilometers of the Anabasis of Xenophon and 10.000 Greeks by Persia. At least the Yankees have recognized the feat through the Anza Trail.
And it is not. With 24 years, Anza and was captain. Ambitious and knowing that to the Alta California was only one sea route, in 1774 marched 20 soldiers, 3 priests and 140 horses through the desert bare and unknown, Yuma Indian Territory and rattlesnakes. This infinite sandy wasteland today called Anza-Borrego State Park and is a. After much hardship and work, Spanish captain with all his men come to the shores of Monterey. In a second expedition to reach the heart of that great bay which he named San Francisco, which undoubtedly would have called San Javier if Carlos III had not expelled the Jesuits, occupying its place in the Franciscan missions.
The feeling of smallness that overwhelms the traveler to peer into the crater without end of the Grand Canyon is matched only when in the solitude of the night you stop to think of infinity and eternity
North of the state is one of the most amazing places on the planet. An earthquake in the skin hack the open desert by a tiny river. The feeling of smallness that overwhelms the traveler to peer into the crater without end of the Grand Canyon is matched only when in the solitude of the night you stop to think of infinity and eternity. No human dimensions in the Grand Canyon, is like a huge joke played on men to be weak mortals know. Back, Spanish people took the lead in the Mayflower Puritans meapilas. The first European to see such a geological wonder 1540 officer was García López de Cárdenas, advance of the expedition of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, whose thickness come to Kansas. As a reward for the discovery, and for failing to cross the canyon, got a brand new martial.
Sedona say it's the most beautiful place in North America. After visiting it does not seem an exaggeration. The road to the village through a dense forest, abruptly descends mountain curves and ends following the course of an agitated stream. The bright golden colors of autumn brighten the mood of the traveler. The red mountains and trails of old clay have attracted all kinds of artists, enlightened and neohippies. Sedona is full of kooks zen. In the motel, the receptionist calls himself Reverend Kate. It has its own eclectic religious marriage is dedicated to people in these extraordinary places. I had dinner at the Cowboy Club rattlesnake appetizers, buffalo burger and beer on tap local. The snake is like breaded chicken cubes. The burger I recommend it and is delicious undercooked. But as usual around here, Beer does not have gas or alcohol. You have to hold it. Red wine is not available until you get to California.
