Saguaros!!!

17 November 2018
On Sunday, we drove out to the Saguaro National Park.  Well, the west part of the park.  There's also an east part of the park.  The two parts of the park are on each side of the city of Tucson.  The park's website is www.nps.gov/sagu/index.htm


Anyway, we drove out to the park.  Saguaro is pronounced sah-WAH-roe - the G is silent.  The saguaro cactus is native to this part of the Sonoran Desert, and grows only in this region of Arizona, Mexico to the south, and a few parts of California just to the west.

The hills and mountains in this part of Arizona are really part of a huge volcanic caldera or crater, with the ridges rising up in a vaguely circular shape.  The saguaros grow up the slopes of these ridges, looking like a giant cactus farm.  Really, scrubby desert growing up the mountains with extra tall green telephone poles climbing up the mountains!!!

Saguaros are pretty amazing cactus - they can live as long as 150-175 years or so, and grow to be 40 to 45 feet tall!  (That's 12.2 to 14 meters!)  We're talking roughly as tall as a four storey building!  (The tallest saguaro ever measured is said to have been a single saguaro without arms, found near Cave Creek, Arizona.  It was measured at a whopping 78 feet tall (nearly 24 meters) in height!  Unfortunately, this saguaro was blown over in a windstorm in 1986.)  These are the tallest cactus species in the US, and the second tallest cactus in the world!

Saguaros survive the desert conditions by absorbing moisture into their bodies and storing it there, so they can live through times of drought.  During rainy season, a single fully hydrated saguaro can weigh as much as 3,200-4,800 lbs!  (That's something like 1,500-2,200 kg!) 

Yes, these are the cacti we've seen in cartoons and movies, where someone cuts into the cactus and drinks the water.  And yes, it is possible to do so.


During the spring rains, saguaros bloom with flowers making almost crowns on the top of each trunk and the branches or arms.  Later in the spring, the saguaro fruit appears, a red fruit full of seeds and very flavorful.  Because of all the spines, the fruit cannot be picked by hand - instead, a long pole made of saguaro rib is used to pick the fruit.  The indigenous groups in this region, the O'odham tribes have a long history of eating the saguaro fruit as well as making a fermented beverage from this prized fruit.  (There are several tribes that make up the O'odham nation, including the Pima O'odham and the Tohono O'odham.)

An interesting fact - birds nest in the saguaro.  The large birds build nests in the branches, but smaller birds actually peck holes into the huge cacti and hollow out part of the pulp to create their nests.  The birds also drill holes into the cacti to drink the water held within.

The saguaros grow branches, though they are often referred to as arms.  The arms begin growing when the saguaro is about 15 feet tall (roughly 5 meters), and the plant is about 75 years old.  There's no limit to the number of arms a saguaro might grow, and some of the very old cacti might have as many as 50 arms!

The saguaro branches really do look more like arms than the usual thin branches we see on trees.  As we drove around, I realized that the arms often reach up toward the sky, as if the saguaro is reaching up to catch the rain.  Or maybe the sun.

Actually, sometimes the saguaros look like they are reaching out to welcome the people visiting the park.  Yes, saguaros look like they want hugs!  I realize it would not be a good idea to hug a saguaro, but they definitely look like they want to hug us.  In fact, some saguaros grow next to another one, and their arms begin to grow around each other so that yes, they ARE hugging each other!

There's something very human-like about the saguaro shape, something very anthropomorphic.  I could easily see the indigenous people having all sorts of legends about these cacti - maybe the saguaro being the first ancestors or something along the lines of a creation story.  (Turns out that the stories are more like humans being turned into saguaros.)

We drove around the park, visited the information center, and drove along one of the loop roads.  Drive, park, climb out of the car and walk around a bit taking photos.  Enjoy the sun and the views, look at all the saguaros, look for animals, photograph the colorful desert flowers.  I especially enjoyed the donors' mosaic at the info center, featuring the plants and animals of the desert.  (The mosaic was made by the Santa Teresa Tile Works of Tucson.)  Photos of the mosaic are at the very end of the blog.

By late afternoon, we thought it was about time to head back to our hotel.  And then the adventure really began.

We recognized the name of a road as being one of the cross streets near our hotel.  So, we turned onto it, figuring we'd drive a few miles, hit the main road, and we'd be back at our hotel.  BAD decision.  This road immediately turned into a dirt road that never ended.  There were spots that were more like soft sand, other areas that were churned up dried out mud, and others that were barely wide enough for our small Toyota to get through.  

But we drove on, because there wasn't anywhere to turn around.  We drove on, deeper and deeper into the middle of, well, the desert.  After maybe half an hour of driving on dirt roads in the middle of nowhere, we finally saw a woman walking a horse along the narrow road.  We asked if this road would take us to Oracle Road (Highway 77), and she was surprised that that was our destination.  Turns out we were about 10 miles from there, and the road would likely get worse before it got better.  She recommended turning around, taking a series of left turns, and we'd hit paved roads again.  Took a while, but we managed to hit civilization again.  One last turn, and we were back in the park!!!

But at least there were signs so we could head back and not disappear forever.

As we drove along, sun beginning to head toward the horizon, shadows lengthening, I saw a coyote peeking out from behind a cactus, to see if it was safe to step out on the road!  He darted back, but after we passed I could see him in the rear-view mirror, trotting down the road!!!  How exciting!!!

It was an amazing adventure!  Someone told me that the desert is transformative - I'm not sure if it is, but there is definitely a fascination with the world of the desert, a pull or magnetism there.

We'll keep exploring.  And reporting.