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 “Move
the walking stick, take a step; move the stick, take another step,” I
repeat to myself incessantly, because it’s the only way I can face this
vast ocean of sand, wind and silence called Altar.
I have always liked the desert. I remember as a child
looking for any film at the video club with images of dunes. Those sand
formations totally intrigued me.
My first encounter with the desert was when I climbed El
Escudo, the north wall of Devil’s Peak in Baja California. From its summit
I observed the rest of the San Pedro Martyr mountain range, the Sea of
Cortéz and the great Desert of Altar in Sonora. In the distance, the Altar
seemed to call to me. And from there, on top of the peak, I decided to
cross it.
The Altar Desert is a little-known part of Mexico. In
ages past, this region was home to the Hohokam, a group of people who had
already disappeared by the time the Spaniards arrived. Nevertheless,
Hohokam culture survived in the Pápagos, a successful society that
subsisted by hunting and gathering. Pápago nomads used to roam Altar’s
sands, mainly in winter. Today the tribe survives dispersed between
Arizona and Mexico with less than 400 members. The Pápagos are a people
strongly united with nature. They believe in the “elder brother”, a spirit
who guides them towards a righteous path in life and who protects nature.
Altar is such an immense desert that many areas are still
unexplored. In 1540 Francisco Vázquez Coronado crossed a part of it.
Towards 1700, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino had also raided parts, but the
first officially documented complete passage was made in 1977 by four
mountaineers from Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM). Since
then, several expeditions that have managed to cross the Altar from
diverse points. Nevertheless, all of the crossings were concentrated in
the Eastern part and none, as far as I could find, had braved the the
western zone covered with giant “erg” dunes (literally, in Arabic, a “sea”
of sand), one of largest and most continuous on the planet.
The encounter with Altar is moving. We hitch a ride to
the middle of nowhere on Highway 2 near La Joyita, about 6 miles south of
the Arizona border. Strong winds force us to put our goggles on right
away. We step off the highway and make a final check of our equipment –
gaiters, walking sticks, compass, GPS, maps. I put on my backpack, and we
begin to walk. Step by step, we approach the first giant dune, which
slowly and painfully turns into an inexhaustible extension of sand
colossuses. The wind begins to speak to us, to shout, to roar. We stop for
a moment to take pictures.
“Hey! It’s sticking.” Apparently the camera got some
sand in it.
“You want to rest?” I ask Elvia, while putting the camera
away.
“No, we better keep going.”
The original plan was to stop during the worst of the
heat. We had prepared for temperatures around 30-40°C, but it was hovering
around 20°C. Even at a good pace, we advance slowly. The almost always
sandy ground makes our steps heavy. Here and there we find some areas of
hard ground.
The desert is a silent place, and Elvia and I speak very
little. At first, my internal dialogue is extremely active. My mind
recalls the warnings, advice and reproaches of multitudes of people who
said to us, “You lack experience, you aren’t prepared, it is very
dangerous, there may be drug traffickers, they are lots of snakes, how can
you go with a woman?”
I turn around to look at Elvia to see if she shares my
doubts, but in the smile that she returns, I can clearly see, she is
self-confident. Little by little in the silence of the Altar, my mind
begins to calm, and once I let all those other voices go, I am left with
just my own and the voice of Altar.
Altar is not completely lifeless. Even among the giant
dunes, small shrubs grow in the hollows. These shrubs lose all their
leaves and their stems dry up, keeping only the roots alive, giving the
impression that they are dead. Surprisingly, this vegetation can maintain
its state of suspended animation from rain to rain (and these intervals
can last for up to two years). When the water returns, however, the
plants turn green and fill out with leaves and flowers, only to dry up
again and wait.
We are anxious to arrive at the giant dunes, but at the
same time, we are scared because that area represents the unknown. It is
a primitive fear that we feel in our bones. Not the fear of dying, but the
fear of disappearing. We are that alone in Altar.
The inner zone of Altar is like a sea of sand stopped in
the time. We arrive just in time to appreciate one of the sweetest sunsets
that I have ever seen. It is as if the powerful Altar welcomes us.
Suddenly, we see a small beetle, and make friends with it. This tiny
creature leaves its miniature tracks in the fine sand of the desert. How
can such a delicate lifeform exist in this strange world?
It is all like a dream. It seems that I have already
lived this. And perhaps I have in my imagination, as I have visualized
myself walking on these sands a million times before actually coming here.
Night falls soon, too soon. We cross the giant dunes
beneath a full moon in a desert sky overwhelmed with stars. If by day
Altar seems otherworldly, at night it is indescribable – the landscape
shifts with each footstep as if it is in a constant process of reinventing
itself. Our perception is completely altered. This, combined with the fact
that we did not sleep, makes my thoughts somewhat strange.
I am cold. The night feels endless, everything around us
seems to be alive, and moving. I begin to fear that as long as we continue
walking the sun will not come up. We stop a little before dawn, eager to
see a recognizable world. Wrapped in thermal blankets, pierced by the
cold, we wait for the sun. Minutes later (that seem hours), the aurora’s
song fills us with energy to resume the trek. We have only about 12 miles
ahead of us, but that takes us all day and all of our strength.
The highway! After almost 34 hours of continuous walking,
sore and tired, I feel like I am in a trance. Luckily, a couple on their
way to Tijuana offers us a lift. When we arrive in San Luis Rio Colorado,
at the same hotel room where we stayed before the crossing, the feeling
that this has all been a dream is fortified.
I lie down in the bed and dream about the experience I
have just lived. In Altar I felt deeply bound to all of Earth’s spirits.
“Elder brother”, the spirit that guides the Pápagos, often speaks to them
in dreams offering lessons about the world through them. In Altar I found
my own elder brother, and he spoke to me.
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