The Sonoran desert

On Thursday, our last full day in Kino, we spent the morning exploring a section of the Sonoran desert. There was a huge stand of Cardon, or Elephant Cactus, which can grow to be 21m tall and have trunks meters thick. To give perspective, in the middle image we are all standing! Because the Cardon provide some of the only shade in the area, Seris and other desert travellers used the stand as a rest stop. We found shells of sea animals and ancient pottery shards in the shadow of the cactus. 






The second half of the day we went trough the fishery of Kino Viejo. They have no built port, so the fisherman ran their boats ashore or got a trailer onto the beach. We saw the illegal trading of a sea turtle as we wandered down the beach, underscoring the widespread issues, ethical, political, and ecological that plague much of gulf of California.