SophiaTravel

I went to Arizona Saguaro National Park in April, 2024 with REI adventure group. It was 4 days trip and the cost is about $2400.

Phoenix

My plane landed in Phoenix airport, and I took the Lyft to go to the hotel. I kinda regret my choice by taking Lyft, in Phoenix, you can try Waymo One as an auto-driving taxi.

Several semi-conductor factories invested in last two years in Phoenix and the house price almost doubled. But with such expanding speed, water shortage becomes a rising issue.

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park is famous for its cactus. In April, the park has plenty of water, so we see flowers and green grasses. According to the tour guide, starting from June, the precipitation will be way less and the landscape will be more like desert. And it will be super hot in the summer, most people choose to stay at home.

Saguaro is an unique cactus which are only found in Saguaro National Park and Las Vegas airport (imported from Saguaro National Park). Saguaro has diversified arms, that means, some saguaro has no arm and some has multiple arms. Why saguaro decides to grow different arms – nobody knows 🙂

Saguaro National Park not only has saguaro, it also has other types of cacutus.

Arches in Saguaro National Park, the mountains in the park are formed from volcano eruptions. There are different layers of rock formation, the arch usually formed when the inner rock is easily weathered by the wind. (sorry I should write this part earlier when I still remembered the different rock layers name).

Pictographs from native americas.

The below picture is the stone native americas used to grind the food. I was very excited to think it was a human or animal footprint fossil. 🙂

One common scenario in Saguaro National Park is plants co-live, maybe because of lack of water.

The grassy plant (sorry forgot the name) use the tree which has root as a host, the plant takes the nutrition from the tree, and after the grassy plant dispensing the seeds (reproduction), the plant will die. But most of the time, you can see the tree will die too due to lack of nutrition.

Tuscan

Tuscan city was built for copper mining and it was the home for native americas. We have one native americas lady talking about their history, how their tribe got impacted by the European immigrants, how their children forced to go to school to learn English and gradually they lost their own culture and language. Now Tuscan city is almost obsolete given copper mining is not operational any more.

Old mining site:

The food they provide is cooked by Mexicans, those Mexicans have US visa and came to cook during the daytime and went home to Mexica during the night.

This is upside down pineapple cake they cooked.

Tucson, Arizona, is known for its efforts to protect the night sky from light pollution. The city has implemented an outdoor lighting ordinance that requires fully shielded lighting and limits the amount of light produced at night, particularly in natural areas and near astronomical sites. This commitment is driven by the presence of major astronomical observatories in the region and a desire to preserve the experience of dark skies for residents and visitors. 

Can you see the famous Trump wall? According to the guide, the wall does not really prevent people to cross the border, but does prevent the animals migrate.