Bye Bye Mexico. Ole Arizona!!

The drive up to Nogales from San Carlos was a trip into winter. Even the desert looked frigid. And the sun looked low and watery compared to the sun at the lake. Sigh. The Mexicans were garbed in heavy winter coats and hats with ear flaps. Groups of men stood together along the roadside, warming hands over impromptu wood fires. We left San Carlos at 7:30AM and made it to the US border by 12:45PM. There were 6 lanes open and short line ups. We, of course, got the one that wasn't moving. We ALWAYS get the one that isn't moving. I swear the customs agents see us coming and say to themselves "here comes that weird American/Canadian couple, let's slow everything down for them". Anyway, the 5 lanes on either side of us whizzed past and through. The agent in our lane hovered and examined and opened doors and consulted her computer and waved people over. It was becoming depressing. Suddenly, the motorcycle ahead of us (also with BC plates) was called forward and as he did so, the miserable customs agent closed up and left. A nice brand new customs agent took over and waved the motorcycle through. Our turn next. Rick smiled, handed him his shiny new Canadian resident card, our passports and waited. The agent asked where we lived and Rick said "British Columbia"....two cursory questions, no hassle and we popped right through into the USA.

It took us about 15 minutes up the freeway to get to our first destination, the Spanish Mission at Tumacacori, Arizona. I was very keen to see the Mission, but even more so to see what kind of community surrounded it. I had a somewhat illustrious relative who retired here in 1945 at the end of the war. One of the stranger finds in my family research led me to a Scottish relative on my mother's side who had a long and very successful career in the British Army. And he retired here, at the end of the war.  And I wanted to know why.

Of course I didn't find out why, but I did get to see the little community that surrounds the Mission. No hints there of where he might have lived or why. There were just a few single story modest homes and a lot of trailer homes. I couldn't really see my general living there, but of course, they say fact is stranger than fiction so anything is possible.

We parked and ambled around through the mission museum and book shop. Then we wandered through the gardens and back through the gift shop.

 From there,  we could see through an open arch into the mission grounds and across to the oldest part of the church, a later Franciscan rebuild of the original Jesuit church of the 1700s. This church is classified a ruin, and the mandate of the National Parks Service is to maintain it as a ruin, not to gussie it up and make it look pretty for tourists. The result, is unbelievably charming and to my eyes, beautiful. Inside, the adobe bricks are naturally exposed, only the ceiling and flooring is "new". The rest is very artfully protected but left as is. The atmosphere is original and it takes you back to the people and the time period as no renovated building could.

Outside, was a display of traditional tortilla baking by an elderly O'odham Indian couple tending the mesquite fire. The wife spoke to me in Spanish, and offered us a tortilla. It is for guests, she said. It is free for you. We accepted, and had a small discussion of the oven, made of traditional adobe brick with a plate steel top and a underlying rack for the wood burning. I pointed upwards into the ceiling, and exclaimed "Oh that is Ocotillo" and the old man smiled and confirmed "yes, they were branches of Ocotillo". No burrito could taste better than the one the old lady passed to me, warmed from the fire and wrapped around traditionally cooked beans.

Some places just have that feeling of magic, and this one had it!  I was very interested in knowing that the first mission at Tumacacori was established not by the Franciscans, but in 1691 by a Jesuit, Father Kino. Like other Jesuits, he was a highly educated man, and had a protective and respectful attitude toward his indigneous followers. He therefore learned to speak the indigenous language. I told Rick that Huronia in Ontario was also built by Jesuits who learned the indigenous language and worked among the Hurons until it was ravaged by the Iroquois in 1649, so of a similar time period. It was a strange moment to think on this juxtaposition of time and place, to imagine that 400 years ago, Spanish and French Jesuits were in these two unconnected places, surrounded by wilderness and strange and difficult environments, trying to bring the Old World into the New.

We checked in to our (for us) luxurious Best Western motel in south Tucson. After Mexican hotel rooms where there are sometimes no bathroom doors, and the floor tiles are often cracked, and the light fixtures sometimes dangle, this seems so perfectly modern and clean and, well, let me repeat, luxurious! I am savouring the evening, with TV and internet and instant heat. Tomorrow, if we can hang around for a bit, we will visit the Tucson mission of San Xavier. I am hoping we will do that.

Barbara