From White Sands to Saguaro

I'll be honest, whenever the word Roswell comes to my mind, I directly connect it to aliens and UFOs, so I was expecting a whole lot more alien related places and decor all around. The street lights are adorned with cute alien eyes and McDonald's went all the way architecture wise with its spaceship structure. But I guess that I was hopeful that the whole place lived up to perpetuate the buzz around the 1947 'incident'.Sometimes things don't live up to your expectations, and I generally tend to underestimate them so I don't get disappointed. And after my disenchantment with Roswell, White Sands National Monument was wonderful and so much more than I could have ever imagined!Surrounded by mountains that peek from afar rise the fairest dunes. And where the soil is plane, the minerals of which it is composed of, with the casual help of some water pools, reflect all that is possible to see like if it was a flawless mirror.After some hanging around the desert, we went towards Tucson, Arizona. We arrived at sunset and we couldn't have chosen any better time. No wonder most of the car plates have purple mountains and cactuses with a sunset behind them. That purple is really there. We went to Saguaro National Park to watch the sun slowly hide behind those mountains and though there were some clouds in the sky, I can tell you that it was one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. I was so sad that our photos taken with a phone could't even capture half of the mystic and all the vibrant colours graciously moving towards dusk.The day after we explored Saguaro National Park further more. All those huge cactuses that already made part of my imaginary turned real and there are thousands of them, everywhere, with their arms twirling around their bodies and rising up to the sky.We wanted to end our day in Salvation Mountain, in Southern California, so we decided to cross the border to Mexico. To do that we passed by the Sonoran Desert National Monument and through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which are really worth exploring.

After crossing the border easily to Sonoyta, Mexico, we started our 2 hour drive up to San Luis Rio Colorado. In the middle of the way we got a flat tire, the road was super hot and I was a tiny bit scared. There was desert all around us and we hadn't seen any gas station or business since we left Sonoyta. The weirdest thing was that on the week before I was talking to Luis about how to change a tire. We couldn't have been faster but this huge truck stopped (this is where I thought about all the ways I had to defend myself). Against all the horror movie scenes going through my mind that included an alone couple/woman in the middle of a deserted road, the guy was actually super nice. He took our flat tire to check if it was possible to fix it right there and as we were talking to him, a police car stopped as well. My hyperactive imagination resumed the thoughts I was having before, only this time with nasty cops. Ultimately, they only wanted to check if everything was ok and they were actually really nice.

In some parts of the way it was possible to see a wall dividing both countries which made me think about how difficult it must be for Mexican illegal immigrants to engage in such an adverse path. It took us some time to cross back to the US again, as there were tons of cars doing just the same. As always in this trip, everything went smoothly and after a tiny bit we drove from Arizona to California.<3