Crossing Borders

Just south of Tucson is the community of Green Valley. Famous as a retirement town, you'll still find plenty to do in this part of the state! Just close enough to Tucson to make a day trip easy, but far enough away to not get caught up in the big city hectic life. This view? I could retire with this...like they say about Arizona; "All beach, no ocean."

We've got enough time for a quick 9 holes, but that's about it. ONWARD!
Get your passports out!!! We're going SOUTH OF THE BORDER!
Nogales, AZ into Nogales, Mexico!OLE~!!

we're traveling RIGHT TO LEFT, though...

I hope at least a few of us speak Spanish! Our trip west WAS going to take us to the east coast, possibly all the way to Florida, but then I wasn't sure about the distance. This trip will take us to warmer climes. VAMONOS, MUCHACHAS Y MUCHACHOS!!
Here's what our good friends at wikipedia have to say about Nogales(s):

• "Nogales, Arizona, borders the city of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and is Arizona's largest international border community. The southern terminus of Interstate 19 is located in Nogales at the U.S.-Mexico border; the highway continues south into Mexico as Mexico Federal Highway 15. The highways meeting in Nogales comprise a major intersection in the CANAMEX Highway, connecting Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Nogales also is the beginning of the Sun Corridor, an economically important trade region stretching from Nogales to Prescott, AZ, including the Tucson and Phoenix metropolitan areas."
• "On August 27, 1918, a battle between United States Army forces and Mexican militia - mostly civilian in composition - took place. Culminating as the result of a decade's worth of tensions originating from the Mexican Revolution and earlier battles in Nogales along the border in 1913 and 1915, the main consequence of the 1918 violence saw the building of the first permanent border wall between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, along the previously unobstructed boundary line on International Street."

We come across some vaqueros (cowboys) crossing a river and are reminded that for the next few days, we'll mostly be in small towns an villages. 

The city of Magdelena is famous for missions/churches, festivals, and a giant painting of the "Virgen of Guadelupe" on the side of a cliff. People flock to Magdelena at the end of September for an annual festival commemorating their patron saint, San Francisco Javier.

Next we find the city of Santa Ana. "The main tourist attraction in Santa Ana is the church built in the 1900s to honor Our Lady of Saint Ana. Every year during the month of July, the whole town celebrates the day of their Saint with a fair and dances." (source)

Before we reach the end of today's adventure, we'll pass through a relatively NEW town. The town of Benjamin Hill was founded in 1942 and gained municipality status in 1952. To me, this is interesting because Mexico has been bustling with people for MANY YEARS yet is still founding new towns. I suppose we still do it here in the US, too, but still. The city of Benjamín Hill "owes its existence to the railroad. In 1939 it was just a ranch called San Fernando when the federal government chose it for the junction of the Ferrocarril Sonora-Baja California Ferrocarril and the Sud-Pacífico railways,

Trains in Benjamin Hill, Sonora, Mexico

which was finished in 1948. It was given municipal status in 1952. The name is derived from Benjamín Hill, the Sinaloan military leader whom President Venustiano Carranza appointed Governor of Sonora in 1914."(source)
I found a blog about the town here.
Just a few more miles to our first overnight in Mexico. Can you stand it?






Tonight we are staying in the village of Querobabi. The word in language Querobabi ópata means Milkweed Water and the Pima language means Gavilan Water. Northwest of the town is the Rancho El Suareño, the origin of this community originally called San José de Querobabi. In this place a building that was a station of errands ranging from north to south and vice versa, also built to house the servants of the ranch. Said construction was done under the orders of Don Jose Joaquin Fernandez and Suarez was founded in 1832.