I awoke to rain pattering on the roof. It was dark outside and I lay in bed knowing I had to get up and get going as we had a long day ahead of us. But the sound of the raindrops on the tin roof of GANNET2 lulled me into a meditative state. The sheets were soft (they should be; they were damnably expensive, I’ve never paid so much for Egyptian cotton) and the comforter was snug. Rusty was snoring at my feet while Layne was doing her number at my side. I lay really, really still hoping to slow the clock and allow me time for a lie-in.
Alley Road out of the Bureau of Land Management wilderness was full of puddles and looked slick in the headlights but the Promaster van comes with a slick electronic differential lock which helps limit slipping in the dirt and we drove out easily on the steep but graded dirt road now turned to mud.
Ajo was fast asleep as daylight broke over this unincorporated town in Pima County. Tucson is the county seat making Pima the second most populous in the state after Maricopa which is the location of Phoenix the state capital. Ajo has a population of 3300 people roughly, down from its highest ever of 7,000 in 1960.
I took an umbrella we keep in the “attic” - a shelf above the driver’s seat and my Panasonic G95 camera which is rain and dust proof they say and let an anxious Rusty loose on an unsuspecting town.
My formerly stray dog doesn’t mind getting wet these days when he knows he has a dry bed to come home to. When I first got him in February 2016 he dreaded the rain as I suspect he had suffered a lot of cold wet days in the bushes on the edges of Homestead. Rainy season in south Florida is very unforgiving to those stuck outdoors. I steered him to the covered portions of Ajo’s plaza.
Ajo was founded in 1847 and was named “Garlic” in Spanish only because that word was the closest approximation to the Indian word “o’oho” which means paint. The Indians apparently found red pigment in the area and thus the name of the new township they say. Sounds odd but plausible as early settlers weren’t always attuned to subtlety.
There are ore deposits all around here which attracted early settlers, Indians, Spaniards and finally Americans. It’s interesting to me how much cross border mining has gone on along the length of the frontier. I saw the same pursuit of ore in Boquillas Del Carmen across from Big Bend in Texas and also in Alamos and Kino in Sonora. Mining was what drew people to these desert areas.
Nowadays Ajo is on the main road to a Mexican town known in Arizona as “Rocky Point” on the beach at the Sea of Cortez. Puerto Peñasco has made its high rise fortune as the beach town where Arizona goes to play. The border at Lukeville is 43 miles south of Ajo and Puerto Penñasco is 65 miles further. There’s a beach a hundred miles from here if you don’t mind driving in Mexico.
You can see the border tension in the artwork in Ajo which provides homes to law enforcement patrolling the border and advocates of help to people foolish enough to try to cross this appalling desert after entering the country illegally. On a cold rainy winter day you’d worry about hypothermia but in summer you’ll shrivel up like parchment around here.
A century ago Ajo was segregated and the three groups referred to in town were the Tohono O’Odham Indians and the Latinos who were clumped into “Mexican” and the whites who get this weird designation as Caucasian. You’ll see signs referring to the three tribes.
The town was empty at 6:30 on a rainy Sunday morning but I enjoyed following Rusty lead me through this historic town. Everywhere you can see signs of past glory when they mined ajoite and papagayoite, of which minerals I know nothing.
Warmer winters draw people to southern Arizona but the border tensions in the struggle to control the flow of people seeking work must be stressful.
Fort Jefferson was closed temporarily a few weeks ago when hundreds of Cubans landed overwhelming the facilities at the National Park. It isn’t shears easy being the place where so many people want to live.
We walked for an hour in the drizzle and Rusty seemed to want more. I had my agenda of exploration and Layne wanted to stock up in Tucson before we go to Mexico on Wednesday so it was time to go.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be back here but it was an interesting pre dawn walk in Ajo. Thought provoking. I hope you enjoy the pictures.
