We had a lovely meal at Bata in downtown Tucson, with all sorts of local foods and specialities. This was my favourite, a tiny savoury tartlet of all different greens.
And then we spent two days exploring both the East and West sides of Saguaro National Park. It has always been one of my dreams to see the Saguaro, the famous standing cactus, reminiscent of old Western movies. It’s only found in the Sonoran Desert, and it was truly everything I’d hoped for. Wide open expanses with nothing but brush and cactii for miles in every direction.
It was crazy hot though. We could only walk about outside for short times because of the weight of the hot sun. And apparently this was a ‘cool’ weekend! I can’t imagine it in the summer.
We were also lucky as all the cactii were in bloom. All the different types had amazingly bright colourful flowers in pinks, reds and yellows. We couldn’t get too close to the Saguaro flowers, as they are like crowns right on top of the tall stems, but they looked like white and yellow fried eggs.
I sketched these Prickly Pear and giant Aloe plants and felt like I was drawing alien lifeforms.
I also visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens - they had wonderful desert areas full of different cactii, but also shady paths and corners with more leafy plants, where I could sit on the shade and sketch.
This was my favourite animal encounter - a desert spiny lizard that turned to look at me as I photographed it. It had brilliant viridian breast scales, like a miniature dragon.
It was only a few days, but I loved Tucson, and would definately recommend it to see the magical Saguaros!