The deserts of North America are vast. They stretch throughout the US Southwest, down into the far reaches of Mexico. Despite the oppressively arid heat, you can find several large cities within this range, places that house shops, malls, and hundreds of thousands of people. Here, asphalt and concrete cover the land. Cacti and dust have been paved over, and water is pumped in from deep underground. The land has been tamed.
Or has it?
Despite the handful of desert cities, much of the desert remains remote and seemingly barren. Few dare to travel here, and fewer dare to live in it. The land may appear empty and desolate, but, my friend, looks are deceiving. This is a place that hides many, many secrets.
Many of these secrets involve the people of the desert. Despite the apparent remoteness, people have been living in the American Southwest for over ten thousand years, tracing all the way back to hunters and gatherers following big game. From there, people eventually grew a society of adobe brick and irrigation channels, integrating themselves into the desert landscape. More arrived later, groups of Athabaskan people from the far north, seeking a place to call home.
They were far from the first. As the centuries passed, Europeans arrived. Spanish first, then American. In the 1800s, the deserts became known as the Wild West. American people flocked through on their way to California. They settled in to hunt for gold and claim the land as their own.
These historic desert dwellers did not realize the secrets this wild, untamed land hid beneath its flat plains of dirt and scrub. They did not realize that the sharp spines of the cacti, the ravages of the dust storms, the ferocity of the flash floods – all of these served as a warning. A warning of darker things lying beneath an otherwise flat and empty landscape.
They may not have realized at first, but these people soon found out. Over time, they buried secrets of their own. Eventually, the desert and the people became one and the same. Sand and dust hide ruins of ancient civilizations. Untamed wilderness mixes with long stretches of asphalt and empty parking lots.
When you look at the desert today, you must look past what the eye sees. These old secrets are still there.
Today, you can find many of these secrets. If you know where to look, that is. I do. I always do.
Travel with me, and we shall uncover the stories of the desert.
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