North America Travel

Mexico: Exploring the Yucatan Cenotes

by Roger Howie

The Maya flourished for centuries in the dry hot desert of the Yucatan Peninsula, establishing a society which has kept archeologists busy with study.

How? The presence of easily accessed underground fresh water. Huge caves and intricate tunnels filled with fresh water known locally as cenotes (see-NO-tays). These cenotes are numerous sinkholes, many connected by tunnels of varying sizes. Estimates range between 6,000 – 10,000, with only 2400 explored.

Ex-pat former British Naval Officers, young scuba enthusiasts and Mexican descendants of the Mayans provide diving tours from Tulum, Playa del Carmen and other centres to the cenotes.

My first cenote visit was to Zaci, in the city of Valladolid which has developed a public park complete with a restaurant and excellent viewing platforms. These can be accessed for a small entrance fee of less than $1.00.

The damp permeated my nostrils with freshness cutting through the hot dry city air as I approached. The calls of hundreds of birds swarming this big hole in the ground foretold of the transition from the bustling town to an oasis of natural phenomenon.

Long tree branches grew out over the cenote edge, bending down toward the water’s surface one hundred feet below. I made my way down to the surface along an easy to negotiated combination of man-made and natural stone steps that spiraled along the cenote wall where birds flit about catching insects. This was just not quite enough to satiate my cenote interest. Now I was inspired to get underground to experience the beauty of the caves.

I was excited to investigate X’quequen (eggy-kay-gun) the Cenote at Zipnup, approximately 4 Km south west of Vallalodid.

As the tour buses show up between 11 and 11:30 AM, I managed to view several sights without tour crowds by utilizing local transit, taxis and even hitch-hiking, to arrive by 8 – 8:30 am when most of the sites opened.

A bike shop near my hotel provided me with well-used clunker for $2, apparently the only bicycle that was available. It must have been the one he started his business with or it had some kind of sentimental value, because the owner was almost made me feel guilty to ride it, and followed me as I disappeared into the morning traffic even though I assured him that I would be careful with his ‘bambino’, as the crank smacked against the bearings and outside on the frame as I pedaled.

I pedaled the short ride west on the Carr. Costero Del Golfo, also known as Highway 180, then went left at the Hacienda Selva Maya onto Dzitnup. Timing was perfect. I wheeled into the sight just as the gates were unlocked. I was the first visitor.

I was forced to explain to the employees, with inventive, dramatic physical gestures and limited Spanish, my claustrophobia at the low-ceilinged entrance, but I passed through quickly without further stress into the entirely dark, damp space. An employee came behind and turned on the dim lights, exposing the most amazing sight — stalagmites with bats perched above a small lake covered by a great stone dome with a centre hole open to the world above. A few moments later a sharp beam of sunlight shot through the hole igniting the walls with extraordinary colours and inviting me to swim bravely alone into the eerie alcoves, bats flitting overhead and ‘blind’ fish bumping into my legs.

If You Go:

In order to go on organized scuba dives of the cenotes, one need only ask a at your hotel or read the tourist paraphernalia supplied on stands as the tours are numerous, the second largest attraction after the Mayan dwelling sites (perhaps third if one includes sun and beach activities). I met several guides who all spoke perfect English despite their varied ethnic backgrounds including one fellow with whom I played beach volleyball, embarrassingly not even realizing that he was Mexican until he told me.

Private tour Coba – Cenote – Valladolid

About the author:
Roger Howie is a Vancouver, BC based ‘performance artist / culture addict’. He has acted, danced, played music, recited poetry to his hearts content throughout western Canada. Living in Europe on NATO bases as a young teen developed this taste for culture and travel.

Photo credits:

Mexico Cenote by Ekehnel (Emil Kehnel) / CC BY
Cenote Zaci by<Haakon S. Krohn / CC BY
Cenote Xkekén by<Editoryuca / CC BY-SA/

New Orleans: Revealing the Secrets of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

by Noreen Kompanik

Mark Twain once referred to them as “Cities of the Dead” and nowhere is the term more appropriate than in New Orleans.

Cemeteries here are unlike others across the U.S. that bury their dead “six feet under” so to speak. New Orleans’ swampy low terrain sits one to two feet below sea level.а Here, underground graves were quickly discarded by early colonists after heavy rains sent coffins popping back up to the surface and floating down the streets of the Big Easy.

Instead of the marble and granite headstones set in verdant hillsides under massive oaks, indeterminate thousands of New Orleans’ deceased are buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and housed in its labyrinth of more than 700 elaborate above-ground crypts.а These ornate mausoleums are packed closely together, separated only by narrow tortuous paths. Many of these historical burial sites have fallen into crumbling disrepair, but a restoration project underway is bringing New Orleans cities of the dead back to life.а аAnd it’s a very worthy cause for these magnificent tombs encrypt the flower of New Orleans’ French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish societies, showcasing the impressive diversity of this incredibly multicultural city. The quiet, peaceful cemetery is eerily beautiful, even in the daytime.

Established in the late 1700s, the cemetery, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the city’s oldest active and reportedly most haunted of its 40 plus graveyards. Many claim to have seen the ghost of infamous Voodoo Queen and Priestess Marie Laveau, one of the most notable people interred within. Believers and non-believers alike make pilgrimages to the tomb of this mysterious free woman of color who knew many secrets of New Orleans high society. As if she still has power beyond the grave, visitors leave offerings to her spirit in return for what they hope will be blessings or wishes granted.

St Louis Cemetery No. 1 also holds the crypt of well-respected French-born architect and engineer Barthelemy Lafon. аA New Orleans resident and wealthy philanthropist, Lafon lived an intriguing double life. A father and long-term partner to a woman of color, Lafon turned to piracy and smuggling after the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, even working with notorious pirate Jean Lafitte.

The reported remains of Madame Delphine LaLaurie, New Orleans Creole and socialite are also in this cemetery. But Madame LaLaurie’s real and quite horrifying persona was revealed after a fire broke out in her residence. Police and fire marshals found evidence of her torturing and brutally murdering her own personal slaves. Though she and her family escaped to France, many believe she returned to New Orleans prior to her death and remains here still to this day.

Others buried here are 9th century international chess champion Paul Morphy, and Homer Plessy, one of the early founders of the Civil Rights Movement and plaintiff in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court segregation decision Plessy vs. Ferguson. Though the higher court upheld segregation, it was in 1954 that the highest court in the land ruled in Brown vs. the Board of Education that the establishment of separate schools for blacks and whites was unconstitutional. Even famous actor Nicholas Cage has reserved his final resting place in a bizarre pyramid-shaped tomb here merely awaiting his arrival.

Upon initial development, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was divided into sections for Catholics, non-Catholics, and Negroes, possibly referring to the many “gens de couleur libres” (free people of color) who were also buried here, all according to their religion. Due to its prime location near the heart of the city and its French Quarter, needs for the burial site grew exponentially over time.а Above-ground vaults constructed in the 18thаand 19thаcenturies housed multiple family members upon their deaths.

Due to recent-years desecration of the tombs, the cemetery once open to the public is now only accessible with a licensed tour guide. However, this is where the inside scoop on some of the graveyard’s history gets very fascinating.

In 1878, thousands died in a yellow fever epidemic that spread through the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries. In 1905, the last major outbreak occurred in New Orleans. City records show over 41,000 deaths due to the deadly viral scourge carried by mosquitoes breeding like wildfire in the surrounding swamps.

Burials were performed quickly to avoid any prolonged contact with what was believed to be an “infected body”. Temperatures reaching upward of 150 to 200 degrees in the tombs served as a natural cremation process. Each time the tomb was opened to place another dead body; the graveyard worker would take a 10-foot pole and push the bones to the back of the vault making room for the newly deceased. New Orleans cemetery historians claim the term “wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole” referred to this very practice.

Initial symptoms of yellow fever included fever, headache, vomiting and backache. The disease progresses rapidly, resulting in a slow, weakened pulse. In the rush to bury the bodies, there were occasions when individuals were literally buried alive. Graveyard workers could hear screams for help coming from inside the crypts in cases where the individuals actually woke up from their comatose state and realized they were entombed.

There’s a widespread notion that a well-known expression owes its origins to these inadvertent burials. It was common practice to attach bells to the index finger of the deceased, so that if some unfortunate person was mistakenly pronounced dead and prematurely laid to rest, they could ring for help and literally be “saved by the bell”.

Burials occurred through the daylight hours so there was always activity in the cemetery, but it was during the quiet hours in the still of the night that workers were assigned to stroll through the graveyard with a lantern, watching and listening for the bells and faint cries for help. And it is highly possible the term “graveyard shift” originated from this routine, yet disturbingly macabre practice.

Whatever graveyard stories or notions are true, one thing remains certain. The many mysteries surrounding New Orleans oldest cemetery still attract historians and visitors from all over the world who reverently walk through the graveyard as if to avoid disturbing the restful (or restless) slumber of the dead. In one of his chronicles, the late Bob Dylan said the “first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds-the cemeteries, to which he adds: “Better to let them sleep”.

Private Voodoo Temples and Cemetery Experience of New Orleans

If You Go:

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is located on Basin St. just off the French Quarter in the heart of New Orleans.

Start Searching for Hotel Deals in New Orleans Today! Click Here!

About the author:
Noreen Kompanik is a published freelance travel writer and photographer based in San Diego, California. She is a member of the ITWA and IFWTWA and shares many of her adventures, stories and photos on her What’s In Your Suitcase? Facebook site.

All photos by Theresa St. John
A graveyard shift passageway
Voodoo queen Marie Laveau’s tomb
Nicholas Cage’s future burial site
Burial site holding multiple family remains

USA: Exploring Summerville, South Carolina

Heritage and Hot Dogs

by Gwyn Goodrow

Summerville, South Carolina displays an artist’s palette of blooming bright pink azaleas contrasting against the backdrop of green pine forests. Children play on a bridge over a gurgling creek while chirping birds echo their energetic laughter. Add some Southern hospitality, a few friends, and a healthy dose of sweet iced tea, and it’s time to explore this paradise known as Summerville, “The Flower Town in the Pines.”

Begin your exploration at the Summerville Visitor Center (402 N. Main Street) with brochures, maps and activity suggestions, including museums, events, walking tours and driving tours. Just as a map centers you geographically, a historical context grounds you to the town’s development.

With maps in hand, are you ready for the history lesson? The Summerville-Dorchester Museum (100 East Doty Avenue) is just a few blocks from the Visitor Center, on the west side of the railroad tracks. Take a pause at the train tracks – the stories of train travel and train-based commerce are integral to the history of Summerville and the museum.

The Summerville-Dorchester Museum stands on land formerly owned by Eagle Creek Lumber Company as noted in early town records. In the 1920’s, the Town of Summerville built a one-story Water Department building on the site. Some fifty years later, the city Police Department resided in the building. Then, in 1993, the Summerville-Dorchester Museum launched its grand opening, showcasing a cistern from Water Department days, holding cells and artifacts from police station days, and numerous historically significant displays of progression from a lumber harvesting outpost to a modern city of more than forty-five thousand residents.

Touring the Summerville-Dorchester Museum, you will hear tales of influential families of the city, from football coaches to teachers to entrepreneurs. My favorite biographical stories were about Saul Alexander and Catherine “Kitty” Springs. Both are stories of intrigue and how hard work, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit were evident during the town’s growth. Their legacies live on today in generosity to the city they cherished.

Saul Alexander came to America from Russia in 1900 at the age of sixteen. He worked in New York City for four years before moving to Summerville, South Carolina for the rest of his life. In 1914, Saul opened the Saul Alexander Dry Goods Store and provided tailoring and alterations services. The Saul Alexander Garden House located in the park adjacent to the museum displays a poker table mounted on a Singer sewing machine’s treadle base. Mr. Alexander was known as a generous man with integrity and kindness in his personal and business dealings. Upon his death, funds from his estate were secured in the Saul Alexander Foundation, which provides annual distributions to more than fifty religious, educational, and charitable organizations in the Summerville and Charleston area.

Kitty Springs, formally known as Catherine B. “Kitty” Smith Springs, was a Charleston-based seamstress and dressmaker who sold beautiful custom hats using a wagon for transportation. In later years, she became an astute businesswoman and property owner. Various sources report that Kitty was of bi-racial or multi-racial heritage. Possibly the descendant of native Lowcountry Cherokee Indians, African-Americans, and European whites, these cultures influenced her desire to help the local Indians and the multi-racial poor of the area. Kitty donated a parcel of land and money to build St. Barnabas Mission, a day school that also served as a public health center and mission church. Kitty is remembered not only for her economic achievements as a businesswoman but also for her benevolence and generosity. The wooden St. Barnabas Mission Chapel with bright red trim is now known as Bishop Pengelley Memorial Chapel (705 South Main Street).

After touring the museum, stroll along the Walking Trail of Homes and Flowers, a free self-guided tour of 20 homes on Rutherford Street, Sumpter Avenue, and 5th South Street, which begins at the aptly named Azalea Park (105 West 5th South Street). During this one hour walk, you will see majestic homes with meticulously manicured gardens, century-old trees stretching higher than the multi-storied residences, and architecture ranging from Queen Anne Victorian to hunting lodges and Antebellum Plantation home styles. The Dr. William Prioleau House [TOP PHOTO] is a circa 1819 home displaying a red-turreted roofline and white wrap-around porch. Dr. Prioleau was a pharmacist in Charleston and authored influential papers on Summerville as a resort destination for healing lung ailments, boosting the international interest in Summerville’s resort inns.

The walking tour ends at the Azalea Park, with winding trails pleading for you to meander its 16 acres while admiring the award-winning sculpture artworks. You will probably work up an appetite with all of that walking. If so, head on over to the fun and funky hot dog restaurant featured on the television series “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” Perfectly Franks Restaurant (119 North Main Street) takes the simple hot dog to a new level, starting with the menu. For less than $4.00 each, feast on the political Benjamin Franklin (hot dog topped with chili and homemade cheese sauce), or croon along while munching the Frank Sinatra (featuring homemade bleu cheese slaw), or feel the southern blues with an Aretha “Frank”lin (BBQ sauce, slaw, and crispy onion toppings). You get the idea by now. The restaurant is open Monday – Saturday 11:15 am – 8:30 pm. Expect a line during the lunch service. The seating area has tables for two, four or more and the regulars eagerly welcome newcomers to join their tables. Burgers, tacos, and salads are also available.

After what was, quite frankly, a delicious lunch, I toured the historic downtown shopping district near the Farmer’s Market, where I discovered Guerin’s Pharmacy (140 South Main Street), the oldest pharmacy in South Carolina, in business since 1871. Inside, the 1920’s soda fountain counter offers ice cream, floats, fountain sodas, and candies, where generational traditions have been established. There are no stools at the counter, true to the historical context in the early 1900’s.

The Village Knittery (219 South Cedar Street) is a must-visit for yarn crafters. The outside appearance as a quaint community shop from Olde England belies the fact that the interior is expansive with plenty of room for project work, shopping, or just admiring the completed items on display. With open seating and experienced crafters on hand, I was delighted at how the owner spent time discussing different knitting tools and techniques to an absolute beginner. Crafters meet to work ongoing projects during the Wooly Wednesdays (noon – 5 pm).

As you wander Summerville’s downtown shopping area, or drive through the historic homes district, or shop the fresh farmer’s market produce, the echoes of history reach out and guide you through a multi-faceted discovery of this modern community, still deeply threaded into the roots of Americana.

If You Go:

Summerville is located 26 miles north of Charleston, South Carolina, along the I-26 route.

For history and general knowledge:

Summerville-Dorchester Museum

Visitor’s Center

Summerville Dream

For dining:

Perfectly Franks

Café Italia

Guerin’s Pharmacy

For shopping:

The Village Knittery

Stroll Main Street historic area

For lodging:

Courtyard Charleston Summerville

Pet-Friendly downtown B&B -The Pink Dolphin

About the author:
Gwyn Goodrow is an avid traveler and enthusiastic crafter residing in central Mississippi, with deep southern roots tracing back four generations to 1850’s. She has traveled throughout North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand. Gwyn’s travel articles have appeared in Travel Post Monthly and MilesGeek.com. In addition, she blogs about travel and crafting at www.crochetgetaway.com

All photos by Gwyn Goodrow
The Dr. William Prioleau House
“Follow the Leader” Sculpture by W. Stanley Proctor in Azalea Park
Pine Forest Inn replica room at Summerville-Dorchester Museum
Azalea Park “Hop To It” Sculpture by Kim Shaklee dedicated in 1999
The Village Knittery

Allied Arts Guild, a Local Secret in Menlo Park, California

by Eva Barrows

Menlo Park, CA has swallowed up a secret under the canopy of its tree-lined streets. A few boring brown historical marker signs on the main street, El Camino Real, weakly hint at the existence of something worth exploring in the adjoining neighborhood.

“How’d you hear about us?” The grandmother aged store clerk asked me as I perused the Artisan Shop.

“Online,” I’d said not thinking about the reasoning behind her question. My attention was on the hand-crafted fur embellished Eskimo doll and red-faced European style marionettes for sale.

“Good job,” she said as she worked at straightening some hanging jewelry.

My husband, an artist, was intrigued when I told him I’d found a hidden art guild he’d never heard of nestled in a Menlo Park neighborhood. He eagerly agreed to join me during a break in January rain storms to explore the Allied Arts Guild compound.

The Allied Arts Guild is a network of historic and architecturally interesting structures. Some buildings like the sheep shearing shed turned pottery studio and the barn which is now a woodworking shop are original 1800’s era ranch buildings. Other buildings were re-imagined or newly constructed in the Spanish Colonial style around 1930 when the Allied Arts Guild was formed.

Artwork created in the 1930s has seamlessly melded into the idyllic ambiance of the Guild’s grounds. The tiered courtyard fountain creates the soothing sound of trickling water. A colorful fresco was painted onto the recess of the music room’s exterior wall. Original 1930s pottery overflows with plant life. Examples of the pottery are arranged amongst each other to silently welcome visitors.

We poked our heads into art guild member shop windows to find out what types of art the members were busy creating. There was a closed quilt shop that featured piles of colorful folded stacked fabric. The pottery studio was open and featured Japanese style details such as bud vases attached to lengths of bamboo. My husband was disappointed to find the Portola Art Gallery was closed for the day. The gallery represents current local artists in a wide variety of art styles.

On weekends my husband and I usually move slow and thankfully we arrived just before the Blue Garden Café stopped serving lunch. I ordered a steak panini, and my hubby ordered a turkey and cheese panini. I was delighted by the tender and tasty meat and he was pleasantly surprised by apple slices in his sandwich! The meals were on the expensive side but we didn’t mind too much because we enjoyed every bite.

We walked the brick-lined garden path and noticed a few other couples exploring the unique grounds. A group of parents with young boisterous children came to play amongst the adobe style courtyards and pathways.

The day became increasingly gray and threatened rain. It was time to take shelter so we headed to the car. I watched as the parents slipped back out to the road, pulling children in wagons or chaperoning an unsteady tricycle. This recreation seeking group knew the secret of the Allied Arts Guild. To them the Guild was just a part of the neighborhood.

If You Go:

Allied Arts Guild:
Open Monday through Saturday – 10am-5pm
75 Arbor Road at Cambridge Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Phone – 650.322.2405

Where to Eat:

Blue Garden Cafe
P.F. Chang’s at Stanford Shopping Center
Jeffrey’s Hamburgers in Menlo Park

About the author:
Eva Barrows is a San Francisco Bay Area freelance writer. Eva writes about local places, people and events on her website www.evabarrows.com. She founded the online literary journal Imitation Fruit in 2007 and has enjoyed promoting fellow writers and artists ever since.

Photos by Eva Barrows

Arizona: Mission San José de Tumacácori

A Fusion of Frontier Cultures

by Victor A. Walsh

Shafts of early morning light flit across the two-lane paved road like an illusion. The rolling hills of the Santa Cruz Valley are painted in tones of eerie gray. Shadows linger in the ravines.

We arrive at the ruin of Mission San José de Tumacácori (Too muh ka KO re) off Arizona Highway 19 by 7:30 a.m., a half-hour before it opens. Everything is closed, including the restaurant and tourist shops across the street.

The rising light shimmers off the large mesquite trees creating spider webs of shadows out of their twisted gnarled branches. The top of the yellow stucco enclosure wall seems to glow in the warm light. I wonder if what I’m seeing is a momentary illusion of Tumacácori’s shattered past. Founded in 1691 by the intrepid Jesuit missionary and explorer, Fr. Eusebio Francisco Kino, the original mission would serve as the northern most outpost of Spanish Christendom in Arizona for over a century against near insufferable odds of struggle among different cultures in harsh desert conditions.

My friend Dick and I wait patiently, watching two big black crows circling overhead. At 8 a.m., we enter. The grounds are empty. The mission church, which was built between 1800 and 1823, stands on the far side of a barren field as it probably looked in 1908 when President Theodore Roosevelt declared Tumacácori a national monument. The massive bell tower and kiln-fired adobe brick walls stand obliquely, silently in the morning light. Time has stopped here as if inhabited by the ghosts, by dreams somehow gone astray.

In the garden we meet our guide Wally Mohr, an effusive retiree brimming with ideas. He tells us that the mission was originally founded on the site of a Pima or Akimel O’odham Indian village on the opposite (east) bank of the Santa Cruz River. “Tumacácori is a Spanish phonetic translation of the O’odham name for their village,” he says. “It probably means ‘rocky flat place.’”

The Akimel O’odham, we learn, invited Kino to visit them. “He made Tumacácori into a year-round, self-sustaining community by bringing livestock and fruit trees to the O’odham,” says Wally, pointing at a small pomegranate and apricot tree in the garden. “He learned their language, and treated them with great respect. Unlike most missions, there was no forced conversion here.”

We walk inside to the room with a model of the mission as it probably looked in the early 19th century. Along with the church, it features housing for the O’odham converts, numerous workshops, an irrigation system, a school, granary, cemetery and mortuary chapel, gardens, orchards and fields of beans, squash and corn.

Spanish Catholic devotions and practices were not fundamentally different from the traditional polytheistic beliefs of the O’odham. “When the Jesuits arrived, they brought even more Gods, only called saints. They had the cross, the statues of the saints, the holy water—all symbols of divine presence and intercession,” explains Wally. “The O’odham have a creation story like Noah’s Ark in which a great flood destroyed all the evil people. Their God, I’itoi, who led the first people out of the Underworld, is the equivalent of Jesus Christ.”

Once outside, I stare again at the church’s pale brown adobe façade decorated with a rich fretwork of pilasters and curved and pointed arches and a lofty redbrick bell tower. Big swaths of white lime plaster cling to the wall. Some of the original paint is still visible under the cornice below the main window. In its day this frontier church must have been a dazzling spectacle of color and architectural elegance; in fact, it still is — a testament to a steadfast communal faith that seems sadly out of step in modern society.

The interior is even more colorful. The lime-plaster walls of the nave are embedded with crushed red brick and decorated with Mexican baroque statuary and carvings of the Stations of the Cross. The walls surrounding the altar and the towering domed ceiling above it are still adorned with traces of the original painted and stenciled devotional imagery. The flickering candles, mosaic of color and images, and sound of choir voices echoing throughout the great hall must have brought tranquility to parishioners, Indian and non-Indian alike. The bonds of faith, born from a higher spiritual purpose, kept them together.

The church regrettably was never completed, stymied by the intractable forces of history. The struggle for Mexican independence from Spain brought chaos to the region and neglect of the missions. Apache raids once again devastated the Santa Cruz Valley. Funds for construction were meager, and epidemics of smallpox took a frightful toll among the children — so great that a new cemetery was created for their internment in 1822. Six years later Tumacácori lost its last resident priest when the Mexican government ordered all Spanish-born residents to leave the country.

Indian converts and a few settlers with the aid of visiting Mexican priests held on for another two decades. During the war against the United States, Mexico could neither defend nor supply the beleaguered mission. Lieutenant Cave Johnson Couts on his way back with U.S. troops from the 1847 campaign in Mexico noted in his journal:

At Tumacácori is a very large and fine church standing in the midst of a few conical Indian huts…This Church is now taken care of by the Indians….No priest has been in attendance for many years, though all its images, pictures, figures, etc. remain unmolested, and in good keeping.

Mounting Apache raids and a bitterly cold winter in 1848 finally drove out the last residents. They carried with them the church’s holy statues, chalices and priestly vestments to San Xavier del Bac, the Tohono O’odham Indian church near Tucson.

More than anywhere else, the cemetery enclosed by high adobe walls around the mortuary chapel tells the mission’s story. There is no trace of mission-era Indian graves – long ago destroyed by weather, treasure hunters, and cattlemen who used the cemetery as a corral. Around 1900, Indian families, who remembered Tumacácori’s past, began to bury their dead once again on this holy ground – campo santo.

Mounds of rocks and old wooden crosses mark the gravesites. A few of them have bouquets of artificial flowers. There are no names; just stillness as the branches of two old mesquites cast a quilt work of zigzag shadows across an adobe wall.

If You Go:

Getting There:

Tumacácori National Historical Park is located off of Exit 29 of Interstate 19, forty-five miles south of Tucson, Arizona, and nineteen miles north of Nogales, Arizona. The park is open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Getting Around:

The best way to get to Tumacácori is by care, although buses, shuttles and taxis are available in nearby towns, along with renting bicycles.

History and Attractions:

In 1990, Congress designated Tumacácori a national historical park. The re-designation included the mission ruins of nearby Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi and San Cayetano de Calabazas. These ruins are not open to the public, but can be visited during the winter months as part of scheduled reserved tours.
The National Park Service’s mandate is to preserve the mission ruins. After residents left in 1848, the mission deteriorated. Its current appearance reflects this historical circumstance.
The mission hosts a variety of special events, including Day of the Dead festivities on November 2nd and the popular La Fiesta de Tumacácori during the first weekend in December.
The Cathedral of San Xavier del Bac, located just south of Tucson off I-19, is perhaps the finest example of Spanish colonial architecture in the United States. It is a living parish community, the mother church of the Tohono O’odham (the Desert People).
Located just north of Tumacácori on I-19, Tubac Presidio State Historic Park is a quiet enclave that evokes a bygone era. The park includes the 1752 presidio footprint, an excellent museum, and an innovative underground archaeology display. The town itself has many antique and handicraft shops around the main square.
Best time to visit the Santa Cruz Valley is during summer when many rural border towns hold celebrations such as the Día de San Juan and the Fíesta de San Agustín, two festivals with roots extending back to the Catholic Spanish era.

Accommodations:

Santa Cruz County is a major hub of tourism and different types of accommodations from expensive resorts to lodges, inns, motels and B&Bs are available in nearby towns like Green Valley, Amado, Tubac, Rio Rico and Nogales. Camping is available at the U.S. Forest Service’s Bog Springs and White Rock Campgrounds and RV parks exist off I-19 in Amado and on Route 82 twelve miles east of Nogales.

For More Information:

Contact Tumacácori National Historical Park, P.O. Box 67, Tumacácori, AZ 85640, (520) 398-2341.

About the author:
Victor A. Walsh spends his time when he’s productively unemployed prowling forgotten or unusual destinations looking for stories that connect a place and its people to their remembered past. His historical essays and travel stories have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, American History, Literary Traveler, California History, Rosebud and Sunset, among other publications.

Photos by by Richard Miller and Victor A. Walsh.