The Sonoran Desert is a big desert that is in the northern end of the State of Sonora in México and the southern end of the State of Arizona in the United States of America. Its southern tip almost touches the Gulf of California and the biological reserve of Altar is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
I joined a two-day, one-night camping trip with Pinacate Tour and started at 6am on a Saturday in downtown Hermosillo, the state capital of Hermosillo.
The van then got to the small cities of Santa Ana, Carborca, and finally the border town Sonoyta for supplies and loos. Then we drove along the US-Mexican border with the border fences until we went into El Altar.
The first sites were the Pinacate Peaks. They were volcanos surrounded by the desert who has farmed extraterrestrial-like landscape, so much so NASA has sent astronauts to train in the area twice. The greatest of them all is El Elegante, although in person you cannot see the impressive-looking creator very well. The indigenous people were called the Pinacatenos but they have disappeared. There was still reception in that area for the most part.
Then, we went to the camping site, where we set up for everything for the night. The bonfire, barbecue, the tents. We ate and chatted before going to bed. Before that, we also took photos with the night sky. Even though there were no artificial lights there, the Moon was shining so brightly that it's easy to see everything.
We woke up the next day to leave at 7am with the sunrise. We went to the Colorado Hill where the river once was.
Then, we went back to the border before turning to the museum (closed) and the dunes. The dunes were around 2.5km away, which didn't sound that bad except we had to walk through the desert to get to the top. It's tiring and for me a 1.5-hour walk round-trip. I got really hungry at the dunes.
Then, we head to the gulf town of Porto Penasco for a late lunch. We didn't do much there, it's just a small resort town.
After that, it's the long way back to Hermosillo.
It's not as cold as I thought it would be, and actually pretty hot when we were walking during the day. As we could charge on the van, there was never even a need to use my power banks, and we had reception from time to time on the road.