23-Nov-2005 -- While most people head home, eat turkey and watch football for Thanksgiving, we foreign students (Two Canadians and a German) decided to take the break from classes at the University of Arizona to head to Mexico and attempt a desert confluence. A trip that was meant to start at 4:20 Tuesday afternoon from Tucson, AZ saw us arriving at midnight in Hermosillo to empty streets and friendly locals at a Mexican Sushi stand. Our trip was delayed again the next day because Tony's head didn't conform to Mexican hat sizes. It is imperative to have a good hat when confluence hunting in the desert. At 2:00pm Wednesday, outfitted in giant white sombreros, we made our way East towards Mazatan along highway 20 stopping to buy the essentials for the trip: batteries for the GPS and cervezas.

Turning left at the road sign for Adivino we headed along a bumpy dirt road and passed through the small town. The town centre consisted of a nice gazebo, sitting area and Catholic church. We were able to find a track that led us to within 2.2 km of the point. Thinking the track veered, we opted for the most direct route on foot through the Sonoran brush with its acacias, mesquites and cacti. The truly spiky stuff seemed to grow at the base of hills so we tried to stick to the ridges.

Nothing can touch me... not with my enormous big white hat helmet!

After climbing over barbed wire fences, removing cactus thorns from our shoes and pant legs and startling a few jackrabbits and quails, we found the dirt track again. It turned out the track had veered back and we could have driven to within 10 metres instead of hoofin' it cross country. As we got close, Dennis homed in on the spot and Tony impatiently held the beer, poised with finger on tab, awaiting notice of success.

After a quick ho-down at 4:20 we took our pictures and built an Inukshuk in true Canadian fashion. Dennis's German contribution was finishing his beer first.

Full of confidence, we considered another confluence(due South)and decided not to return to Hermosillo. Before we set out we celebrated with locals in the tiny town of Rebeico. In fact they had to wake the proprieter to open the town's only bar for us. We invited a few muchachos to join us and had to assure them that we were not searching for gold or mining prospectors for the local copper mine.

One hombre asked where we were headed next. We said Tonichi (the starting point for our second confluence). When they asked "Por que?", Tony replied "Por que no?" to much laughter. We decided to call Tony 'Tonichi' for the rest of the trip.

Unfortunately, Tony's mean lean offroading machine wasn't up to the challenge and we instead made our way back to Hermosillo. We passed a lonely donkey plodding along the roadside in the dark. At around midnight we were pulled over by the policia. They shone the flashlight in our windows and asked where we were coming from. All parties were surprised to realize that the police had never heard of Adivino.

We were pulled over again once we arrived in Hermosillo and had to bribe our first Mexican police officers (too much we might add). Unable to find cheap accomodation we then made a group decision to head West to the beach town of Nuevo Kino (which required more offroading than anticipated). We arrived at 4am and were again unable to find accomodation, so we pulled into a vacant lot up a small hill overlooking the beach and spent a night freezing in our sleeping bags under the stars. We awoke the next morning cold and hungry, determined to spend a day on the beach. We celebrated with a few more cervezas, called our trip a success and made out way back to Tucson, but not before a night out in the border town of Nogales.

No Shirt, No Shoes, Nogales!!!!!!