But the day has a surprise in store for us, and we end up spending a good portion of the day in a place that my guide does not mention: a tire service center. We have a flat in the back of the RV, we try to pump it up with the compressor but the tire loses air faster than we can pump it. Petr asks the campground manager for assistance and we soon realize that both back tires on the right side are flat. We must have hit something huge! (The RV has 6 tires in total, two are paired up in the back). We need to make a house call and a truck comes out to the rescue. We need two brand new tires and possibly one more that will soon blow out. So after the 2 news are mounted, we drive out to the service center for realignment and replacement of another tire. By the time we are done, it's too late to bike to the park.
500 bucks later and with 3 brand new tires (The RV really drives much better now) we hop on our Vespa and drive to the park.
We still have a few hours of light and there's only an 8-mile loop road inside the park that we can drive on, the rest is backcountry. We drive among huge cacti all the time. There are pullouts along the road and short walks in the desert to admire the flora. The park has the highest concentration of Saguaro cacti in Arizona, and the widest variety of succulents (over 300 species). We learn that a Saguaro starts developing branches after 75 years of age, so we assume that many of them are over 100 years old! They can reach 30 ft in height. How can they survive and thrive in such an arid place? Arizona boasts 300 days of sunshine a year, rain showers are few and far between. The Saguaro has an inner wooden cortex and the outer layer is the one that expands and retracts based on the water content, like an accordion. We learn that when it rains, though, it pours and accumulation is up to one inch in 10 minutes, which means that the dry sand does not have enough time to absorb all the water and the rainfall creates torrential rivers gushing down the washes. These rivers can disappear in a matter of just a few hours. No wonder we see many road signs even in town alerting about flash floods in many areas. We see another road sign in town that says: "Warning, ice may be present on bridge". Ice?? Here? It's the end of November and we are in shorts, sandals and sleeveless T-shirts. When does it freeze around here? It must be 90° right now...
Welcome to Saguaro National Park!
One lonely cactus.
Another one with many arms.
A happy Saguaro family.
This one from the profile looks like it's gesticulating in the air.
Desert flowers.
Another type of cactus.
More Saguaros.
This is a Cholla cactus.
This one is purple.
Another one.
This is a Barrel cactus, it blooms on top and always leans South.
Another lonely Saguaro.
And another one.
More cacti.
Yellow flowers.
This looks deformed.
Here it is, it's interesting to see its accordion-style stripes.