A (short) Trek Along the Migrant Trail

Thursday, 10 December 2009 00:32

(This story was written in the third person by Charles Golestani, one of the less then intrepid trekkers.) Photos by Charles Golestani unless otherwise noted

Our story begins in a place not far from the halls of the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona in Tucson, at an eatery where the scent of slabs of melted cheese and bread mixed with the piney scent of aromatic ales.  No Anchovies was a very unlikely place for someone to find inspiration, but among the greasy food and thick, heady beer, three men found a way.

Charlie walked leisurely down Main Gate Square on his way to meet Austin Counts, just to catch up.  He never knew that when he arrived, he would be taking the first steps of a great adventure.

“What ya been up to Charles?”  Austin always called Charlie ‘Charles’ when he was asking him how life was going.  It was an endearing quality; only family called him by that name.

Charles explained that he had pitched an idea in Border Beat, a student-run online publication where people living in the borderlands and also worldwide could read about issues of great importance and cultural significance.

He would hop trains in Guatemala he explained, a Spanish-speaking country in Central America.  With a group of fellow journalists and photographers, he would document the journey of migrants who stole away on boxcars to come to Mexico and eventually migrate to the U.S.  The planning would take some time and the cost would be great.

Austin wore a look of disbelief.  As it turned out, he had a similar project in mind that would take much less planning and document some of the same of what Charlie hoped to.

The two rejoiced, talked back and forth, drank and continued to formulate their plan: they would trek across the Sonoran Desert from the Mexican-U.S. border.  They would document the trip and share the plight of millions with the world with the signts and sounds they intended to capture.

But they realized they didn’t speak the local language.  Spanish was a bit of a mystery to them, and they’d need a competent speaker.

But a light bulb went off in Charlie’s mind.  He pulled out his phone and texted a man of many talents, Curtis Prendergast.  Curtis phoned back in a frenzy.

“What’s up?  What’re you guys up to?”

Charlie outlined his plan to Curtis.  Curtis was so ecstatic he said, he’d jump on his bike and meet them there as soon as he could.

The three drank the night away, eventually heading back to Charlie’s girlfriend’s place to run the idea by “the average reader.”  She too seemed excited, but like the boys, made sure to point out that they faced dangers: broken ankles, incarceration and possible death by the hands of coyotes – human smugglers.

Preparations were made in the next weeks.  Curtis drew up a mission statement, what the group hoped to accomplish.  The three came into the project with their own aims so a broad statement was made: to document the migrant trails from Sasabe, Arizona heading north to Tucson.

A generous Curtis offered to bankroll the supplies with a new round of loans he’d been given: a burner for cooking, first aid supplies and boots were of top importance.

The trip was planned for the weekend of the 13th of November, a Friday.
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The trip began on a disconcerting note.  Heath Vescovi-Chirodi, Charlie’s roommate agreed to drive the group.  After a short talk with U.S. Borders and Customs, the boys were bouncing along parallel with the iron border wall.

Their first sight at the wall’s end: bones.

A horse carcass, partially decomposed and still covered in a thin layer of skin lay at the edge of the mountains.  A warning the boys thought.

“Friday the thirteenth AND horse bones?” Austin said.  “Scary.”

The boys said their goodbyes warily, visible shaken, but not before taking a parting photograph.

“Use this on my obituary,” Charlie said to Heath as he handed over his truck keys.  Heath laughed good-naturedly.

The journey began at 11:30 a.m. on a Friday.  It was quite the weekend getaway, Charlie thought.
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The plan was for three days.  Three days to walk the chilly Sasabe Corridor and into Three Points, 45 miles north of the border.

They’d each packed 50 lbs. worth of dried food, water and recording equipment along with their other supplies.  The first few miles were easy going as their thick, reinforced heels ate up the terrain.  They stopped long enough to photograph dozens of empty water bottles and gallons discarded under the shade of palo verdes.  They followed the mountains north.

They’d also packed a GPS.

But they’d never learned how to properly program it; they walked north, effectively blind.

After three hours, sore shoulders and aching feet prompted the boys to break for five minutes.  They’d zig-zagged their route, avoiding the virtual border wall , which discovers desert trekkers via electronic seismic impulses and camera sightings from atop a 50-ft tower.  They’d climbed under fences and over rocky terrain.

They’d stayed close to the Highway 286, the only road into and out of Sasabe as a precaution, but didn’t want to stay too close if they were going to make the trip “the migrant way.”  They talked over dried banana chips and an apple each.  It was hard to judge how far they’d gone by their coordinates on the GPS.

They decided to walk for as long as they could until nightfall that night and document all they found.

When next they continued, their pace picked up. They walked briskly, leaving one to photograph while the others scouted ahead.  They found backpacks, old cans of menudo and even bicycles.

“It’s like another world out here,” Austin said.

It was truly strange: no civilization save for the occasional car passing on the road to the east and the only human contact from anyone other than Border Patrol and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials.  An officer named Kirkpatrick who they met at a Humane Borders water station directed them to a campsite where they might spend the night.

The boys settled in, digging a fire pit and pitching their tent next to another group.  They cooked dinner - ravioli in the can since they’d forgotten to bring cups.  And discussed their plan of attack for tomorrow.

Their “fireside budget meeting” was proposed because officer Kirkpatrick had let the boys in on a piece of information: six miles.

That’s how far they’d gone in 5 hours.

Spirits were not necessarily broken, but they knew that at the pace they had gone, their goal of 20 to 25 miles each day for three days was a pipe dream.  They were on deadline and this project was only scheduled for this weekend.  It seemed they would not be “sipping beers at Anchovies Sunday afternoon” as they’d hoped.

They agreed that if tomorrow they had not made it 10 miles by noon, they would have to abandon the trip for the day and head home to salvage what they could from images and audio.

They heard sounds that night, or maybe they didn’t: they argued for some time as to whether something was lurking in the trees behind their tent.

“Tenemos comidas,” Curtis called into the darkness.  No reply came.  They all slept but not until the wee hours.

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They awoke at 11:30 the next morning.

Pain wracked their bodies; they felt like they’d been beaten in their sleep.

They weren’t sure if they’d make it now, but they packed up as fast as they could and set out.

They hurt, they hurt bad.

They stopped around 4:30 p.m. and Curtis took the time to bandage his feet.  They were chaffed and blistered.  The situation was looking bleak and they decided to head towards the road to see what their progress was.

Two miles.  They had tracked all over the desert back and forth searching for Humane Borders water tanks. They’d made less progress than the day before.  The votes were tallied and the majority said they had better pack it in.

Charlie phoned Heath from a tall hill about 10 miles south of Baboquivari Peak at 5:30.  Arrangements were made for them to be picked up from the 8-mile marker on 286.  The three traded plans for story ideas and toasted their failure with a bottle of celebratory rum.

To them, it was not such a great failure. They had not gone a great distance, true, and they might have overestimated themselves.  But they hurt, they were dirty and they had more photographs, video and audio commentary than they knew what to do with.  They had the story of the migrant trails and they had survived to tell it.

Now it was only a matter of finding HOW…

Written by Allana Erickson