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17th century. In those days the lush
valley harbored thousands of Indians
and it was Kino's goal in life to convert
the masses to Christianity. That this was
an ambitious undertaking is evidenced by
the old maps that show sketchily the Altar
Valley over 250 years ago. Santa Teresa,
San Bernardo Aquimuri, Busanic, Tucubavia,
Ootcam and Santa Barbara are now
all but forgotten, these the names of
missionary outposts within present-day
Sonora whose ruins have crumbled to
dust and are no more to be found. At
Atil and Saric vestiges remain of the old
buildings, while at Altar, Oquitoa and
Tubutama the ruins have been restored to
something of their former grandeur and
are presently in use as churches.
To shorten what would otherwise be
a long tale, there is a road connecting
Sasabe with the more southerly settlements
within the lower Altar River Valley.
But it is worse than poor. It's awful!
It is unlikely the present trail follows the
the ancient route of the padres. Rather, it
is a series of farm roads that zig and zag
between the sparsely located ranches. To
find it, one must begin at E. L. Jones'
border station at Sasabe, Arizona, which
lies just a few yards from the fence separating
the neighboring countries. Check
in at the Mexican aduana, or customs
house, a few steps on Mexico's side of
the fence. You'll need a tourist permit
and a car permit to proceed southward,
for the line denoting the "free zone,"
which wanders erratically as it vaguely
parallels the U.S./Mexico frontier, reached
here to the border.
Drive south down the only road leading
to Sasabe, Sonora, which lies unseen
from the border behind a range of low
hills. When your odometer has rolled up
7/10ths of a mile you'll be confronted
with a stop—rather, an alto—sign. Turn
TO -rut ew.F
AT LA UftCKTfD
left and you're on your way. From here
you're on your own. You'll go from one
rancho to another and have to open—and
make certain to close behind you!—no
fewer than 17 wire cattle gates along the
serpentine 34-mile road. You'll creep
along steep-edged canyons, bump over
stony ridges and, finally, dive into a veritable
tunnel with a roof of interlocked
tree branches. You can't get lost for
wherever there's a fork there's a house.
Each fork will consist of a "driveway" to
the house, while the other branch is the
correct one. No roads to anywhere take off
from the Sasabe-Saric trail. A late model,
conventional passenger car may make the
journey in dry weather, but an older car
with relatively high ground clearance and
heavy duty tires, or a pickup truck, is the
best bet. Nowhere did we have to engage
the 4-wheel drive on our Scout, and we
give credit for our success to its short
wheelbase and high road clearance.
Nothing much remains of the mission
Santa Gertrudis de Saric, founded 13
years after Padre Kino's first visit to the
four Pima Indian villages here. Like all
the missions of the Altar River Valley,
Saric flourished about 100 years then,
with expulsion of the Jesuits from Mexico,
it began a decline from which it never
recovered. Bells said to be the original
ones hang from a gallows outside the
village schoolhouse. There are no traveler's
facilities in Saric, though we were
befriended by a curious Mexican and put
up in his adobe casa for the night. Gasoline
may sometimes be procured from the
village store, and one or the other of the
two cantinas might be open.
The way becomes easier southward
from Saric. It is traveled by ranchers who
use Altar as their source of supply rather
than nearer Sasabe. An infrequent third
class bus sometimes bangs its way between
Altar and Saric, too.
A bit over eight miles below Saric the
road passes through the settlement of
Cerro Prieto, a ramshackle collection of
crude huts inhabited by poor farmers.
Nine-and-a-half miles further the
traveler will, without forewarning, jolt
into La Reforma, an agricultural community
of 400 souls who seemed surprised
that we, as Americans, had approached
town from the north.
La Reforma, by Sonoran standards, is
new. The site of neither a mission nor a
Spanish outpost, La Reforma is simply a
town of adobe-walled houses and a few
stores where outlying ranchers come for
their mail, to buy supplies, gas up their
trucks and tractors and, perhaps, spend
a Saturday night in one of the two cantinas
whooping it up or playing pool, a
Mexican rancher's favorite pastime.
A little way out of La Reforma the
traveler will spot a towering edifice
glistening in the sun atop a high knoll
some miles southward. This is the restored
mission at Tubutama, beautifully
executed and still in everyday use after
270 years. Forgotten Tubutama is just
2.2 miles from La Reforma. The road
scrambles up the conical hill on top of
which the town lies and the visitor will
find himself suddenly transported back
to the days of colonial Mexico. Ancient
windows, built high to let hot interior
air escape from the tall-ceilinged rooms
within, face out on the neatly kept plaza,
but the mission building commands the
center of attention.
Too often restorers have attempted to
combine the architectural styling of old
with modern touches—often with horrendous
results, but with Tubutama they adhered
to the old design as closely as they
could and still keep the ancient structure
February, 1967 / Desert Magazine / 13