LA TIERRA

The Chihuahuan desert is one of the world's most unique and diverse deserts and is North America's largest desert. Over 3,500 plant species, including 1/3 of the entire world’s 1,500 species of cacti, make their home in the Chihuahuan desert. Plant evolution is ancient here as the soil has seen massive temperature changes over the course of tens of thousands of years. Plant life has changed and adapted. Because of the changes, over 1,000 species of plants ONLY exist in this desert. Mule deer, wild burros, brother coyote, javelinas, and jaguars - over 170 species of fish and reptiles fill its lands and waters. Over 500 migratory bird species, along with endangered birds like the Baird’s sparrow and ferruginous hawk, fill its skies. It is also home to the Sierra Madre, Organ Mountains, Chisos Mountains, Guadalupe Mountains, and the list goes on. To say the least, the Chihuahuan desert is vast, spanning 9 states across Mexico and the United States.

  • Chihuahua

  • Coahuila

  • Durango

  • Zacatecas

  • Nuevo Leon

  • San Luis Potosi

  • Arizona

  • New Mexico

  • and Texas

Our beloved mother desert is isolated primarily by la Sierra Madre Occidental to the west and la Sierra Madre Oriental to the east. It receives a lot more summer rains during its monsoon storms than other deserts. Its topography is full of broad desert valleys, rolling mesas and endless mountain ranges that reach towards the skies. Heavier rains paired with massive basins create salt lakes (playas). Chaparral forests, Yucca woodlands, gypsum dunes, and freshwater habitats make every twist and turn you take within the Chihuahuan desert feel like you’re entering an entirely different world.

This part of our journey is centered around the present day Trans Pecos and Big Bend regions of West Texas, Coahuila, and Northeastern Chihuahua. These lands have seen volcanic lava, shallow seas, meteor impacts, wet lush woodlands, mammoths, bison, massive clay deposits, mounds of basalt salt, nopal forests, sacred hot springs, a precious body of water we now know as the Rio Grande.

The Rio Grande, also known as El Rio Bravo del Norte, itself is an ancient ancestor. Massive in its size, the Rio Grande spans almost 2,000 miles and is the 3rd longest river in the present day United States. Millions of living beings and ecosystems depend on this Grand Ancestor. Created by what scientists call the Rio Grande Rift, when the earth stretched and created a valley that became home to mountain streams that initially were considered Bolsons, with no external drainage and which created playas. Eventually, these waters would make their way from what we now know as the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado, into New Mexico, El Paso and the Big Bend, through the Trans Pecos and all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico in South Texas and Tamaulipas. The river’s flow into the Gulf of Mexico is relatively recent as the river has danced and changed throughout time. The river that we know now is millions of years old that has been shaped and changed by volcanic activity and erosion, and in more recent times - human control and domination of its natural seasons and flooding.

It’s believed that much archaeological evidence of human life around the Rio Grande has been buried under the Holocene floodplain, our current geological time scale that began around 12,000 years ago. Our current time frame includes all we know about life and civilizations.