It’s a special time of year outside the city market in the center of Hermosillo.
Fruit sellers sit behind trays and boxes brimming with red and green cactus fruits grown in Sonora, called pitayas. The fruits are only in season for a couple of months in the summer, and Hermosillo residents have clustered in front of vendors to take advantage of the short season.
The pitayas’ leathery skin splits to show bright red fruit flecked with black seeds. Brenda Chávez pulled the green and red orbs from a plastic bucket. Each pitaya costs 10 pesos, around 50 cents.
“They’re very good, very sweet,” Chávez said.
Chávez and the other pitaya sellers bring this fruit from Carbó, a town an hour north of the Sonoran capital. Farmers there harvested the plants hours before the sun rose.
Chávez has been selling pitayas for more than 30 years. It’s been a bad season, she said. There have been fewer fruits this year, and they’re smaller.
Chávez speculates it’s the lack of rain; the region is suffering from drought. But Hermosillo residents flock to buy the pitayas she does have.
“It’s a fruit of the desert, it’s natural, God gave it to us,” Chavez said.
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In the Sonoran Sky Islands region, one organization is working to bring back native species. But it’s running up against a lengthening border wall. -
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico restricted the movement of U.S. government activities in Nogales, Sonora due to “threat information.” -
A decision from the United Nations’ cultural preservation body, UNESCO, calls for a mission to the Sonora desert nature reserve to assess the impacts of the border wall. -
The investment goes toward modernizing the around 55 mile long stretch between the Lukeville-Sonoyta border crossing into Arizona and Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point. -
Mexico’s environmental protection agency is cleaning up more than 3,000 gallons of sulfuric acid that spilled when a tractor trailer overturned on a highway not far from the Arizona border.
