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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