Driving With the Devil Part 2 -- The Highway Through Hell

I'm the Rock Hopper. I'll be driving down the Camino del Diablo, the Devil's Road, through a land of drug smugglers, a land where illegals cross the border, a land where dead bodies are routinely found decaying in the desert, a land called the Cabeza Praieta. We are now entering the Cabeza Praieta National Wildlife Refuge. It would appear that I am being watched right now. There look like there are a couple of cameras right on top of this tower here. Okay, let's register. Well, there's not much here but a scrap of paper and a pen, so I guess we'll just write whatever down. My vehicle, I guess. It tells a little bit about the Wildlife Refuge here, established in 1939. It also says that 90 percent, over 90 percent of the refuge was designated wilderness. Now, if you look at this map here and you see wilderness right here, this is wilderness. And what I have been told is they are building a border wall here in the wilderness and all the environmental laws were waived so they could do that. I can't even ride a mountain bike in a wilderness without getting ticketed and these guys have construction trucks and concrete, cement mixers and all that sort of thing going on. Here's a little information on the El Camino del Diablo, the Devil's Highway, a desolate and difficult 130-mile route that originally began near Sonoyta, Sonora and ended at Yuma, Arizona. And it gives some history about the first European to explore the area and the fabled cities of gold and the Jesuits and all that good stuff. The refuge was created to help the desert bighorn sheep and now it also helps the Sonoran pronghorn and the lesser long-nosed bat. Both the Sonoran pronghorn and the bat are endangered. Roads, railroads, fences, aqueducts and other modern developments fragmented pronghorn habitat and reduced their range. So you can just imagine how they're gonna fare when the border wall is put in and completed as it is going in right now. So it's gone from mud and muck to like a sandy kind of wet muck and mud. Looks pretty messy. It's definitely messy. The landscape has changed from the relatively verdant lushness of the cactus gardens to creosote flats. Come summer the temperatures can get close to 120 degrees out here. There's another blue flag. Let's have a look and see if it's another one of those blue water barrels. Indeed it is. Look at the way those clouds have just sunk right down into those mountains and obscured them from view. Pretty scenery out here. A real flavor of the West. Desert lilies are in bloom. Have a look at those cloud formations. Nice silhouette of Saguaro's against them. There's a lovely Saguaro couple. Camino del Diablo. That's a lot of water up here. Pretty deep too. Dang. Oh that's looking bad up ahead. Let's think about this for a sec. Well we'll see how deep this gets. Oh it's looking bad. Oh yeah it's looking pretty bad. We might have to back up here. All right let's go through here. I backed up through that first puddle. And we'll go this way. Yeah it was just gonna be way too deep. You know I'd have water coming into my car if I went through that huge puddle. That's probably two feet So we're good now. Carry on. Hey cool it's like a nice little Ocotillo garden right here. More rain. Oh that's funny. There's a speed limit sign out here. Good morning. Day three. El Camino del Diablo. It's cool and windy this morning. It rained again last night and was quite windy. And I camped in the Papago Campground. Papago Well is just down the road about an eighth of mile. And so yeah we're gonna see what we can find today. So the campground is basically just a place where you can pull off to the side of the road and get off the road a bit. And there's a couple of beat-up picnic tables here. This is the wolfberry plant. And if you look closely you'll see the berry. So we'll just take this one. Pretty tasty. It's like a desert goji berry. There's a faino pepla. And there's a very chirpy mockingbird. I met a conservation research scientist who also camped here last night. And he gave me some real interesting information. He works with the, in conjunction with the University of Arizona. And he said that about on average about 40, at least last year, there were 40 bodies found in the desert. Now the desert tends to recycle those bodies. And it is hard to piece together sometimes who it is. And if it's the same person or numerous people. Because the coyotes and the vultures, you know, they eat the dead bodies. Sometimes the remains are scattered over a wide area. Contrary to what you might think, it's not Mexicans necessarily coming up through the border. Although there are a few. Mainly these days it's Central Americans. Places like Guatemala and Honduras. And the Mexican coyotes, they bring them up to the border. And then they just, you know, set them free and say, you know, just head north. And that's what they try and do. But they're not gonna follow the roads. They're gonna follow their own little trails deep in the hills or wherever. Because they want to avoid detection by Border Patrol. So Border Patrol and the wall are not really gonna stop these people from coming. They're escaping dire circumstances in their own countries with bad governments and harsh living conditions and whatever else. And as the scientist said, the government is using death as a deterrent. But it doesn't seem to be working very well. And a little wall is not gonna stop them. Like one woman said, these are Mexicans, not Mexicans. In Pima County alone, over 100 bodies were found in the desert in one year. So just within the Cabeza Praieta alone, there were 40 bodies found in 2019. So the scientist told me that, in his going up, the Border Patrol themselves and the checkpoints along the highways some 60 or 70 miles north of the border are just exacerbating the problem and creating unnecessary hardship for the people who are coming here anyway. He said that the deaths and the hardship won't stop people from coming. It'll just result in more people dying. Plenty of sow thistle here to have a little bit of fresh greens. Salads are kind of hard to get out here. You got to take what you can get. Here's a look at Papago Well. Blue flags mean water. In this case, not just a little blue barrel, but a big tank. The scientist told me that people traveling on foot through the desert or coming from other countries will avoid these places because of the Border Patrol keeping an eye on them. That and the fact that these are right next to roads where the Border Patrol routinely drive. Unless the people are desperate and dying of thirst, they won't come here to get water. It's a good day to watch cloud formations. There's rain and thunder off for this place now. When I first was driving in here I felt a little bit nervous, slightly intimidated, probably because of all the Border Patrol agents roaming around. But now that I'm out here, I mean like really out here in the desert, I've only seen like one Border Patrol guy the whole day, I'm starting to get a real good feeling. I'm feeling like really appreciating the wilderness, the isolation, just the aloneness of a place like this. Being out here, really out here, this is good adventure. I like it. We'll be heading toward those mountains in the distance. You know what? I think I'm gonna take advantage of Papago Well here and wash my hair. That's better. I don't think my hair had seen shampoo for a week. Of course I've been roaming around the desert for a while and it's kind of hard to find water for bathing unless you use your own drinking water, which sometimes I do. All right, feeling refreshed. Let's hit the road amigos. The road report for today looks like sandy and washboardy and rocky too. So what I'm most concerned about, and I've heard it for the second time, is an area called the Playa. Apparently the Playa is an area of thick sticky mud and deep ruts and there's a good chance that the car is gonna hit bottom on that mud and it could be very difficult to get through. I don't even know if I'll be able to make it in this vehicle. I may have to turn back. I guess we'll find out. In the meantime though, we'll keep going through puddles like that. Looking pretty out there. Too bad it's so windy. The wind really screws up my audio. Now these Sony's, I think they give great visuals, but the audio is really affected by the wind and you get that really annoying wind sound, you know, when you're filming and I'm so sorry for when that happens. So until I can upgrade to some different equipment and get like a dead cat microphone, I guess I'll just try and, you know, reduce the wind as best I can. The skies sure are pretty today though. Real nice. All those big bulbous clouds. Looks like we're coming up to another Border Patrol outpost here. A lot more vehicles here than the other place. At least it didn't have that warm welcoming Auschwitz feel with all the fences and barbed wire and razor wire. This is the O'Neill grave and it's been decorated with various items and coins, horseshoes and shot glasses, as well as sunglasses. Border Patrol just stopped by and asked what I was doing. I told him I was just gonna look at that grave, which I just did and showed you, and then he told me some bad news. He said there was a truck stuck down at the playa and I was worried about that region and it's probably our scientist friend who got stuck. He said he's got a truck there, probably with a higher clearance than my vehicle, so there's no way I can get through because he said even his truck, his four-wheel drive pickup truck, would likely get stuck as well. So they're gonna pull him out. So maybe I'll just hunker down for a couple days and wait for the mud to dry out and then continue on. We'll see. Looks like someone ran over a kangaroo rat. You can see the hind legs and the hippity hop like a kangaroo. That's how they got their name. That machinery and those trucks there, I believe that's where they're putting in the border wall. It could have a hugely detrimental impact on local wildlife. Behind it, off in the distance, is probably Highway 2 in Mexico. Let's take a bike ride out to the playa and assess the situation. This is looking bad. Very, very bad. This is not a road. This is now a swamp due to the recent rains. Somewhere out there in the muck, our scientist friend's truck is stuck. They were unable to remove it. I don't even know where it is. They drove him back to their camp, I guess. I saw them. Even if somehow I could get through this, I would encounter the truck that's stuck in the road and not be able to get around it. This is not a road. It is a lake. You'd be better off flying a gondola down this thing. These guys are giving it a go. Looks like even those jeeps may have to turn around. Even the Border Patrol truck got stuck. They had to have a guy come in and pull him out. The Border Patrol trucks have high clearance and four-wheel drive. I was talking to a Border Patrol guy. I asked him a few things, like how he got into it. He's ex-military, and they often recruit guys getting out of the military for those jobs. He thought the guys in the jeeps may actually get stuck. He was hanging around that area just in case they get a call or something. It's looking pretty rough. I'm going to have to make a change of plans here. He said you definitely don't want to get stuck out there. If you do, they'll probably just have to leave the vehicle for a while until you get your people to come and try and get it unstuck, or you get fish and wildlife to come out at some point and try to get it out of there. If they do rescue you, they'll just get you and you can take your belongings, and they'll basically take you to the nearest town about 50 miles away and drop you off and say, you know, good luck. You can't stay at the Border Patrol station or anything like that. Even though the Border Patrol guys work, as the guy was telling me, about a week on and then take a few days off, nobody else can stay there. The Border Patrol guys all seemed to know that I'd taken a bike ride out to the playa. I'm sure they radioed each other, and I wouldn't be surprised if they ran a check on my license plates. When I got back to my car, there was a Border Patrol right there. How do I know this? Well, Border Patrol I spoke with later mentioned to me, hey, I heard you went on a bike ride. This will be where I'll camp for the night. And a bit of different scenery. A lot of saguaros here. Looking past the wall of saguaros, down into Mexico. The saguaros and clouds certainly make a pretty sight. It is kind of weird waking up in the morning and seeing these Border Patrol guys parked like a kilometer from your car, or less than that. Let's take a little bike ride down to the Mexican border. Good morning. It's day four out in the El Camino del Diablo in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. Looks like one of the Border Patrol trucks driving around last night ran over a young kangaroo rat. This is a seed pod from a plant, and they call it Devil's Claw. Kind of looks like bullhorns, doesn't it? I've reached the border of Mexico. You can see the vehicle barrier there, and at the moment, that's all that's here. But I'm going to show you something. This was once wilderness. All laws were waived, and they bulldozed a huge track through the desert, and knocked down all life in its path. In fact, they even moved the boundary of the Wildlife Refuge inland. And they propped up saguaros in an attempt, I guess, to save them. This is all that's left of some of the saguaros. All of this is being done so that they can construct the monstrous border wall. The vehicle barrier looks sufficient enough that they don't want people walking through. I've been out here for four days, and I've not seen any drug smugglers. I've not seen any illegals on foot. I've not seen any of the things that people believe happen here all the time. Sure, there are some strange things out here, and they do happen. Like last night, when I saw a helicopter flying to Mexico with no lights on. They couldn't actually see the helicopter because it had no lights on. But I heard it. All of this land here, where this huge strip is, was once part of the wilderness area. And there was to be no machinery allowed in here of any kind. Let's go step inside Mexico for just a sec. Okay, I'm in Mexico. I'm an illegal in Mexico right now. And over there is the United States. Maybe what we really need in the world is more understanding and less fear. People fear what they don't understand. And what I've learned is that all across the world, most people just want the same thing. They just want a full belly, a warm bed to sleep in at night, and a safe place to raise their children and live. It's really quite simple. Be wary of people who prey on your fears. There's big money to be made from fear. Many people who are really for the border wall have never even been to the borderlands, let alone the border itself. How's it going? All right. Oh, yeah. I didn't go through the flyer. Did you not read your map? Oh, what do you mean? You're off on a designated route right here. There was no sign back there. You don't need to have a sign. You need to read the map that was given to you. Oh, the border patrol guys came through here. They didn't say anything about it? Oh, okay. Sorry about that. I can leave. Can I get your ID, your driver's license? I guess. Are you guys... Oh. You know who we are. You talked to me at the... Oh, I talked to you at the visitor center. Yeah. Can I get your ID? Yeah, sure. I'll just reach in there and get it. Okay. Do you have any weapons in there? No. I would have figured the border patrol guys would have said something, because they're coming through here all the time. Okay. Can I see your map right there? Which ones do you want? This one right here. So, right there, on this map right here, this is telling you the roads that you're legally allowed to go on. Do you see any roads going south off that? Right, but I looked at... Do you see any roads going south off that? Right, but I was looking at this road here, brown section, whatever. Okay, answer the question. Do you see any roads going south off this road right here? There's not. The answer to that question is no, there's not. Okay, well, I'm sorry. I mean, I was confused, because I didn't see a marker, I didn't see a sign, and I thought, well, maybe it's... No, I mean, it's... I mean, I'm only, what, a quarter mile down? Well, that's not the point. The point is, this is not a designated route for the public to use. Well, what I would say is, like the other roads have a sign, I would say, you know, put a sign there. The sign's probably there. It's been stolen, obviously, because there have been signs there. And I would have thought, you know, the Border Patrol would have said something. Well, it's not their job to enforce our laws out here. Well, I know that, but I guess. But, I mean, they could have said something. See what you're coming from? But they don't want to get involved in our... I don't know what the good word for that is, as far as the... Not litigation, but the... Jurisdiction? Jurisdiction. There's a good word for that. Okay. Well, like I said, I didn't come very far, and I mean, I have to leave. I was just about ready to go anyway. I just wanted to have a snack and... Okay, just set that for me. Okay. Is everything correct on your driver's license? Yeah. I don't have my citation book with me, but you are going to receive a citation in the mail for driving off a designated route. Well, I was going to go through the playa, but obviously that's... I would tell you no. Don't do that. I was... That's the reason I came back. We have a vehicle stuck in there right now. I know. I heard. I talked to the younger Border Patrol guy, and he told me there was a vehicle stuck out there. Yes. And so that's why I just kind of came back and tried to figure out, well, what do I do next? Okay. That's all. You know, I mean, it's... I mean, I would have gone through the playa, and we wouldn't have had this issue at all, but then we would have had the issue of probably getting my vehicle stuck. That's true. I'm on another mission, because we have two vehicles stuck down here. So we're going to get these vehicles out. The other roads had the government vehicles only. This one did not have that sign. Okay. So... That's pretty black and white right there. Well, I don't know that it's black and white, because, you know... Well, do you see any roads going south out there? Well, that doesn't matter, because I didn't see a sign, and we can go around this all day. Yes, we can, but there's no roads going south out there. I mean, that's pretty black and white to me. But when you see a lot of vehicles... That's pretty common sense to me. I was parked up, you know, and I... If you would have stayed up there, we wouldn't be having this problem. I was parked up there, and I saw a lot of vehicles coming this way. Okay, this is an administrative trail for law enforcement only. Well, that's what it needs to have on the sign. Apparently, that sign was stolen, because it has that one there, in fact. Well, I'm sorry it was stolen. I'm sorry, too. I mean, but that's the way it is. You screwed me up. So, as you may have heard on that video clip, that wildlife officer is going to send me a citation in the mail with a hefty fine for going off an established road, apparently. Of course, there was no sign. It's like making a right turn after you've stopped at a red light, and an officer pulls you over and says, I'm going to give you a ticket for making a right turn. And you say, but there was no sign there. And he said, well, yeah, the sign got stolen, but you should have known better. And they said, you can't drive down this road. Of course, they can, and all the Border Patrol can. There is no signage here anywhere, none, that tells you that you cannot go down that road. And he can dispute that and say, you know, somebody stole the sign and blah, blah, blah, but it's not my responsibility. It's their responsibility to put the signs back up. So, I will fight this thing. This is the kind of signage the other road should have had. Now, if it had had a sign like that, I would not have gone down the road. Besides, I didn't go very far, maybe just a few hundred yards. With almost no chance of getting through the playa, it's best that we head back, go out the way we came in. The Border Patrol guy I was talking with last night said that it takes three days of solid sunshine at least to dry out the playa, and it only gives me a possibility of getting through the playa. There's no guarantee. So, I think the best bet is I just got to head back out the way I came in. And that's that, I guess, unless I go around and come in from another way, which I can do, because I've got the appropriate permits to go through the military base. As our scientist was telling us, people don't come to these wells, they don't come to the water, because the Border Patrol are often hanging out. My fears dissipated, especially when I went right to the border itself. I didn't see swarms of illegals waiting to come across the border. I didn't see throves of drug smugglers waiting to do a handoff to somebody on the other side. I just saw wilderness, and of course the devastation from where they're going to put a border wall. And most fear is just something in people's mind that is not really connected to the reality of most situations. One Border Patrol guy was eyeing my bicycle bags pretty thoroughly. I guess he wanted to make sure I wasn't peddling drugs. Ha ha! Oh, that was pretty bad. There's tension between the many factions out here. You have the immigrants, who want to come up for seasonal work or maybe stay here for a better life. You have the authority figures such as Border Patrol, National Wildlife Refuge authorities, and you have the National Park Rangers, and then you have the drug smugglers, and then you have the casual tourists who can get caught in the crossfire of the authorities' need to control everything and everyone in this region. Almost every problem in the world can be traced to too many people on the planet Here's some information I received about the border wall. It'll cut right through the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation, and it'll slice it in two. They've already blasted an area that is sacred to the Tohono O'odham, where they say their ancestors are buried. The U.S. government is still screwing over the Native American people. Sometimes I have to think, what century is this? The wall could lead to the extinction of jaguars and ocelots in this country. It could also lead to genetic dilution of the Sonoran pronghorn, making it no longer a viable species, and ultimately could contribute greatly to its demise and possible extinction. There are two or three jaguars in this country that have reestablished themselves. However, they are all male. Those jaguars will be unable to go get a mate and bring her up here. They're actually closing roads in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument for the border wall to be built. The damage from this huge swath carving through the desert and killing all life here in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in this case, is really rather horrific. It's a 52 foot wide swath right through what was absolutely pristine, untouched desert. Saguaros and Organ Pipe Cactus have been chopped down and cut up. This is the fate of so many saguaros. I remember the good old days in the 80s, when you could signal to a guy across the Rio Grande River in Texas, and he would row across and get you. You'd pay him a buck, and he'd ride you to the other side so you could go have dinner at a Mexican restaurant on the Mexican side. Those trucks, in case you're wondering, that's over in Mexico. This is Quito Piquito Spring in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and they have been draining this of its water to an extent to use to mix their cement with to build the border wall. Some people will love this idea of a border wall going in, and some people will hate it and think it's entirely unnecessary and a huge waste of taxpayer money. You can see the vehicle barrier to the right and to the left. This is the gigantic wall that will be replacing it all along the border. I don't even know what to say about this thing. You can decide for yourself. I love my wall. It's huge. Big. I did bigly on the wall. This is what's happening as you view this. Did you know that a 7-year-old girl scaled all the way to the top of this in less than 10 minutes? This is what your national monument looks like now. A border wall construction zone. Well, if this doesn't say aesthetically pleasing in a national park, I don't know what does. That sign says it all. Yes, they are blasting. They are dynamiting your national monument, your parklands, your wilderness. They are gouging and scraping what was beautiful country. Welcome to East Berlin city limits. Oh wait, I'm in America? What? I'm on the Mexican border? Yep, quite an altered view of Mexico. Natural and cultural resources are protected by law. Ha, that's a joke. Look at all those cement mixers for the wall. Look at what they've turned this place into. Probably not the peaceful communing with nature that you were hoping for. I hope you enjoyed traveling the El Camino del Diablo to the Cabeza Parieta National Wildlife Refuge. You keep on subscribing and I'll keep going places where we can get in trouble. Until next time, this is Rockhopper. I'll see you again.