Gran Desierto de Altar

The route we would take wasn't the usual one, or at least that was what Fausto explained to us.

He said the border patrol was cracking down too hard at the known crossing points and that we were going to go around through the Algadones Dunes, skirting an area they call the Altar Desert, though without going too far into it, because out there, in his words, you really do die.

The plan was to walk for three nights and hide during the day.

Put that way, sitting in an air-conditioned house, it sounds simple, but the desert isn't a place, it's a living beast breathing down on you.

The guide, a curt man everyone called El Flaco, gave us the basic instructions.

We had gallon water jugs made of black plastic so they wouldn't reflect the sunlight, backpacks with the bare essentials, and camouflage clothing or clothes in colors similar to the earth.

They left us in an area of the altar desert in Sonora, already very close to the border, but at a spot where the terrain was nothing but loose soil, thorny bushes, and hot rocks.

It was five in the morning, and the heat already felt sticky, even though the sun was only just beginning to rise.

In my hometown over in Mishoacan, the extortion payments had made life unbearable, and there came a point when I realized I couldn't go on like that.

I sold what little I owned, scraped together as much money as I could, and headed north, hoping to cross through Sonoyta into Arizona by way of the altar desert.

Everyone knows it's a brutal route, the kind that can kill you without anyone ever finding out.

But it was the only option I could afford, and people said it was less heavily patrolled around that time.