Page 37 - Winter Breeze 2

ONE
G I A N T ’ S

ADVENTUROUS TRIP TO SPAIN
A Story Retold by Joe Pier

I was chatting with some San Felipe friends about
future stories for Breeze, and in the conversation
the local Valley of the Giants came up. At first my
thought was “it’s been done, very beautiful, but
there are so many beautiful photos and tourist
articles on line, what could I offer?” And then
someone mentioned that one of the large cactuses
we call Saguaro, officially known as Cardon Cac-
photo by Sergio Leon tus, was transported to Spain for their World Fair in
1992. I thought this is interesting, so I looked into
it and discovered a story of great accomplishment, with a funny twist and perhaps a sad
ending. It started when Mexico was invited to participate in The World’s Fair being held in
Sevilla, and the Mexican Tourism Department came up with the idea of giving Spain one of
the emblems of the Mexican desert, the biggest Cardon located in San Felipe, for the expo
and the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas.
It was December 14, 1991 when work started
on the extraction of one of the most beautiful
cacti in the Valley of the Giants, a 45 foot gi-
ant. This same Cardon had been proposed
in 1975 to be taken to the Mexicali City Hall
for its great beauty, but in the end they ruled
out its transfer due to its complexity and high
price and instead a concrete sculpture was
created, undoubtedly a great idea, and today
it can be seen in downtown Mexicali.
So, with funding from the Federal and State
Governments this complex job was started
and working against the clock, the excavation
was carried out day and night. It was discov-
ered due to the size of the cactus, delicate
position of the arms, as they could break in
the transportation and of the seize of the root,
which turned out to be bigger than initially
thought, it would not be easy to transport. To
this, the local workers carefully constructed a
metal frame cage, about 50 ft tall and placed

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