San Xavier del Bac

On Wednesday the 29th of February, I left Ajo and took the old highway across the Indian reservation. It was a beautiful trip; the desert was lush with spring growth. As I neared Tucson, I found the park that I was looking for, Desert Trails. I checked to find out how close the trail head was to my camp site for the days I planned to do some hiking. The next day I went to San Xavier del Bac to tour the church. It has been almost completely restored and is quite impressive as you will be able to tell from the pictures. These are two views of the exterior.

This is the entrance to the Baptistery. Evidently they kept these rooms locked. All the old mission churches had them.

The colorfully painted wall is part of the restoration. This a depiction of the founder San Xavier.

This is a loft toward the top front of the church. There are areas of the walls that show shiny solid black. The restorers left these so you could see what it looked like before they got to the real surface.

Congresswoman Gifford's mother is an artist who has been very instrumental in the restoration. There were two lions at the foot of the altar. A homeless man who was living in the church in the 80's thought they were devils, and took them out behind the church and burned them. Our restoration artist commissioned some artists in Mexico to recreate them, and she did the gold gilding.

 I took a lot more pictures and could go on forever, but if you ever get down that way, you need to take the tour. There was a grotto on a hill to the north dedicated to St. Bernadette. However, I found the prairie dogs more interesting.

Just can't help myself.