Here are a few things that have struck me as uniquely Sonoran, or at least I've found amusing and have started associating with Sonora.

Rural sonorenses have quite a sense of humor, although it is often twisted and likely to be offensive to your average gringo. The most common and uninvolved chiste you're likely to see is the coke bottle or Tecate can on the end of an ocotillo branch... or sometimes a dead cow's stiff tail. Tires are often tossed over young saguaros or trees to be impressive years later when the saguaro has many large arms and somehow has a tire around its base.

To the right we have a simple Doll that easily became a quite amusing and well endowed chiste near Cucurpe.

More often than not the humor will involve something dead... most often cows. Death is everywhere in Sonora and it is not something Sonorans are shy of, and in fact can often be successfully made into jokes.

Sonorans have other unique habits. At least in rough areas near the border, they love turning over and torching abandoned cars. Of course they strip them to the chasis first (the poor persons recycling)... then of course, ¡Burn it up!

Many local trash dumps (basureros) are always on fire - plastics smoldering away for years and decades. Camping downwind of one is a good way to get cancer right away. Ahhh the lovely and ubiquitous smell of burning plastic! You can expect to smell something burning almost anytime you are in the vicinity of civilization. Fire can be a great tool... and lots of fun!

Wildfires are not looked at in the same way in Mexico. It is not uncommon to see a bufflegrass fire on the side of the highway or a mountain range smoldering for weeks. No one attempts to put them out. I love it. In the U.S. everyone is so scared of fire and seem to lose all sense of reason when it comes to fire.

I still can't get over the way many rural sonorans (males) sometimes greet one another. It's a little hard to explain in writing, but it's basically a guteral 'hiiiupp'... often with nod of the head. It's sounds like if you were herding cows. Occasionally Sonorans seem to find it amusing seeing a gringo using this local tongue.

It is amazing how few U.S. gringos one sees in most of Sonora. There are healthy streams of tourist vehicles on their way to Puerto Piñasco or San Carlos, but off the beaten path it is amazingly rare. So rare that it almost seems odd.