The cachanilla is a rugged plant that manages to thrive in seemingly the most unbearable places. No wonder people in Me xicali are called Cachanillas.

      It is hot and dry here. The sun shines on average 357 days of the year. Just three inches of rain – a year – is likely to fall here.

      Me xicali for centuries was inhabited by indigenous people who lived around what once was a giant lake. The lake dried up, leaving an arid, hot, alluvial plain in its wake — an area with scarce animals to hunt and little hope of growing vegetation without importing water. But it also left a secret, a secret that when uncovered centuries later would lead to the region’s emergence as an agricultural bastion.

      From the mid 1500s to the 19th century, the Me xicali area represented the last stop for European explorers and travelers on their journey to the Pacific Coast of more temperate climes in Northern California .

      The Spaniards were the first Europeans to explore the area, arriving in the years after their conquest of present-day Me xico . After brief expeditions, Europeans ignored the area for more than 200 years until ...

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