Photo: Fallen Saguaro Cactus

This is a very sad photo.  A magnificent, fallen saguaro.  It has about 7 or 8 arms.  It takes about 80 years for a saguaro to start to grow a single arm.  That would make this saguaro several hundred years old.

The heavy rain earlier this week apparently saturated the ground so much that the root structure of the saguaro no longer held its weight and the saguaro toppled over.

Saguaros weigh about 100 pounds per foot (45 kg per .30 meters).  This is probably about 2,000 pounds  (450 kg) of dying saguaro.

This saguaro was located at a prominent spot on the corner of Chaparral Road and 68th Street, close to our house.  Compounding the loss of this saguaro is that there used to be a second saguaro at this corner, but it was lost within the past year as well.

This week we have photos from a festival in Punahka, Bhutan, in the Himalayas posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.