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Some Mexican Migrants Turning to Bicycles
"It was ugly, it was horrible," she said. "We were stuck in the park and nobody wanted to help us."
Valenzuela and the other migrant woman eventually reached a highway where they waited for the Border Patrol to find them and send them back to Mexico.
  In this 2000 photo provided by the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, abandoned bikes with plastic water bottles are seen on a park trail in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the border in Arizona. The aid group Humane Borders estimates that a hundred or so bikes that appear to have been used by migrants turn up in the Arizona desert each month. One Mexican official said whole packs of bicycle-mounted migrants have passed by his office, heading to the border. (AP Photo/Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) (AP) PHOTOSDiplomatic Dispatches
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While bicycles may ease the journey through the 500-square-mile park, the ride is not for the faint of heart.
"It's mostly impossible," Patton says.
But migrants don't fall into the faint-of-heart category.
"They tie their water and their possessions on top of the bikes, and just push them till the rims are square," said park ranger Viv Sartori.
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Associated Press writer Julie Watson in Mexico City contributed to this report.