South of the Board

Monday 27th October This morning we packed “Old Blue” up and headed for Puerto Penasco Mexico. There is a bit of a dust storm on the way down, it’s nothing like we had in Wagga just before we left. There is very little to stop and look at on the way. We purchase additional car insurance in Ajo (Aa-ho). Looks like an interesting little town but we don’t stop.
We pull in at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (National Park) check out the visitors centre and have our picnic lunch with a friendly woodpecker.
You definitely know when you have crossed the boarder, the signs are all in Spanish (in many places in America they have English with Spanish underneath) the road is full of potholes, they have killer humps in the road to slow people down (and they do) it is very sandy and there are shells of buildings all along the roads. I am not sure whether they have started to build dwellings and run out of money or if they were lovely buildings once that have been semi-demolished.
We arrive at our condo complex is called Las Palomas – reception was very ordinary but the rest - how nice. I would say that most of the 380 condos here are owned by Americans. Ours is beautifully furnished by the owners. You look out over the many pools to the Cortez Sea. After a sunset swim we try out the on site restaurant – it is a big plate, small dinner, big price (especially when the bill is in pesos!!) restaurant.
Tuesday 28th October Shopping Mexican style. We take the back roads, which are sand, to the main tourist shopping located right on the point in Puerto Penasco which is traditional a fishing village. There are so many colourful little knick knack shops here. They look very small at the front but many of them go way back and have many little rooms, nooks and crannies all stuffed with trinkets, ornaments, plates, silver, puppets, sombreros, blankets etc etc etc.
Time for a swim followed by a walk along the beach where we locate a lovely, reasonably priced restaurant that we returned to later for a very nice meal.
It is the low season here and there are not many people about at all. One of the security guards told us that they only had 90 condos occupied but there are cleaners, gardeners, security etc workers all around – we were the only people in the restaurant tonight until the family of the head chef came in! There where at least 7 staff working.