Driving South

The cop pulled alongside my window on his motorcycle so I wound it down saying out loud: “What have I done now?”  Last year in Huatabampo I got fined $50 for stopping on a pedestrian crosswalk in an intersection. I got my photo taken as a joke when I paid the judge. 

Consequently I am allergic to cops in Huatabampo but my worst fears were not realized. He figured we were looking for the way to the tourist draw in this agricultural town so we must be looking for the road to the beach. He pointed the way, smiled from under his helmet and left. Well, I said to Layne, that was a surprise.

I got to work siphoning water into our tank at the purified water shop. Fifty cents for five gallons. I joked with the delivery guy Jose about my various encounters with the cops. He had nothing good to say about them as he got a running jump on his motor tricycle and set off on his rounds as photographed by Layne. 

We bought fly killer at the veterinarian, the most effective fly killer I’ve ever seen.  A few little pellets moistened on a wet paper towel and flies leave us alone. The lady clerk at the vet’s was brisk. Ten bucks for four packets of the stuff- Totenfli is made in Germany so it must be good! 

They sell everything from Swiss Army knives to dog toys and leashes. They also operate on pets in a side office. I saw that once and it freaked me out a bit. From there we went to look for our favorite flour tortillas but Doña Paula’s looks closed for good. Drat. We set out for the beach.

We like to shop locally as we travel and around here we are familiar with what we are looking for which makes it easy to breeze through town. Huatabampo is an agricultural center of 80,000 residents set in the middle of neatly tilled fields and it is focused on local needs not on people like us.  

The city’s most famous resident is Álvaro Obregón, Mexico’s 46th President who was murdered in 1928 after winning an election.  He was an amazing dude starting out a peasant with nothing to his name and becoming a millionaire farmer exporting chickpeas of all things to the US.  You’ll see his name memorialized all over Sonora State. 

But the tourist draw here is the beach, a funky collection of vacation homes where the asphalt runs out. To get to Huatabampito you have to drive half an hour through the fields. It looks like you’re going to a 4H gathering, not to the Sea of Cortez. To remind us where we were going to, we stopped to buy a fish lunch to go. Lunch for dinner at the beach.  

The village, named not too well for an English speaker, Moroncárit ( with the emphasis not on “moron”) is known for its clams fished from the estuary nearby but they were only offered raw. We ordered a whole grilled fish with Ajo sauce, onions and tomatoes and peppers. Delicious. With a ceviche appetizer. 

We had a splendid dinner sharing one plate. Huatabampito was as we remembered the village. 

It’s chaotic and constantly under construction, the only street is dirt and not very well looked after. Several of the homes have for rent signs on them for potential vacationers. This is very low season of course. 

There is an RV park on the water but we like to camp for free. 

So you drive past all styles of beach house many with construction workers adding to the dust and wind blown sand. It looks pretty desolate. 

The road base is solid so our heavy front wheel drive van had no problem driving far past the village. 

In the photo below the blue dot is on the beach where we were at San Carlos. The red dot is where we drove to try to escape the cold. Snow in Tucson meant chilly nights and cold mornings for us on our favorite beach. So we went south looking for heat. We did not find it at Huatabampito!

This is a special spot which we first found on iOverlander of course, wilderness with some mosquitoes and wind reported by app users. We had flies and wind this time. 

I think this strange lonely place down the road beyond the village itself is becoming popular. We saw squares of fencing enclosing freshly cleared sand dunes. I think locals are ready to claim the land to sell to wealthy outsiders for holiday homes. The beach however is as broad and empty as ever. 

There’s trash of course to which we did not add. The north wind was hellacious and pretty soon I could feel sandy grit between my teeth. 

It got so bad we stopped exercising as sand flew in our eyes and we three retreated to the interior of our home. It was absurd sitting indoors watching the sun set but the outside world was a swirling mass of sand. 

After the sun went down the temperature plunged and it was only slightly warmer than San Carlos. We were going in the right direction but not far enough. 

We were going to leave first thing in the morning and leave the beautiful scenery behind. It was still too cold to swim. 

We watched the sun set through the windows and darkness fell around us. It was a quiet night.  

Naturally Rusty had me up in time for the dawn. It was cold even though the wind was down a bit. Time to go further south on Mexico’s coast.

Fog!

Once a year we got fog in the Keys. Inevitably I would be working and the only fog pictures I could post would be commuting shots of lamps looking film noir shrouded in mist. 

Monday morning Rusty started yawning at 6:15 and by the time he and I were out of GANNET2 the dawn still hadn’t broken properly. 

I wore my serape and socks under my Crocs. I put on the splendid gloves I bought at Wally World in Benson on Bruce’s sage advice and with my watch cap on I was equipped. Rusty wire his collar. We went for a walk. Our chairs and sand mats were wet.

Packing them up to go into town was going to be a chore. 

A Mexican family with a Nissan Altima was here the day before. We saw the car leave but they left their weekend camp behind. 

The desert mountains in the distance are invisible. 

Even the locals looked grumpy: 

Home sweet home and a cup of tea. 

Some pictures: 

To keep things in perspective Bruce sent me a picture of snow on his porch in Southern Arizona. As he put it we escaped the Great Blizzard. 

Up north the snow melted and down here the fog lifted. 

San Carlos, Sonora

San Carlos is a prosperous boomtown on the shores of the Sea of Cortez with a population of 2500 Mexicans and a revolving group of Canadians and Americans over wintering.  If you are looking for an authentic Mexican experience this isn’t it. For a vacationer or a winter snowbird San Carlos is ready for you. 

English is spoken here and you will see busy gringos running around town trying to look at ease in a tourist town. It’s a similar attitude to the way some people want to look  cool in Key West and be part of the scene.  

Dining out is a popular hobby along the waterfront.

In the heat of summer we spent a couple of nights at the Totonaka campground to get ready to cross the border.   We stopped here in June last year as  it was desert hot already, too hot for comfort in our van without continuous air conditioning and they have full modern American style outlets. Now the place is packed with RVs hooked up for the winter. I’m told last Saturday they had room for three RVs to be packed in. Not everyone enjoys Mexico as we do. You can do it your way. 

We are wild camping further down the beach behind the little strip of sand you can see below. It’s ten minutes away by car and fifteen by bicycle if you need to come to town for supplies. No hookups. 

The town sprawls around the coast with resorts and marinas and gated communities catering to foreign visitors and investors but the four lane waterfront is the commercial hub. My wife’s hair stylist said she lives in Guaymas, the port city around the bay. It’s too expensive in San Carlos where foreigners are buying property. We’ve heard that story before.  

There is construction underway all the time in San Carlos. Tucson is 300 miles north on a modern four lane highway. To visit San Carlos you need a tourist card and Mexican car insurance both obtainable online. There is no requirement to get a vehicle import permit so the six hour drive requires one quick stop at immigration to get the tourist card stamped and you are on the beach in Mexico. No wonder it’s so popular. 

I read about the murders in Monterey Park and the school kids killed in the mid west. Here campers leave their gear outside, on the beach, overnight, untouched. 

Layne stopped here to buy some medications for her tooth implants. They have a sign in the pharmacy offering a long list of drugs including narcotics, no prescriptions required. 

I got my teeth cleaned at the “American Dental” office. I gave the receptionist who is fluent in English my name and phone number. Dr Juan led me to the chair and did the cleaning. $55 on my American Express no forms to fill and no disclaimers or promises not to sue. You want freedom? Mexico will put that desire to the test. 

In Mexico you are responsible for yourself. There are no guarantees  or armies of lawyers to cater to your sense of injustice. No one owes you anything. You can give it a shot but if it doesn’t work out it’s on you. Whatever it is. Some days it’s scary, others it’s annoying and some  it’s exhilarating. It’s possible to sleepwalk through life in Mexico but as an American tourist it’s not very easy to ignore the possibilities. 

For us the draw is the free camping in the wilderness that could be closed off for development at any time. San Carlos is convenient and Guaymas has Walmart and Sam’s Club and Autozone and Home Depot when you need them. But the beach is the draw. Park where you like. 

It gets muddy in the rain and noisy on Saturdays when families picnic with competing music. You have to accept a certain level of trash along with your isolation. 

At night the town twinkles across the bay. 

At our end of the beach we have one condo development and a few lights. 

I’d rather be here than Quartzsite if I were looking for an inexpensive winter home in my RV but fortunately most snowbirds seem to prefer sitting in the Arizona dust bowl. This wild camp could easily be over filled if they only knew.