Puerto Peñasco Or Rocky Point

I had seen pictures of high rise towers along the beach at Rocky Point, on the northern shore of the Sea of Cortez and I knew this town is a resort designed to appeal to desert dwellers in Arizona or inland California, but a short drive through town from our overnight stop at a beach campground revealed much more of this strange community. 

In the US Puerto Peñasco (“Rocky Port” in Spanish) is known as Rocky Point which is how I shall refer to it even though it is firmly in Mexico 60 miles from Arizona. It was founded in 1927 and was known as a shrimping port to harvest the warm waters of the northern Gulf of  California, also known as the Sea of Cortez. 63,000 people live here in a Mexican resort town built to cater to American visitors. 

It’s a desert town caught between the sands of the Altar desert which looks like nothing so much as Death Valley to my eye and the warm waters of the Gulf which have nowhere to go and absorb summer’s heat and throw it back as humidity. 

What most struck me as we drove through town was how shabby the place is. This is no Pueblo Magico, colonial architecture is nowhere to be seen. Streets are wide, lined with dreary functional homes and small businesses, and many side streets are unpaved adding to the air of dusty neglect. 

Reading about Rocky Point there is an airport with no scheduled flights and a cruise ship terminal half built and abandoned which is symbolic of the neglect this town seems to labor under. There is one road in from Lukeville/Sonoyta to serve Arizona (Highway 8) and one road in from California to the west (Highway 3) along the coast. If you want to visit Rocky Point you drive.  

Type “Rocky Point” into Google Maps and the search, unfazed, returns “Puerto Peñasco”!

This is a bilingual town where English is spoken, dollars are accepted and your status as a gringo visitor not interested in Mexico is understood. This is not Mexico for Mexicans. 

In addition to innumerable hotels there are a dozen RV parks of varying quality to serve snowbirds and retired Americans who cherish the low cost lifestyle and little else. You can drink at age 18 here and drive your ATV on the streets and buy prescription medications over the counter for little cost. What more do you need for a happy retirement? Or simply a weekend away from the structures of working life north of the border? 

We saw a woman eating tamales for breakfast at the laundry. Spontaneously she offered us one to taste and pointed us in the correct direction to buy more. She spoke fluent English which we discovered only after addressing her in Spanish. 

The laundry Layne chose was do-it-yourself and very swift and efficient it was too. We left the campground with nicely empty tanks and ourselves properly showered so once on the streets we promptly filled our 30 gallon water tank with purified water and cleaned our clothes, bedding, and rugs in one lovely stop. By ten am Monday we were ready to go. 

It turns out Rocky Point is two separate communities. The Mexican town is to the east as you see it here. 

Wherever gringo money is going it isn’t being spent here. Notice the sandy avenue unpaved to the horizon. 

The foreign enclave is separated from the Mexican town by a street named with no irony at all Rodeo Drive, or dust catcher alley in my mind.

In Spanish it is Artisan’s Market, several blocks of stuff for sale you only need as a souvenir of your vacation by the sea. On a Monday morning in June it was deserted. 

And then you enter no man’s land with the famous high rises in the distance. 

Road signs are in English and speeds are in miles per hour. 

Development here was kicked into high gear in the 1990s when the Mexican government supported creation of hotels to attract Americans to the beach. And now we see the results, a whole separate world.  

We drove around a bit looking out our windows at a world made not for us. I don’t suppose we will return to Rocky Point but at least now I know what this oft mentioned place is all about. I missed our shabby off season little RV park at the other end of town. 

We didn’t stop. We had three hours driving ahead, up the coast and across the Altar Desert to another Mexican town, that one built for Americans and their teeth.  

Arizona Waterfront

It happened that the railroad companies ran out of flatlands in the mid 19th century in their drive to build a US transcontinental railroad. So they did the obvious and spent ten millions of public money and got the government to buy an extra chunk of Mexico below the Rocky Mountain range.

The Mexican American War ended as we know in 1848 with the cession of a vast tract of territory, half of Mexico in those days, to the United States all for fifteen million dollars. If you park your van on public lands most places west of the Mississippi today thank the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo for the privilege.

If you drive to Rocky Point today, after passing border formalities in Lukeville, across the sixty miles of Mexican territory separating Arizona from beachfront property on the Sea of Cortez you can wonder why the US Ambassador to Mexico in 1853, James Gadsden, an enthusiastic supporter of slavery, didn’t push for just a bit more land from Mexico…

But there it is, the border these days is fixed and enthusiastic politicians looking to carve up a few more pieces of Mexico for the US are all dead and gone. There were efforts to buy the Baja Peninsula which came to nothing. I can only imagine what US know how and entrepreneurial drive would have done to the splendid wilderness that is the peninsula today. Rocky Point is a case in point. 

Last winter we drove to the border at Lukeville through Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument but did not cross the border. The road  south was peppered with signs to Rocky Point.  This is a popular destination and Sunday evening we saw massive lines of cars many without front license plates driving north. Mexican cars all have two license plates to make identification of Arizona vehicles easier!   

We drove nine hours from a truck stop near San Carlos to Puerto Peñasco on our final leg to get Layne her tooth implants in Los Algodones on the border with California.  We followed the main roads something like this:

 

The idea was to hang out one more time on the beach and have a final swim. We weren’t expecting massive winds and large waves with temperatures struggling to reach 80 degrees! Rusty refused to walk the beach wretched dog so I got no closer than an ocean glimpse! 

I think our experience rescuing little Squirt and living with a second dog for two weeks, followed by some hard core long drives across Mexico has rather worn all of us out a bit. We are familiar with this area and we knew it was going to be a long desert drive but the reality wore us down. 

Hot tea and a hot shower to start the morning after a night in a truck stop outside Guaymas. 

Highway 15 to Hermosillo fast efficient and dull. 

And the occasional toll booth. 

Looking for work closer to the border or possibly across the line. 

A military check point. They waved us through. 

Trucks and Mexican automobiles got searched. Gringos are privileged apparently. Where are you coming from? San Carlos. Where are you going to? Arizona. We fit the retiree stereotype…

A dog walk break in Santa Ana. We’ve slept here on our way to the border. Nogales is ninety minutes  north of here. 

On and on. We stayed a little below the speed limit and kept close to 60 mph. You never know what’s around the corner on Mexican highways. 

After Hermosillo we turned left and went west through Caborca a busy grimy industrial town in the desert. We remember it fondly as our first nights stop in Mexico aboard GANNET2 in a rainy December night in 2021 at an ARCO truck stop. 

Sonoyta greeted us with an endless freight train across our path as we panted to arrive and get this drive finished. Our usual rule is no more than four hours driving on Google maps but we have to make miles to get Layne’s new teeth implants. 

In Mexico every irritation is an opportunity do in our enforced idleness we bought flour tortillas from a vendor. I forgot to immortalize the transaction so I made a picture in my side mirror of their endless Sunday walk to make a few dollars. 

Rocky Point advertises itself as fun by the sea and we shuddered as we approached this town that we had heard so much about and none of it necessarily to our taste.

The land not purchased by Ambassador Gadsden for the United States: 

To make it easier for Americans to visit most tourist related Mexicans here speak English, and the dollar is widely accepted, albeit at a terrible rate of exchange!  In addition the Mexican government has exempted foreign vehicles from the requirement to obtain a Temporary Import Permit. It costs fifty bucks and requires a $400 deposit all handled by credit card and you get the deposit back after you leave Mexico. In Baja and northern Sonora there is a “hassle free zone” where you don’t need the import permit. 

We went further south obviously so we have ours and we will drop off the TIP when we leave Mexico to get our refund. Everyone has to get a Tourist Card but a lot of Arizonans don’t bother which automatically puts them in the wrong if they have an encounter with police or vehicle insurance companies. You can buy car insurance online so coming to Mexico is really very easy. Your phone works as it does at home too. 

Bilingual signage: 

Layne found the cheapest campground for us, somewhat down-at-heel but with all facilities. 

We met an Arizonan who keeps a permanent trailer here and comes down from time to time to spend time at the beach. Tucson is four hours away. 

Someone obviously wishes the Gadsden purchase stretched a little further south! 

Low season. 

It was a long day getting here. 

The manager offered us our pick of spots! 

Security wall: 

Ambiguous gender signage in the bathrooms. This means men apparently for the showers. Hot water! Toilet paper! Toilets with seats!

Rates in dollars and language is English: 

This is a functioning power outlet. Yes I know… and luckily I have my grounding pole but it works, for now. The sewer dump is the white cap in the background. 

There you have it, relaxed camping on the beach. I keep Rusty on a leash as there are Americans here and you know how fussy they are! But we are here for just the one night then onwards again.