Puerto Penasco, Mexico

We took a little vacation to Puerto Penasco, Mexico last week. Yuma has a company called Tour West that provides bus tours. They have been closed for the past three years due to Covid. This season they have reopened. One of their employees, Lavonne, comes to our resort during the weekly information meeting to advertise some of the trips. She arranged a four day trip to Puerto Penasco for just our resort. There were about 50 people that signed up.

We left at 7:30 am on Sunday morning. Along the way, we stopped at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Ajo, Arizona. The organ pipe is a large cactus rarely found in the United States, although it is common in Mexico. The monument protects the bulk of the US range.

The Kris Eggle Visitor Center is named in honor of a young park ranger who was shot in 2002. Two men involved in a violent confrontation in Mexico fled through the desert and entered the monument illegally. While pursuing one of the men, ranger Kris was shot and killed. This monument has been placed in his memory.

Back on the bus with our neighbors, Everett and Nancy.

It took two hours to cross the Mexican border. They took all the luggage off the bus and searched every suitcase. Then we all had to exit the bus and wait in line to have our passports processed. There was only one employee doing that, so it took a long time. 

We finally continued on, and arrived at the Playa Bonita hotel at about 3:30 pm. They were waiting for us with a free margarita at the pool bar. One of the pools was very cold, but the other was quite nice. They also had two hot tubs. Many of the ladies enjoyed their drinks at the pool. It was a beautiful afternoon.

Our room was on the first floor at the back of the hotel. Although the hotel is located right on the beach, we had a limited view. Overall, the hotel was very nice. It has recently been renovated, and our room was great. 

Beautiful views of the water from the pool deck. It was quite interesting to see how far out the tide went.

The hotel has a restaurant. Most of us had dinner there the first night. The food was very tasty and inexpensive. They even had live entertainment. The restaurant also offered a breakfast buffet each morning for $10 for our group. The food was good with lots of choices. Some of them were quite different than what we're used to.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunset our first night.

Monday morning most of us boarded the bus for a visit to The Malecon, a downtown Puerto Penasco shopping and restaurant district. We did some shopping and enjoyed relaxing at the central plaza along the Sea of Cortez. There is a large statue of a fisherman on a shrimp. It was dedicated in 2003 and is known as El Camaronero. Fishing and shrimping are the main industry in this town.

The steps leading to the upper plaza, had a beautiful tile mural. Can you see the whale and sea turtle? Click on the picture to enlarge it. Really impressive!!

Looking out across the plaza to the sea.

Our group enjoyed a few Mexican beers at the BooBar.

Then we enjoyed another yummy meal at a local restaurant. Shrimp meals were inexpensive and delicious everywhere we ate.

That evening we went on a sunset cruise on the Intrepid boat. For $20 we were supposed to get a three hour cruise, two fish tacos and open bar of beer or margaritas. The tour ended up being only two hours due to fear of getting stuck at low tide. The tacos were okay, and the margaritas had no tequila. We missed seeing the sunset because the trip was cut short. 

Lots of shrimp boats.

Tuesday was a free day. I took a nice long walk along the beach. Other than our hotel, there are a number of condo complexes and an RV park. The RV park has 300 sites. They looked pretty tight. Waterfront sites are $900 per month.

I collected some seashells and a piece of coral.

That afternoon our bus driver, Tom, brought out his karaoke machine. Everyone had a good time singing and line dancing. Tom is the one with the microphone. We had some great singers in our group.

That evening the bus took us to the Wrecked on the Reef bar for happy hour. What a fun place. Then we had dinner at Mare Blu restaurant.

Wednesday morning we left about 9:30 am. There was a fisherman there selling seafood as we loaded the bus. We had been informed to bring coolers for this. We bought two pounds of large shrimp, a pound of scallops, and five pounds of sea bass for $38. What a deal!!

It was quite windy on our return trip. Our driver did a fantastic job getting us home. The border crossing only took an hour this time. We got back at 3:30 pm to howling winds. We had to collect stuff from our yard that had blown around. 

Our trip was fun with a great group of people. I'm not sure we would ever go back. San Diego and the California coast are about the same distance. I think we'll go there for beach time in the future.

Yesterday was the 9th annual FDO Golf Tournament. In previous years, there have always been more men than women who sign up. So, each year there have been some "special ladies" chosen to even out the teams. You may recall Kevin was one of those special ladies last year. 

This year with 216 participants, there were exactly the same number of men as women. In order to keep the tradition going, there were six special ladies chosen and 6 special gentlemen. It was a great tournament with many laughs. I won a hybrid golf club as a door price at the dinner.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!