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| View from our stopping spot |
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| Love the spiral growth on the boojum tree trunk |
I did get a small piece of some cactus stuck in the side of my shoe and suddenly realized that a very long thin thorn was in my foot. It came out pretty easily but it doesn’t take much in that terrain.
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| Slipper Plant, Euphorbia lomelii |
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| Slipper plant flower |
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| Beautiful bloom on a Red-Spine Barrel Cactus |
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| Hilary next to a Boojum |
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| Reminded me of the Paperbag bush |
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| Mammillaria in a rock |
I got back on the road and we soon made the turn onto 5 - new road for everyone. Route 5 was an unpaved track when Katy and Bob did their trip 50 years ago. It was paved in pieces, but we don’t think the whole road was completed until the last 10 years or less.
The desert changed as we came out on the east side of the central mountains, the plants weren’t as numerous or interesting but the geology was. Rocks and mountain sides were brown, grey, purple and combinations of these, sort of a "painted desert." As we got close to the coast again, we started to see lots of RV camps and little communities. Back in December we had considered staying at a hotel in Gonzaga Bay but the hotel “rules” were weird and not convenient so we opted not to do that. It also had some unattractively bad reviews. Once we saw where the hotel is located we were glad of our decision as it is next to a very long strip of RVs along the beach. We had thought it was more remote. I tried to drive down to it so we could at least see what it was like close up but there was a guarded entry that just didn't seem worth dealing with.
The coastline of the Sea of Cortez is very pretty in that the water color is beautifully blue in many places. There are various islands off shore. Most of the islands do not look approachable as they are rocky and high with no place to land. Some beaches were sandy but others were rocky. There are no huge resorts along this coast which in one sense is pretty remarkable with so much open coastline but it is not the easiest place to get to so it remains mostly unspoiled.
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| No selfie stick but admiring the islands off shore |
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| Looks like a big seal |
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| Islands that sometimes looked as if they were just floating over the water |
We reached San Felipe and made our way to the hotel. I had first put the address that was in my reservation in the GPS, but this led us to a strange neighborhood well away from the water. I switched to the name of the hotel and that at least led us to the right place. What I had forgotten was that we had a hard time finding a hotel in San Felipe. Most everything that showed up as an option was an apartment. Our hotel - Hotel Las Palmas - is a couple of blocks from the beach up a dusty hill and the approach is not particularly attractive. It is really a motel with car cars parked in front of the individual rooms Our reservation had instructions that we would have to provide a $200 damage deposit in US dollars cash at check in! Our rooms were already paid for and one of the most expensive of the trip. We aren’t quite sure why they are so expensive as they are okay but not exceptional, but this is an area with lots of American and Canadian tourists and they have been very busy over the last couple of weeks with a motorcycle race and Easter. We are guessing that they jack up the prices because they can. We weren’t ecstatic about the place but Katy and I went to check in. The woman found our reservations but she never mentioned the cash deposit and we certainly didn’t, so we figured that we were considered harmless! Both rooms were still being cleaned, but we eventually unloaded everything into my room so Katy and I could take a quick walk down to the beach and find the malecón.
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| San Felipe beach along the malecón |
We walked down the hill and along an intermittent sidewalk. For a few blocks there was no indication of any tourism at all. We saw empty buildings, some businesses, some houses for rent near the beach, an RV campground on the beach - but they all had limited access. We finally found a touristy market and the start of the malecón. There were lots of people on the beach, a few jet skis in the water though they did seem to have an area from roped off from the swimming areas. It wasn’t nearly as nice as Loreto’s malecón. San Felipe is definitely serving an English speaking market - very different from any of the other places we’ve visited on this trip.
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| On the malecón |
We found our way back pretty hot by this time. It was really nice in the shade with a breeze but hot walking in the sun.
I sat out by the pool to cool off and we met up at 5 for dinner having decided to try the Italian restaurant, Alfredo's, right here. We ate outside and picked up two more trip birds in the process. The originator of the restaurant is the “inventor” of Alfredo sauce and started at his restaurant in Mexico City. The food was surprisingly good and the waiter was excellent, in a much nicer setting than we had anticipated. This was the last dinner of our Baja redux trip as we head to my house tomorrow.
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| Not very attractive drive of our hotel |
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| Birding at dinner |
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| Lovely wall mural in my room |
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