Rocky Point, Mexico

You would think that anyone living less than a 4-hour drive to a beautiful warm ocean with uncrowded sandy beaches, affordable lodging, and good restaurants (a few of the restaurants are good, not all of them, but you only need a few)…well, you would think that we’d manage to get down there more often!

But John and I didn’t go anywhere at all this year, until finally in May we spent a few days down in Puerto Peñasco and Las Conchas.

We stayed where we did last time, in August of 2021, at a small hotel right on the beach in Las Conchas.

Our unit (same one as last time) is the one on the far right.

One of these days we may rent the big middle unit.

But meanwhile we have been happy with the small unit on the end.

The only thing it lacks is a screen door on the sliding glass door out to the patio. I would love to be able to allow the sea breezes in without the mosquitos.

The first afternoon we were tired and didn’t want to drive out to the touristy side of town for food. So we chose something in the middle of an older section of Puerto Peñasco. I took these photos of how rundown the location was, because of a comment the proprietor made to us that I’m going to tell you about in a moment.

When we arrived, the street parking was full, so we followed a sign indicating restaurant parking in this vacant lot.

It wasn’t a great-looking parking lot and we hoped we wouldn’t run over something that would puncture a tire.

But there was plenty of space to park a large van!

The restaurant itself was cute enough. It is common in Puerto Peñasco to have a mix of well-kept and falling-down buildings on the same block. We ate chicken with mole sauce on the front patio.

The owner came out and chatted with us after we had eaten. She is an expat, from Tucson. We mentioned that we had moved to Tucson from Albuquerque. She made a face and questioned the safety of Albuquerque. Weren’t we afraid to live there?

I looked around at the rundown neighborhood where she lived and worked. Albuquerque seems a lot safer to me than this dumpy town in Mexico. We reassured her that Albuquerque and Tucson were very similar, and Albuquerque did not seem any less safe to us than Tucson.

But she wasn’t buying it, and emphasized again how rough and dangerous Albuquerque is and how she would never live there. Finally, incredulous, I said, “But you live HERE?!?” Later John said I shouldn’t have said that, lol. It just seemed like an expat willing to run a restaurant in a poor section of Puerto Peñasco should not be afraid of Albuquerque! But the reality is, Puerto Peñasco is just a small town and really quite safe, even though there is a lot of poverty.

There is a tourist section on the west side of town, with big resorts and nice restaurants. Here we are over in that section of town on a different afternoon.

It was amazing how much difference some faux turf and umbrellas can make. There was no Mexican old world charm here – but it was bright and cheerful with a sea breeze. More importantly – the chef was good.

So was the company 😉

John ordered breakfast AND lunch. And we were not disappointed.

Don’t worry, I helped him eat it all.

I also got the mother’s day special salad. It was an excellent salad! Luckily we had a refrigerator in the room, because we did not finish that seafood tower.

Speaking of different parts of town, there are two different roads that have shops for tourists. We don’t recommend the Malecón, unless you enjoy the hustle. We prefer the Cholla Mall on Rodeo Drive.

The shops at the Malecón are cheaper, but the proprietors are all doing the hard sell, trying to call you into their stalls. They vigorously hawk their wares. The shops on Rodeo Drive carry nicer things and the proprietors generally let you browse in peace, more like how we are used to in the US.

Also Malecón tends to have touristy souvenirs, whereas Rodeo drive has more things John and I would actually consider buying for our house. We bought outdoor terracotta wall sconces for the exterior lights on our house. The sconce doesn’t look like much in this photo, but at night the light will shine through the cut-out patterns and it will be pretty.

I’m looking forward to John getting those installed.

There are also lots of places around town to get pharmaceuticals and have dentistry and other outpatient work done. We’ve never tried to get medical work done in Mexico, but it is common for people who live in the southwest to go across the border for medical care. Often the care is quite good and affordable.

We always like to imagine that our country is the best at everything, and it’s true, if I needed complicated surgery I would have it done in a large US city at a hospital with a good reputation. But our rural outpatient medical care isn’t necessarily any better than across the border; sometimes it’s worse.

The next day we went back over to the tourist sector because I wanted grilled fish tacos. When we arrived, the restaurant we had chosen was still serving breakfast, so we had an hour wait until lunch time. We walked along the beach and pretended we were guests at the resort.

Almost no one was there. I don’t know how they stay in business. There are lots of half-built houses and half-finished hotels in Rocky Point, and lots of beachfront houses and vacant properties for sale. Lots of hopes and dreams, but not a lot of actual tourists.

Look at that empty beach! And that’s the “busy” beach. The beach were we stay, a few miles east of there, is even more deserted.

The wait for the fish tacos was worth it. And John loved his Mexican burger with Oaxaca cheese, chorizo, and roasted poblano pepper, among other yummy things.

I also had the most awesome virgin cocktail. I want to try to make it at home someday. It consisted of lime juice, lemon juice, sprite, mashed strawberries and sweet basil garnish. I’m always reluctant to buy virgin drinks because they charge you the same price as with alcohol and I feel like I’m paying for more than I get. And they aren’t always any good either, because they often depend on the alcohol for the kick. But in this case, the flavors were strong enough that it did not just taste like over-priced sprite.